Castro v Precious Life

Sunday Herald ^ | June 30, 2002 | Neil Mackay

[ejdrapes]

EXCLUSIVE

Anti-abortion group use iconic Che Guevara image to push their message at Glastonbury

'Fidel will be so mad when he learns about this'

By Neil Mackay Home Affairs Editor

IN one corner there is Jim Dowson, the controversy-seeking Scottish leader of the militant anti-abortion group UK Life League ... and in the other there is Fidel Castro, the spirit of Che Guevara and the anti-capitalist organisation Globalise Resistance. This is a fight which is now going to end in the British courts.

The UK Life League, formerly known as Precious Life are today at the Glastonbury Festival dressed in T-shirts bearing the iconic picture of Che Guevara, which has adorned student bedsits across the world since the hero of the Cuban revolution died in 1967. The legendary image was captured by the renowned Cuban photographer Alberto Korda -- his family are now to sue the UK Life League on Monday for copyright infringement.

Dowson and some 40 other anti- abortionists are also handing out cards bearing Che's face and the website address www.globaliseresistance.com. www.globaliseresistance.com.

The anti-capitalist group, Globalise Resistance, are also planning to sue Dowson's organisation for defamation.

Neither the card nor the T-shirts say anything about abortion. Instead the card merely says that a visit to the website will result in a free CD being sent out. The website, however, has nothing to do with anti-capitalism or Che Guevara. Instead it contains gruesome pictures of aborted foetuses and compares the UK 'abortion industry' to Hitler's eugenics programme.

Dowson freely admits that the UK Life League is deliberately deceiving the many thousands of music fans in Glastonbury. He hopes that young fans of Garbage, Coldplay, No Doubt and Nelly Furtado will be duped by the revolutionary and left-wing images, visit the website and get a taste of anti-abortion propaganda.

'There's no point in preaching to the converted,' says Dowson. 'We are being deliberately manipulative. In a way, you could say we're being parasites and using images of Che and references to Globalise Resistance to get our message across.'

The UK Life League, however, never asked permission to use the famous Korda photograph, and Korda's daughter, Diana Diaz, a close friend of the Cuban president Fidel Castro and the chief choreographer with the Cuban National Ballet in Havana, intends to sue Dowson and his organisation for massive damages in the British courts.

Before his death in May last year, Korda, who was Castro's official photographer for 10 years, sued Smirnoff's advertising agency for using the image of Che without his permission. He was outraged as Che, unlike Korda who was a life-long rum-tippler, never touched alcohol.

The UK Life League are also looking at a potential second law suit from Globalise Resistance, who never registered www. globaliseresistance.com as their website, instead using the web address www.resist.org.uk. That allowed Dowson and the UK Life League to simply buy up the desirable web address.

However, the pressure group is meeting with its lawyers tomorrow to set about beginning legal action on the grounds that linking their name to anti-abortion material is grossly libellous.

Dowson's group have been in Glastonbury since the festival began on Friday. Some 40 activists, including priests and nuns, are decked out in the Che T-shirts and are well on their way to distributing the 250,000 cards they brought with them.

Dowson admitted that he had not sought copyright permission from the Korda family, but added: 'The pro-life movement is about the proletariat. Many of our members are socialists and believe that the real victims of the abortion industry are the poor, young women from housing schemes who are encouraged by doctors to have their babies murdered.

'Che Guevara wanted to protect the weakest in society -- what is weaker than an unborn child? Behind the abortion industry there is a middle-class paranoia about having to support single mothers on benefits.'

He said that using the Globalise Resistance website was intended to imply that the biggest threat to the world was abortion which is 'killing our future'. Dowson added: 'You can't campaign against capitalism if you don't even exist.'

Dowson said that none of the festival-goers in Glastonbury would 'have a clue what we are up to until they get home and checked out the website'. The CD which they are promoting features images of Rwanda, Cambodia and apartheid South Africa juxtaposed with pictures of abortions.

'Both Che and Globalise Resistance stand against social injustice -- and so do we,' he said.

Dowson has equated the idea of shaking hands with an abortion clinician with Simon Weisenthal shaking hands with Goebbels or the mother of Sarah Payne greeting a paedophile. Dowson has also been linked as a sympathiser to loyalist paramilitary gangs in Ulster in the past. The group is known for demonstrating outside abortion clinics, filming staff inside and approaching women in the street who are visiting clinics and demanding that they reconsider their actions .

Dowson suggested that the use of Che Guevara and the language of anti- capitalism would make 'the pro-life movement hip'. He added: 'It shows you don't have to be a member of a church or wear a tank-top to care. We want to connect with young people who are searching for something to protest about.'

It is thought that the UK Life League are considering carrying out a similar exercise at the T in the Park festival next month.

Diana Diaz, who owns the copyright on the Che Guevara picture since the death of her father, reacted with revulsion when told of the UK Life League's actions. 'My father would have been appalled,' she said. 'I know President Castro personally and I will tell him about this and he will be appalled as well. He'll think it absurd.

'Anyone using my father's picture without my consent will suffer the legal consequences. I will be contacting my lawyers in Europe immediately about this and taking legal action against this organisation.

'What they are doing has nothing to do with Che or the spirit of my father's photograph. I totally disagree with this organisation. I would support any group who uses this image if they do so with my consent and if they are using it to make a statement which Che and my father would have supported.

'My father didn't want to see this picture used on Coke cans, on vodka, on perfume and certainly not on anti-abortion material.' In Cuba, abortion is free and on demand.

Diaz added: 'The Cuban people will also be insulted by this. Che was the hero of the revolution and they will feel that his image is being trampled on. This is not what he fought and died for.

'I want everyone to know that wrongful use of this image will result in prosecution. If I don't do this then people will begin using it for just about anything. This picture will only be used for good things.

'These people must be very ignorant to use Che's image in this way. I get the feeling that they know nothing about history or about his character.'

Guy Taylor of Globalise Resistance said: ' These people are trying to use our good name to promote their own disgusting propaganda. Their connections and opinions do nothing to promote life or tolerance. We fight for liberty, freedom and equality. They peddle their own nasty agenda.

'We will be contacting our solicitors on Monday to look at challenging them in the courts on defamation grounds. We will also be doing everything we can to support the Korda family.'

Taylor added that Globalise Resistance was now planning a rally outside the London offices of UK Life League in Kensington this week.

[RippleFire]

LOL! The fat boy

is now big business (Newsweek, July 21, 1997, p.17-23)

Cuban revolutionaries, including Che, used to scoff at international copyright laws as prejudiced against poor nations. But now Cuba is opening up to the global marketplace, and Che's image is being promoted—and protected. Che's widow, Aleida, has opened up a research center in their old Havana home, La Casa del Che, while their daughter, Aliusha, has emerged as the most vocal defender of his legacy. Meanwhile, Korda, now 65, is starting to capitalize on his famous photograph. He has won a few lawsuits, and now he is busy setting up exhibitions in France, Italy, Mexico and Argentina. How much does he charge for a print of the photograph? "That would be $300," he says, "and another $300 if you want an interview." Expensive, yes. But these are the days when even an old socialist legend can be a hot commodity.