One day in October 2014, a graduate student researcher at Stanford University's Nusse Lab took a drink from her water bottle. According to testimony she later gave to police, the student "immediately experienced a burning sensation in her mouth and throat. Her eyes became irritated and watery. She began salivating uncontrollably. Her throat was burning so bad that she could not even swallow the water."

When she smelled her water bottle, it reeked of paraformaldehyde.

This wasn't the first time a member of the lab had accidentally ingested the toxic chemical. For weeks, researchers in the lab had been sniffing their water bottles before drinking, and multiple times each week, the bottles smelled strongly of paraformaldehyde. But none of the students suspected that they were being intentionally poisoned by the "awkward and quiet" second-year Stanford Medical School student in the lab, Zheng*, who is now being charged with four felony counts of poisoning. (The Fountain Hopper, an anonymous publication that made waves earlier this year by alerting students to their rights to request their admissions files under FERPA, discovered the case after receiving a tip from a member of the lab on March 19.)

In her account to police, Zheng described her actions as a cry for help: "I am truly sorry for what had happened, but I really didn't mean to harm people. And I... it was me crying out for help and I didn't know."

Zheng had seemed insecure and very stressed, but her behavior didn't come across as abnormal to her peers, just par for the course at one of the most competitive medical schools in the world. The 26-year-old scientist had come to Stanford's Cancer Biology program from the prestigious Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A-STAR) program in Singapore. As one of her colleagues would testify later, Zheng described Stanford as "a paradise."

It's not hard to see why. Stanford pays meticulous attention to appearances: The sides of campus streets are regularly scrubbed with soapy water, the grass stays absurdly green throughout drought season, and when students struggle, as Zheng apparently did, they tend to do so quietly. The term "Stanford Duck Syndrome" is widely used on campus to describe the way students appear happy and calm above water, while desperately kicking beneath the surface just to stay afloat. Conversations about young people's mental health have become more urgent on campuses across the country in recent years, Stanford's among them. In January, a Stanford senior committed suicide; another overdosed on graduation day last spring, immediately after the keynote speech by Bill and Melinda Gates.

On a campus where graduate students are often referred to as "sketchy grad students," it's unlikely that Zheng stuck out. No one reported her behavior as having been erratic, odd, or out of character. But while no victims or peers reported any animosity towards or from Zheng, victims said that they did not—and "never had any desire to"—spend time with her outside of the lab. She was described to investigators by her victims and peers as "very shy and quiet," "very reserved," "unsure of herself," "awkward," and "strange." According to one victim, Zheng once mentioned that she "had never had a boyfriend, and envied those who had." And while she was seen by older researchers as being "not very confident" in her lab work, Zheng's stressed-out, quiet vibe was pretty much standard at a medical school with an acceptance rate of 2.4 percent, the third-lowest in the country.

Zheng, who had sought psychological care from the university before the poisoning incident, told the Stanford Department of Public Safety that she had been suffering from severe insomnia, dizziness, depression, and "a disconnection from reality" at the time of the poisonings.

She added that she was not conscious of specifically choosing which water bottles to taint. But despite the presence of men and caucasian women in the lab, all of her victims were Asian women—and when one victim threw her water bottle out, Zheng noted that it was missing and asked her why.

Another researcher's mouse stem cell samples had "started to mysteriously die" with "no obvious cause." After successfully cultivating them, the researcher would return to find her cells dead the next morning. "The manner in which they died was very strange," she later told Stanford Public Safety Officer Mike Kim. "The cells detached and floated up dead." After several weeks, the researcher began to suspect she was being targeted. She intentionally mislabeled half of her samples; those labeled correctly with her name died, while the others were spared. The researcher then alerted her supervisor, Director of Faculty Relations Ellen Waxman at Stanford Medical School, who chose to deal with the matter internally. (As of publication, Waxman had not replied to VICE's request for comment.)

When another student came forward with accounts of severe burning in her throat, the University decided it was time to get campus police involved.

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Photo via Flickr user Peter Thoeny

On November 11, Zheng was "5150'd"—placed in an involuntary psychiatric hold, in her case by Stanford's Vaden Health Center. She was then held overnight at Fremont Hospital. Around 6:30 in the morning, Zheng called one of Stanford's graduate resident deans, asking why she was being 5150'd when she had readily agreed to be treated. A couple hours later, she called the same dean again, "begging" to be allowed to stay in school, according to court documents. During that same phone call, she confessed to having put substances in her labmates' water bottles, though she did not specify which one. The dean testified that "she stated that she had done bad things but 'not consciously.'"

Zheng allegedly told the dean "I was not myself" and "I didn't mean to hurt anyone." When asked if she was referring to the water bottles and tainted lab samples, Zheng replied, "Yes, but I did not know what I was doing and I did not want to hurt anyone."

Even so, on November 15, Zheng was arrested and charged with the four felonies. The Stanford student body was not informed—according to the University, no campus alert was sent because the suspect was not on campus and posed no threat to the community.

Zheng confessed almost immediately after police begin questioning her, describing her actions as "something like sleep walking." As the police report reads, "At the time, she was psychologically unstable, depressed, stressed and very dizzy. Sometimes the dizziness caused her not to be fully conscious of what she was doing." According to the Fountain Hopper, Zheng's attorney has said that she is currently out on $50,000 bail, awaiting psychiatric evaluation and a May court date.

During her confession, Zheng told investigators that she "should have gone to the doctor and got treated" but instead "she just kept it within her."

Stanford's primary mental health facility is CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services); students are offered an unspecified number of visits with CAPS psychologists before being referred to outside doctors. Zheng stated in her testimony that she saw a psychologist three or four times before being referred to a psychiatrist, who prescribed her antidepressants.

The antidepressants apparently caused Zheng to have horrible headaches, and she eventually stopped taking the pills. During her confession, Zheng told investigators that she "should have gone to the doctor and got treated" but instead "she just kept it within her."

The school's mental health culture has recently become a hot-button topic on campus, after student journalists at the Stanford Review reported that in the wake of January's student suicide, those who sought counseling from CAPS faced a two-day wait period before a preliminary "screening call" could be conducted. (Stanford declined to comment on all questions regarding mental health services at the university.)

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The Lorry Lokey Stem Cell Research Building, which houses the Nusse Lab. Photo via Flickr user Min Liu

Zheng's attorney has indicated in court documents that she may plead not guilty by reason of insanity, which can be a tricky defense to mount—in order for it to work, a lawyer must convince the jury that, due to a mental defect or disorder, their client "was incapable of knowing or understanding the nature and quality of his or her act and of distinguishing right from wrong at the time of the commission of the offense."

"The overwhelming majority [of insanity defenses] fail, because prosecutors and juries want to hold people responsible to their conduct," says Charles Sevilla, the defense attorney in People vs. Skinner, a 1985 case that helped restore a narrow version of California's "right/wrong" insanity test after it had been broadened by a Supreme Court ruling. "Insane people create great fears in the public. The idea of finding a person who has committed terrible, violent acts 'not guilty by reason of insanity' is a disturbing prospect to many people."

Despite seeking treatment for her psychological issues in the past and describing herself as "disassociating" during the poisoning incidents, it's hard to see the insanity defense sticking for Zheng. When asked if she thought that putting chemicals in someone else's water bottle was OK, Zheng told investigators, "I know that it's wrong."

*We have chosen to use a pseudonym for the suspect out of respect for the privacy of all involved. The victims of this case requested that their names not be released, citing concerns for their families and their careers.

Reporting was contributed by The Fountain Hopper.

Follow Jennifer Schaffer on Twitter.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's defense team did not put up much of a fight. After the government spent two weeks hammering home the gruesome aftermath of the 21-year-old's role in the bombing at the 2013 Boston Marathon to jurors, his attorneys Judy Clarke and Miriam Conrad called just four witnesses to the stand in response.

After all, it's been something of a foregone conclusion that Tsarnaev will be convicted since the opening arguments, when Clarke came out of the gates with the startling concession that "it was him." The defense made it clear that the only goal was to keep their client from getting the death penalty—which won't be easy, with 17 of the 30 federal charges against Tsarnaev carrying capital punishment. But by demonstrating that Dzhokhar was under the influence of his radicalized older brother Tamerlan, and by painting him as a mixed-up but otherwise typical college student, Clarke and Conrad are doing their best to keep him alive.

To that end, the defense's witnesses focused squarely on Tamerlan, who was killed in the aftermath of the bombing. One indicated Dzhokhar was on campus while Tamerlan was actually purchasing the pressure cookers that would eventually become shrapnel-spewing bombs. Another witness, FBI agent Elaina Graff, said Tamerlan's prints all over the bombs and materials used to assemble them, but Dzhokhar's were not—even if they were found on a plastic container holding explosives. A third witness, electronic forensics expert Mark Spencer, testified that Tamerlan had searched for bomb-making instructions on his computer, and that Dzhokhar had not.

These accounts don't exactly distance Dzhokhar from the grittiest parts of the bombing—because fingerprinting isn't necessarily accurate after an explosion, for instance—but they do at least muddy the waters a bit when it comes to whether Dzhokhar was a cold-blooded sociopath.

In one minor victory earlier in the case, the defense succeeded in discrediting a government witness who had gone through Dzhokhar's Twitter account to portray him as an America-hating terrorist. On the stand, FBI Special Agent Kimball misidentified several quotes and images from the account @J_Tsar, misconstruing a quote from a Russian pop song as a death wish and claiming a direct passage from the Koran actually came from an al Qaeda leader. (In a rare moment of comedic relief, the FBI agent thought "mad cooked" meant "crazy" rather than high.)

But prosecutors maintained a laser-like focus on the horror of the episode. As they finished up their case Monday, they actually had people crying in the jury box over the plight of eight-year-old Martin Richard, who was killed in the blast.

It's after closing arguments begin next week that we'll move on to the sentencing phase, and the trial's key moment. Attorney Judy Clark has kept Jared Lee Loughner, the Unibomber, and others off of death row, so it's certainly possible she does the same for Tsarnaev.

Perhaps the biggest decision of the whole case—whether or not Clark will let her client take the stand on his behalf—will also be made soon. If Tsarnaev does take the stand, it'll be the first time we've heard him speak, since he's been barred from giving interviews. Considering the sentencing portion of the trial hinges entirely on whether or not the jurors can feel sympathy for the Boston Bomber, his testimony could either make or break the case. If he's as affable as his friends remember him being, he could win over some jurors. But if he's as aloof as he's been so far in the trial, that might cement the idea that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a monster.

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

In the run-up to the 2015 general election, a war is going on for the right to live in London. Rapid gentrification—praised as "regeneration" by local councils and property developers, derided as "social cleansing" by critics—is breaking up established communities. In some cases, families who've lived in London for generations are left homeless; in others, they are forced to move across the city or out of it completely. Meanwhile, the real estate opportunities are making lots of people—many of whom do not actually live in London—very rich.

In part three of Regeneration Game, host Daisy-May Hudson sets out to discover what happens to council estates once they're demolished. Out of 1,200 homes on South London's Heygate Estate, only 75 council homes remain. We go to City Hall to meet the Head of the London Assembly, Darren Johnson, who says that the demolition of the Heygate was the worst social housing disaster of recent times. We also head to court, to hear the verdict of the E15 mothers' eviction.

Follow Daisy on Twitter.

[body_image width='1000' height='667' path='images/content-images/2015/04/01/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/04/01/' filename='april-fools-day-is-the-fucking-worst-and-heres-why-303-body-image-1427887540.jpg' id='42002']A whoopee cushion, in the old days, when whoopee cushions said the word "poo." Photo via Steven Depolo

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Dear God, April Fools' Day is the absolute dirt worst, isn't it? It's the worst. "Oh, Joel," you're saying. "Oh, Joel. Do you hate fun, Joel?" And the answer to that question is: Not normally, no. Ask anyone, I am a fun-liker. But April Fools' Day is the nadir of fun. The slow death of fun.

A lot of people say, "Ooh, famine's bad. Why don't you have a go at famine instead of fun." People say, "Police brutality is a thing, isn't it? Have a pop at that, if you're going to have a pop at anything. Or what about racism, or them sex rings? Why don't you write about something important?"

And to them I say, "Do you know that today Toblerone pretended that they were going to launch a new Toblerone that is hollow in the middle, for dieters?"

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The joke is that dieters still like chocolate, but they would like to eat less chocolate than they are currently eating. The joke is that it would be borderline impossible to mass-produce fully hollow triangular chocolate, and even if it were possible, there's no way a hollow chocolate bar is making its way to stores without being crushed into sweet debris. That is the joke. That is the entire joke. They didn't even call it "Hole-blerone," an obvious portmanteau of Toblerone and hole. They called it "Toblerone Light." That's weak, Toblerone. Hang your almond-nougat head in shame.

Give me the choice between putting an end to corporate Twitter accounts tweeting jokes or putting an end to, like, war, and I would have a very difficult time making that decision. I am Sophie, this is my choice.

It didn't always used to be like this, did it? It never used to be this bad. It's not often I feel a deep yearning for the good old days—we can all accept that, other than that Paul Gascoigne goal against Scotland, the 90s were pretty awful—but at least the decade was better at April Fools' pranks. You know how it was, when you were a kid: People abided by the rule that April Fools' pranks were meant to stop at midday, lest the pranker become the Fool themselves. And no one wanted to be the Fool in the playground, because it meant everyone got to have a "free punch" on you.

That shit's gone out the window now, hasn't it? Bleary-eyed marketing teams roll into work today going, "Fuck, it's—Jesus fuck, it's April Fools' Day! Quick, get a press release going saying we've... I don't know. Fucking... Alton Towers is doing a new halal rollercoaster, or something... Say we're doing a Jeremy Clarkson waxwork at Madame Tussaud's! Pretend we're relevant!" Then they rush something out by 3 PM, the Guardian liveblogs what a shit effort it is, and the wheel keeps on turning. Bring back teachers wearing squirty-water flowers, I say. Bring back whoopee cushions making huge, rasping, repulsive farting noises. Bring back your parents sitting you down and solemnly pretending you are adopted.

There are three people I feel most sorry for in the whole April Fools' Day industry charade:

i. Anyone in PR who spent three long years at university, spending $31,000 in fees and worked a little foothold in the industry and spent two years sending emails to me going "Happy Humpday!" and finally worked—finally clawed—their way up to a vague senior account holder position only to sit in a meeting two weeks ago and say, "Backwards toilet?"

ii. Anyone who has vaguely passable Photoshop skills and who has spent the last month fielding calls saying, "Hiya, it's Ginsters! Can you Photoshop a vajazzle on a pasty?" And the person with the vaguely passable Photoshop skills looked at their bank statement sadly and then picked up the phone and said, "Yes."

iii. Lucy Mecklenburgh, formerly off of TOWIE, who is clearly so impoverished that when Tesco called her and said, "Hiya Lu, Tesco here. We're going to pretend to put trampolines in the aisles to make it easier for old ladies to reach the cereal, do you want to be the face of this hideous mess? There's $750 in it for you," Lucy Mecklenburgh looked at the dusty warehouse of unsold tanning mousses and protein mixes and autobiographies and affordable Lucy's Boutique dresses, and gazed deep into the eyes of her boyfriend, groomed Olympian Louis Smith, and then picked up the phone and said, "Yes."

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And us, all of us, every last one, for having to watch this wretched circus yawn itself into oblivion. But this is the state of news in 2015, isn't it? April Fools' Day has been clickbaited into ruin. The day April Fools' died was the day Twitter implemented promoted tweets. With every newspaper slowly morphing into a very bad version of Buzzfeed, this is what constitutes as a headline on April Fools' Day: "You Will Not Believe What Pot Noodle Has Done Now." "Hailo Is Launching a New Service Where Some Fucker Will Lift You Up on Their Shoulders and Piggyback You Around." "Here Are the Ten Best April Fools' Pranks of 2015." "Here Are the Ten Worst." And all of the articles are about just brands pretending they have invented rainbow paint or trailing a new unlikely flavor combination ("New! Egg & Shit-Flavored Walkers!"). April Fools' Day sliced into lumps of flesh and sold to advertisers by the pound.

We deserve better. We deserve fake dog turds and toothpaste-filled Oreos. We deserve hot sauce doughnuts and sugar in the salt. We deserve to have our own piss trampolined back onto our pants thanks to a tight layer of cling wrap over the toilet. We deserve fishing line pulled taut across cycle paths. We deserve to be kidnapped by armed men in balaclavas and pushed into a van and driven, erratically and quickly, the wrong way down the highway, screaming and begging for our lives, our pants wet with piss and our face wet with tears, and then the man pulls his mask off and it's just Jeremy Beadle, just good old Jeremy Beadle, back from the dead with his chirpy grin and his little hand, and he pulls close to our face—so close we can feel his hot, dead breath on our lips—and he whispers: psych.

Don't let brands ruin the fine tradition of April Fools' Day for you. Shit in your colleague's desk drawer and reclaim your heritage now—as long as you're reading this before midday.

Follow Joel on Twitter.

In the early 1990s, debates were raging in playgrounds across the land about which was better: the Super Nintendo or the Sega Genesis. I was in Nintendo's corner, defending their legendary 16-bit console to a group of friends who had sworn their allegiance to Sega. I didn't know exactly why it was the best. I just knew it was.

"It's got more colors!" I'd claim, not really knowing what that meant. "Yeah, but has it got Sonic?" they'd reply. It was a losing battle. I was outnumbered, and they were convinced that a blue hedgehog was the pinnacle of modern video games. I'd go home, defeated, but then I'd plug in Super Metroid and I'd know, deep down, that I was right.

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The SNES as it appeared in Japan

Twenty-three years later, I still think I'm right. The Genesis was undeniably a great console. It had more raw power than the SNES, but Nintendo had it beat in every other respect. That might be an opinion swayed by deep-seated adolescent bias, but I think the evidence speaks for itself.

I was right on the money with the colors thing. The Genesis had a palette of 512 colors and could display 62 of them on screen at any one time; the SNES had over 32,000 and was able to simultaneously display 256. That's why most Genesis games look muted and murky, while SNES games are striking explosions of vivid color.

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Advertising for 'Donkey Kong Country'

Then there's the Sony sound chip, the S-SMP, designed by PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi. The music this little square of silicon generated remains fantastic, and had a distinct sound that the Genesis's YM2612 chip couldn't dream of producing. Listen to "Corridors of Time" from Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country's "Aquatic Ambience," or "Terra's Theme" from Final Fantasy VI and you'll hear what I mean. Video game music doesn't get much better.

Another way the SNES made up for its lack of muscle compared to the Genesis was its ability to twist, bend, rotate, and layer pixels, creating a convincing 3D effect. Games like F-Zero used this to create the illusion of driving down a three-dimensional track. This was called Mode 7, and further set the SNES apart from Sega's console.

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'F-Zero' was the first SNES game to use Mode 7 graphics

SNES games could also include additional graphics hardware in the cartridges, like the famous Super FX chip. This was capable of producing actual 3D graphics, powering games like Star Fox and Stunt Race FX—primitive by today's standards, but mind-blowing at the time. The dazzling polygons of Star Fox got me through a particularly heinous bout of chickenpox.

But it was the games themselves that really defined the Super Nintendo. Technology can only get you so far if the games aren't any cop, and the SNES library is just insane. There's the peerless Super Metroid, an open-world platformer that's a master class in pacing, level design, and atmosphere.

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'Super Metroid' is still a classic today

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is a grand, sweeping adventure with a neat time travel mechanic. And SimCity brought the PC town-builder to consoles for the first time, losing none of its depth in the process.

Super Mario World is a staggeringly well-designed platformer, and arguably the best game in the plumber's long-running series. It came bundled with the console at launch, meaning it was many SNES owners' first game—and what an introduction. This was the only game I had when I got my SNES at Christmas, but it was all I needed.

Donkey Kong Country used pre-rendered sprites to create the illusion that your SNES was pumping out high-end CG visuals, and it worked. I remember thinking graphics would never get any better. Nintendo boasted about how the game's models were created with the same computers that did the CG effects for Jurassic Park. This hella 90s making-of documentary is a fascinating glimpse into its development.

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If your dad brought this home for you, you were very, very lucky

And Street Fighter II... well, it's Street Fighter II. The king of fighters. I can't think of another console that boasts such a broad, varied selection of genuine classics. I haven't even mentioned Castlevania. Or Mega Man. Or EarthBound. Or Super Mario Kart. Or Timecop. Actually, forget that last one. There were, of course, plenty of stinkers on SNES too, mostly in the form of lazy Hollywood tie-ins

The SNES was home to a vast collection of amazing RPGs too, the best of which were from Japanese publisher/developer Squaresoft, now better known as Square Enix. The lavish Final Fantasy VI is considered by many fans to be the highlight of the series. Everything about it—the music, the combat, the story—is just a class act. After this the series defected to PlayStation, but some of the best entries were on the NES and SNES.

Chrono Trigger (check out VICE's 20th anniversary piece on it here) is an epic journey across several time periods, weaving a compelling story with a cast of rich characters. At school I'd sit and fantasize about rushing home and escaping into these worlds, in which I must have spent hundreds of hours. RPGs are still my favorite genre, and I got my first taste of them here.

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SNES controllers for the Japan (top) and North America (bottom)—in the console's home country it's known as the Super Famicom

And let's not forget the controller, whose influence is still felt today. Look at a PS4 DualShock or an Xbox One pad and you can see the DNA of the SNES. It was the first console to introduce shoulder buttons, which have become an industry standard, and the extra inputs allowed for more complex control schemes. The six-button setup made the SNES the absolute best home console to play Street Fighter on.

There was even a mouse for the SNES, designed especially for Mario Paint, an impressive drawing, music, and animation suite that people are still making tunes with. I spent hours doodling with that chunky mouse, playing the fly-swatting mini-game, and listening to the amazingly chill music, which made good use of Sony's sound chip.

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Art from 'Secret of Mana,' another impressive Square RPG

The Nintendo 64 is a strong contender for Nintendo's best console, but the blocky polygons have aged terribly. SNES games still look great thanks to its intricate, detailed, and colorful pixel art. Pixelated visuals are making a comeback in the indie scene, but I've yet to see anything as pretty as Secret of Mana.

Writing this, I feel like I'm in the playground again, furiously defending the SNES. But I don't really have to, because history has vindicated me. It wasn't just a pivotal, formative gaming experience for me: it was a true pioneer, setting the rules for consoles to come and showing Sega that power isn't everything.

The same could apply to the Wii U today. It might not have the processing might of the PS4 or Xbox One, but it compensates by having some of the most innovative, well-designed games of this generation in its admittedly limited library. I like to think there are kids out there now, like me, bravely defending their Wii Us to scoffing PlayStation and Xbox fanboys.

Follow Andy on Twitter.

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Cover page of the report on Project Enape

In the early morning hours of Dec. 15, 2011, a Thursday, more than 100 officers from multiple police agencies converged on five locations across BC's lower mainland in a dramatic raid that netted more than $220,000 in cash and more than four kilograms of methamphetamines. It was the culmination of a wide-ranging investigation into alleged illicit drug production dubbed "Project Enape," which targeted, among others, Ultrascience Male Research Corp.—a BC company that purported to make legal pharmaceuticals and male hair-growth products—and its owner, Kourosh Bakhtiari.

Bakhtiari, an Iranian-born refugee, was arrested that day at his apartment on Pacific Street in Vancouver. The Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, which led the investigation, trumpeted the results in a press release claiming victory over a massive, commercial-scale drug operation with links to organized crime in BC.

But the sheet of criminal charges recommended by police against Bakhtiari and three others was never approved by the Crown. Although he and his co-accused consented to the civil forfeiture of more than $220,000, the criminal case against them never materialized. Bakhtiari has never been charged as a result of the investigation, and to date, has no criminal record in British Columbia.

Almost 16 years to the day earlier, on Dec. 10, 1995, Bakhtiari, then in his early 30s, arrived at Vancouver International Airport without a legal passport or travel documents, according to an affidavit filed with the Federal Court. He had finished up a stint in a US prison where he'd been convicted of weapons and escape charges related to an attempt to buy a Manhattan apartment while impersonating a State Department employee in the spring of 1988. He was caught with a briefcase that "contained a host of weapons—including an M-11 9-millimeter semi-automatic pistol containing a magazine loaded with ten rounds, a silencer for the gun, a knife, grenades, and a garrote—as well as bottles of strychnine and chloroform," according to a ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, where he was unsuccessful in his appeal of his criminal convictions and 66-month sentence.

He gained a degree of infamy when he and two other inmates escaped from New York's Metropolitan Correctional Centre using a rope fashioned out of 15 packages of dental floss braided together. He also tried to flee the Manhattan hospital where he was being treated for injuries he suffered during his dental-floss aided escape, according to a March 1989 New York Times report. Bakhtiari's case was also a feather in the cap for the man who prosecuted him, James Comey, who would go on to become the current director of the FBI. (Comey declined to speak publicly about the case for this story, but through a spokesperson, said he remembered the case well.)

Not long after paying his debt to society in the US and being deported to Iran, Bakhtiari arrived in Canada and applied for refugee status fearing torture back in Iran, claiming in an Federal Court affidavit that his father was captured, tortured, and killed for leading a revolt against the Islamic regime in 1984. But an adjudicator with the Immigration and Refugee Board found him inadmissible to Canada because of his criminal convictions in the US and issued a conditional deportation order against Bakhtiari on April 9, 1996. He challenged the decision in the Federal Court of Canada, but his application was dismissed.

Bakhtiari still counts Vancouver as his home to this day, but his bid for permanent residency hit a snag on March 5, 2015, when he was told that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration refused to grant him "an exemption for humanitarian and compassionate grounds from the applicable legislative requirements to process his application for permanent residence in Canada." He is currently seeking a judicial review of that decision in the Federal Court of Canada.

Bakhtiari is also on a different collision course with Canada's legal system, unrelated to his immigration status.

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A copy of Bakhtiari's refugee card

Now, more than three years after his arrest, Bakhtiari is taking the BC government to court in an effort to fully clear his name from the drug bust. He claims in the lawsuit that equipment worth nearly $1 million was seized from Ultrascience and never returned. He claims police were either negligent or malicious in their investigation, catching him in a web spun by officers wrongly convinced he was a large cog in a machine cranking out illegal drugs, using his business to hide a rogue chemistry lab.

Slated for trial in January 2016 in BC Supreme Court, Bakhtiari's lawsuit against the BC Ministry of Justice for illegal search, seizure, arrest, detention, and prosecution seeks damages for personal and business losses allegedly caused by negative publicity surrounding the raid. He claims that after the raid, he was barred from Ultrascience's premises on Lillooet Street by its landlord and lost business from clients all over the world.

Bakhtiari claims police erroneously linked the raid to the biker gangs while publicizing the operation.

"Bakhtiari was not, is not and never has been a member or affiliate of any 'BC biker gang', nor were he and/or Ultrascience involved in the manufacture or distribution of illicit narcotics including methamphetamines," his lawsuit states.

In the "concluding remarks" section in the report to Crown counsel outlining Project Enape, submitted to prosecutors by CFSEU member April Biles, investigators acknowledge that "no direct evidence was obtained linking the accused to the Hells Angels or any other defined criminal organization."

The BC government refused to comment to VICE on the case since it's a matter before the courts. However, the government claims in its legal response to the lawsuit that Bakhtiari brought the raid upon himself, and denies any wrongdoing by police. In its response to Bakhtiari's claim, the government claims that the "search of the Ultrascience Property yielded evidence consistent with its use as a location for the manufacture of controlled substances," including four kilograms of crystal meth, 22 grams of MDMA, and "significant quantities of fentanyl." Moreover, the police search of Bakhtiari's apartment allegedly turned up quantities of meth, MDMA, fentanyl, and ketamine, as well as more than $13,000 in cash.

The government claims the searches "were based upon reasonable and probable grounds and were proper in law," and defends the issuance of the subsequent press release, claiming that statements made in it were true, constituted fair comment and were a matter of public interest, citing the relatively new legal defence of "responsible reporting" against libel and slander claims. (Bakhtiari's lawsuit also named Postmedia Network and crime reporter Kim Bolan over the Vancouver Sun's coverage of the press release, but that aspect of the lawsuit was settled out of court.)

The BC government is also relying on the legal defence known as "ex turpicausa non orituractio," a legal term meaning that someone can't sue for damages or loss arising from their own illegal act.

Bakhtiari's lawyer, Neil Chantler, says his client maintains his innocence and cautioned against seeing his client's past "out of context," since it has nothing to do with his current case against the government. Chantler, in a phone interview with VICE, claims Bakhtiari's business is complex and not easily understood, especially by police.

"When you're dabbling in cosmetic and pharmaceutical research, and you're actually designing improved forms of Viagra and things, you're dealing with chemicals that are regulated heavily and the police think of as nothing but precursors to illicit substances, which is not always the case. His business is in a very technical scientific area that you and I can't possibly fully understand and nor can the police. The police are trying to grapple with complex regulations that they might not have memorized when they go into a facility or when they lay charges," Chantler said. "It's a very technically complex area, and there's room for mistakes and that's perhaps what happened. The allegations that there were kilos of illicit drugs lying around are fabricated. They are simply untrue, according to my client."

Chantler, though, stated that he recognizes the difficulty "reconciling" the government's unproven allegations against Bakhtiari since he was never charged with a crime.

"It's a curious situation, isn't it?" Chantler said. "It makes a good story."

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This post originally appeared on VICE UK.

Twenty-five years ago, on March 31, 1990, a massive demonstration against Margaret Thatcher's poll tax turned into a huge riot that spread across central London—shop windows were smashed, cars were set ablaze and people were hurt.

Conservative and Labour leaders condemned the riot, but it was successful. It contributed to the end of the poll tax, which in turn led to the fall of Prime Minister Thatcher, who resigned within the year. The wheels came off the Thatcherite bus that day. VICE has obtained the full police radio log of the events, which show what it was like to be a cop inside that bus as it was pelted with bricks by angry socialists, anarchists and drunk looters. Reading like a play script, this log shows a police-eye view of what it looks to the Met when they lose control of the streets.

The poll tax was introduced into Scotland in 1989 and the rest of the UK on the day after the riot. Officially named the "Community Charge," the poll tax replaced the previous form of local taxation, the "Domestic Rates." Under the "Rates," people paid more or less tax depending on the value of their property. Under the new Poll Tax everybody paid the same amount. Having a "Flat Tax," which doesn't charge the rich more than the poor has long been a dream of some people on the right wing of politics. It became a nightmare for the government as a huge campaign of resistance to the poll tax hit Scotland and then the rest of the UK. Under the slogan "break the law and not the poor" campaigners organized mass refusal to register for or pay the tax, which weighed heavily on the least well off. This proudly law-breaking campaign was opposed by the law-abiding Labour Party and Trade Union leadership.

The Trafalgar Square demonstration was the culmination of that campaign. The Metropolitan Police sent a "Draft Report" to the Home Office the day after the riot, which I obtained under Freedom of Information laws. The report says that, "In real terms, the actual organization of the event was handled by the Militant Tendency." The Militant Tendency—forerunners of today's Socialist Party—founded the All British Anti Poll Tax Federation and were central to the campaign. The report also says that in the run up to the national protest there had been "a number of demonstrations, some violent" outside Town Halls as local authorities tried to set poll tax rates.

The log of all police radio communications on the day is included as an appendix, giving an undoctored view of the police response to the protest. They began the day by focusing on left-wing groups, but ended in confusion and panic as the demo became a riot—armed police stood helplessly by while crowds battered the South African embassy. One officer reported watching helplessly as crowds were "smashing everything in sight."

Shortly after the riots, WPC Fiona Roberts told a press conference: "I think we lost it." The Metropolitan Police were embarrassed and denied her claim, but these documents show that she was right. They also show that the most senior commanders simply stopped giving commands as events spun out of their control.

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Anarchists on the war path in London in 2011. Photo by Chris Low

As demonstrators gathered in South London for the march to Trafalgar Square, police calls mostly related to political groups.

The first focus is on suspect "anarchists," with reports like:

12:08 PM: group of 17 anarchists 200 yards from Kennington Road and 100 in the park under a black banner.

1:24 PM: 200 anarchists at L[ower] K[ennington] road.

2 PM: There are 150 anarchists marching under banner "Freemasons against poll tax"who are influence drink/drugs and have joined rear of march and picking up supporters on passing public houses .

The demonstrators mood was still judged "reasonably good" as they approached the river.

When marchers crossed the Thames and walked up Whitehall into Trafalgar Square, the police reported a change. At 2:16 PM, a police "bronze commander," probably a sergeant, reports: "O/S Parliament—one arrest—bottles and missiles thrown at officers during course of arrest. Prisoner removed from scene—punks concerned."

Ten minutes later, also outside Parliament, there are, "barriers torn down and two smoke bombs thrown at police." At 2:30 PM, a police "bronze" officer reports: "SWP [Socialist Workers Party] hardcore stopped outside Downing Street." At 2:47 PM, the log notes, "Opposite Downing Street, hardcore SWP still remaining."

At 3:06 PM, officers radio in, "Area opposite Downing street—barriers now pulled down." By 3:22 PM, there is a "SITREP ]situation to report] at Downing Street—noisy drunken crowd—hardcore of SWP at Downing Street." This was the day's turning point.

The battles between police and protesters reported in the log mostly happen after this sit-down demo outside Downing Street. Demonstrators said that heavy-handed police attempts to move the enormous crowd sparked the riots.

Certainly, the log shows that the disobedience at Downing Street threw the police into confusion. At 2:35 PM, there is a debate between the "silver" and "gold" commanders about how to keep the massive crowds moving. The "gold" commander, normally an assistant chief constable or higher rank, is in overall charge, setting strategy for policing the demonstration. The "silver" commander, typically a superintendent, is on the scene, devising tactics to match the "gold's" orders, which are then passed on to the "bronze" commanders on the streets.

Faced with the sit-down, the silver commander says: "I want to divert crowd—Bridge Street towards Embankment and onto Trafalgar Square if sufficient serials and stewards. Crowds in Whitehall very slow."

The gold commander responds: "Give it a little more time."

Soon, the diversion is made. However, by 4:30 PM, police attempts to split the demo and move the crowds become incoherent—each push on the crowd is met with a violent response and one set of police lines ends up forcing rioters against another.

At 4:29 PM one officer reports, "crowd being pushed towards Trafalgar Square, where officers are under attack. This is the wrong strategy."

There are no communications from the "Silver" commander after 4:07 PM. "Gold" communications stop at 2:41 PM. Communications from call sign "GT," which seem to be from a control room and may reflect "Gold" command, continue longer, up to 5:57 PM. As central command fades, officers on the ground wrestle with crowds slipping out of their grasp.

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People celebrating Margaret Thatcher's death in 2013. Photo by Jake Lewis

The striking thing about the police communications is not the fact that buildings are set on fire, bricks and bottles are thrown or the deployment of police horses. It is how powerless the police were.

As early as 4:24 PM, a "bronze" reports: "We are unable to hold at Northumberland Avenue and will withdraw to reinforce the cordon across Whitehall."

By 4:52 PM, officers report: "shield serials are not making any headway into the crowd." At 5:04 PM, they note that a "mounted charge has had no effect. We have lost the ground we had gained."

Even though at 5:15 PM the police report, "looting in Charing Cross Road junction with Trafalgar Square," they are in no position to take command of events. Aware of their lack of control, an officer reports: "Holding line outside South Africa House. I do not presume to push further."

The back of South Africa House remained vulnerable. A message from "ranger control" says, "South African embassy. Windows being broken at the Strand entrance. No police about. Can you please deal, as we are not sending armed units." Ranger control are the armed police who guard embassies. They wanted other officers to deal with the window-breakers because they did not want their gun-carrying men drawn into the melee.

At 5:37 PM, officers report a "stand-off at T Square at the moment. Sporadic throwing of missiles." Even this limited truce soon breaks down.

From this point on, the communications log shows that dispersing demonstrators beyond Trafalgar Square simply spreads a mixture of rioting and spontaneous uncontrolled demonstrators throughout London.

Entries include:

6:31 PM: Trocadero Centre, W1. Bin through window. Large crowds getting in .

6:56 PM: Very large crowd now making their way back to Oxford Circus from Portland Place, smashing everything in sight. Unable to do anything on my own .

7:19 PM: Windows being smashed, Hanover Street.

7:51 PM: 1,000 demonstrators towards Oxford Street. This is now another march. No police at head of march. Serials trying to police from the rear.

8:02 PM: Tottenham Court Road police station under attack. PC on his own.

8:21 PM: Charlotte Street, W1. Large number of youths rampaging in streets smashing windows.

9:37 PM: Looters have entered a sports shop in Leicester Square and taken crossbows and knives.

The last reports of conflict are made at 10:57 PM, with "windows being broken" by a "vociferous" group of 100-plus people.The police log ends at midnight, although sporadic fighting continued until the early hours of the morning.

The next day politicians queued up to denounce the rioters. Thatcher was "horrified." Labour's Neil Kinnock called the crowds, "Cowardly and vicious." Newspapers printed photos of riot "suspects" drawn from press and police pictures of the day. Many were prosecuted and imprisoned in the months after. But despite this, the completely unofficial, rag-tag army led by left-wing and anarchist ne'er-do-wells won their battle. Despite the condemnation of established politicians, the riot was a turning point. Thatcher resigned later that year. Her successor, John Major, announced that the poll tax would be abolished.

Follow Solomon on Twitter.

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Photo by Tony Farfalla

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

You know those dance floor lifers you sometimes meet in the smoking areas of nightclubs, the graying men with sweat-logged shirts wrapped around their necks, blabbering through locked jaws about how much better pills were back in the day? They are all officially wrong.

The latest data on ecstasy—taken from pills seized by police in England and Wales between July and October of last year—reveals that the average pinger contains 108 milligrams of MDMA, making them the strongest they've ever been in the UK.

For context, "back in the day"—i.e. during the Second Summer of Love, as rave took off in Britain in the late 80s and early 90s—most pills were around the 80-milligram mark. Which, as it happens, is close to what's seen by ecstasy researchers as the "acceptable" dose (70 to 75 milligrams) for an average-sized adult during one drug-taking session.

As recently as 2009, because law enforcement agencies managed to disrupt the supply chain of the precursor ingredients used to make ecstasy, most pills in the UK contained zero MDMA. Instead, largely because of a seizure in Cambodia in 2008 of 33 tons of the precursor chemical safrole oil—enough to supply the UK ecstasy market for five years—pills contained a mixture of BZP, speed, or caffeine. They were basically duds, which is one of the reasons mephedrone sales reached the extraordinary heights they did.

It was the popularity of mephedrone, however, that helped to really open up the online drug trade, which—in turn—has enabled the mass supply of high quality ecstasy pills.

At Glastonbury Festival last year, all the pills seized contained MDMA, which is a pretty good sign of the current state of play. This potency surge also applies throughout Europe; in Holland, where most pills are made and where they've always been of higher quality than they are in Britain, the average strength is 140 milligrams. In Spain, 120-milligram pills are the norm.

A new breed of super-strong ecstasy has accompanied this peak in quality. In February, six young people were hospitalized in a nightclub in Middlesbrough after taking pills branded with a UPS logo. The UPS brand, manufactured in Holland, have been found to contain 278 milligrams of MDMA—over three times the potency of pills being necked in the Hacienda two decades ago, and ten times stronger than the average ecstasy tablet on sale five years ago. The strongest pill tested to date has been a 300-milligram purple Burger King.

The reason for the upturn in the quality of pills is twofold. First, Dutch chemists have found a new way of synthesizing MDMA, finding a key ingredient that is totally legal and therefore easily available and relatively cheap to order in bulk from underground Chinese chemical labs. Instead of using safrole oil or PMK, both MDMA precursor chemicals that had been heavily policed, they are using an analogue of PMK called PMK glycidate, which is controlled but yet to be globally banned.

You can get an indication of the volume of PMK glycidate being shifted around the world by looking at the huge seizures occasionally being made. In June of last year, one ton of PMK glycidate—enough to make 7 million ecstasy tablets, according to the police—was found on a shipment from Shanghai, bound for Maastricht in Holland, at Barcelona's port.

Two months earlier Europol busted what it described as an "international organized crime network" that specialized in importing precursor chemicals from China into Europe. Europol seized 600 kilograms of APAAN—a precursor used for production of amphetamine and methamphetamine—and 425 kilos of PMK glycidate.

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Illustration by Sam Taylor.

The second driver behind the rising strength of ecstasy is the darknet. The scale of sales made possible over encrypted online sites such as Agora means that sellers can reach huge global markets. Selling high quality pills on the deep web makes economic sense, both because sellers can gain a reputation and because MDMA-packed pills can go for low prices, as dealers are shifting them in their tens of thousands on a weekly basis. On the UK streets, 200-milligram pills are going for $15 to $20 a pop, but online they can be bought for just $5.

Fernando Caudevilla—a Spanish physician known as Doctor X on the deep web because of the safety advice he offers online users and buyers—told me that the darknet, despite its untrustworthiness, maintains quality standards in a way that street markets do not.

"The system of online markets allows for relatively good control over the quality of the product," he said. "This control is not perfect, but rating of vendors, the feedback, comments on forums—they all reduce the possibility of adulterations, frauds, and scams. Online markets are highly competitive markets, and this has an impact on quality and the price of substances."

The Loop, a nonprofit drug safety organization based in Manchester that sends out alerts about super-strong or toxic pills via Facebook, urges people to be extra cautious when taking ecstasy—for good reason.

"Start with as low a dose as possible and wait at least one hour before considering re-dosing," they advise. "Take plenty of breaks from dancing; avoid mixing with alcohol or other drugs; and ensure you stay hydrated and drink water regularly (no more than one pint per hour, sipped).

"While it doesn't seem like the UPS pills are toxic, they are very, very strong and contain a seriously high dose of MDMA. If you are going to take them, look out for yourself and your friends. If in doubt, take a half or even a quarter."

Considering how potent some batches have become, you'd do well to follow their advice.

Follow Max on Twitter.

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The vomit of a True American. Photo via Flickr user Jes

Don R. McGlintock IV is a senior profile writer at Bourbon: The Magazine, a contributing editor at Poetry for Men, and the author of Size: Men Talk About How Their Penises Make Them Feel . His latest book, coming out in May from Cigar Aficionado Press, is titled My America: One Man's Nationwide Search for the Forgotten Manly Heart of the Good Ol' US of A , and it is about Americans who are discovering innovative ways to form communities and bonds while facing the challenges of the 21st century. What follows is an excerpt from chapter three, "Puketown."

It's around seven o'clock in the evening and the sun is making its tired way down past the Cracker Barrel sign. From this angle, that majestic sign-bearing pole and the ones around it—Arby's, Comfort Inn, Marriott Courtyard—look like the masts of ships, the telephone wire like rigging. My own vessel is a rented Honda Civic, currently navigating the tricky currents of the highways that stretch north of Dayton, Ohio, like the webs of a spider, or like the branches of a tree, or like the varicose veins of a middle-aged hooker. My GPS is kaput, or I can't figure out how to work it—either way I've been left to steer by the stars as those ancient mariners of yore.

Face facts, old man: I'm lost. At the moment, my hotel room—and the half-empty bottle of Antebellum Reserve that I have stupidly left under my bed—seems very far away.

I roll down the window and what I've come to think of as the smell of Ohio hits me: tar baked in sunshine over the course of a long day, diesel fumes rising up toward heaven, a little tang of fear and rust buried under all of that. Then I hear it, the sound of my destination.

Someone is throwing up in a strip-mall parking lot.

That someone, I'll find out five minutes and two dangerous and probably illegal left turns across traffic later, is my host, Danny Boffer. Danny is what I would call a True American. He is someone who has been knocked down over and over again, but he not only climbs back up on his feet, he also plants his feet firmly on the ground and sets to building something that will stand the test of time, which in Danny's case is April Puke.

April Puke started, like everything that's good about this country, as an accident. Danny had recently been laid off from his gig as a sandwich artist due to his choosing to exercise his Second Amendment rights into the sky after a night of fairly heavy revelry. To celebrate the beginning of a new, post-employment chapter in the Book of Danny, on an April 1 some years ago he and some of his fellow Americans took to a parking lot with some domestic macrobrews and exercised their Freedom to Assemble until the aftereffects of some perhaps undercooked Chinese food hit them and, to quote Danny, "We fuckin' blew chunks all over each other."

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The parking lot where Dayton's most recent April Puke festivities were held. Photo via Flickr user Daniel Oines

Some words need to be said about "puking," "tossing your cookies," "ralphing," "barfing," "upchucking," "pulling a Hendrix," or whatever you want to call the manly art of expelling food from one's stomach. It gets a bad rap because it's so often associated with sickness or overindulgence, but in truth puking can be a healing ritual, a boot before a rally, a refreshing cleanse—like they used to say about Coca-Cola, it's the pause that refreshes. Who among us has not vomited in a toilet, back seat, or telephone booth and felt immediately better, as if a veil had been lifted from our eyes and a heavy wad of pad Thai had been removed from our guts? I have vomited more times than I can count, and I regret very few of them—indeed, one of my most cherished sexual encounters came not five minutes after losing most of a five-course meal in the cemetery at Dartmouth College. (But that's another story.)

Danny and his friends came to realize the healing power of puke gradually, in fits and starts. After that first April 1 group upchuck, they were embarrassed and ashamed, as men often are when they've shared something unexpected. Exactly a year later, though, they had another occasion to gather in the same manner—as Americans, as men—in that same parking lot, and once again found themselves becoming suddenly ill on one another. As they stood in the slippery pile of their former stomach contents, they all began laughing, in the same way that they had begun throwing up just minutes before—first one at a time, then all at once. They were laughing because there were discovering that there is no better feeling than to be with your friends, drunk and young and powerful and empty of stomach and standing in a strip mall parking lot.

Hey, Danny and his sultans of sick thought to themselves, we should do this again.

The vomit, ideally, soars through the air in an arc and makes an impressive splash upon contact with the ground; some men now stand on ladders to achieve this effect.

And so April Puke was born. The basic idea, as you may have gathered, is to throw up a whole lot on April Fools' Day, but there is more to it than that. You must throw up in a group of men, and throw up loudly, turning what is normally an act of private shame into a public declaration of pride. The vomit, ideally, soars through the air in an arc and makes an impressive splash upon contact with the ground; some men now stand on ladders to achieve this effect. You should be drunk during April Puke, but you do not need to resort to chugging bottom-shelf swill to make yourself retch—common aids include ipecac, mustard water, the old-fashioned finger-in-the-throat, bloodroot herb, hair from an extremely old and sick goat, and the spines from a toxic cactus. After the act, April Pukers dance in their sick. They slip and slide and roll about in it. There is yelling, there is singing, there is hugging and sometimes kissing and even more, though Danny would rather I not go into all that. The point is to put out what is usually kept inside, to express what is unexpressed, to pour your American soul all over the street and let it mingle with the souls of other men.

The April Puke celebrations—for that is what they are, celebrations—have been going on for over a decade, and though there is no April Puke website, no April Puke bylaws or newsletter or gospel, the tradition has spread from Dayton to Akron to Jacksonville to Mobile to Newark to Bridgeport. It's caught on in the in-between places, the lands where men are lost, searching, no longer the backbone of society but some other body part, like one of the less useful fingers. Puking with other men gives them something that bowling leagues and bathhouses gave their fathers and grandfathers: community, a sense of belonging, a space where they can simply live. On Facebook groups and beer review forums across the country these men share tips for turning puke fluorescent colors, stories of April Pukes gone past, and, sometimes, their darkest hopes and dreams and fears.

"I didn't know what I was doing," says Danny, who has spent his time lately writing a memoir/self-help book titled April Puke: A Mission, mentoring other men, and "just being, man." In fact, he didn't even know what he had until just before the third April Puke, the first official one, when his buddies called him up and asked him if he was going to hold another "puke party." That's when he realized how much he hungered for something, and that something was to spew all over a parking lot with his best friends.

There's something else driving the April Puke craze, which is that April Fools' has become a joke. We can all remember the days when our mothers would spend all day coating with mayonnaise and then braising the traditional hams; back then we would frolic in the street in our pope hats and hear our fathers moaning the traditional dirges as they strolled down the street in their traditional masks. Then there would be the vigil in front of the bonfire, the all-night cat hunts, the hallucinations, the rap battles, the moments in the traditional cave when no one knew or asked whose hands were whose.

Now? April Fools' is nothing but yet another occasion to exchange greeting cards and get fucked up, a commercialized celebration in a country that doesn't need another. What we need is a way back to what used to be. What we need is April Puke.

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Photo via Flickr user Jonathan MacIntosh

The Harper government shot down dozens of amendments to its controversial anti-terror bill during 10 hours of committee hearings on Tuesday, leaving the expansive omnibus legislation virtually unchanged.

Conservatives on the committee adopted three of their own amendments, making minor tweaks to the bill, while shooting down more than 100 other changes proposed by four opposition parties who tried to reign in the legislation.

The committee is the the last real test for the bill, as its passing is all but certain.

The bill, C-51, was introduced in January and primarily does five things: expands the no-fly list; increases police ability to preventively detain and surveil terror suspects; criminalizes propaganda calling for terrorist attacks; expands information sharing with intelligence agencies; and gives Canada's main spy agency the power to "disrupt" perceived threats.

The committee hearings, which went until 10 PM Tuesday, ranged from testy to outright hostile as the Conservative majority on the committee continued a long-standing practice of rejecting every opposition amendment introduced at committee. More than once, Conservative MPs accused opposition members of trying to leverage changes that would help terrorists.

Ultimately, the only substantive change made to the legislation was to iterate that the government shouldn't share the information of Canadians who are engaging in advocacy—the bill previously said it would only protect "lawful advocacy."

Other than that, the bill's only other changes were minute. One edit removed the ability for the government to request that airlines take extraordinary action to stop threats from boarding airplanes. Another amendment changed language saying that government agencies would have the power to share information disclosed to them with anyone else, for any purpose. The bill still, however, allows unprecedented levels of information sharing with the government.

The fourth edit made by the government members was to spell out the fact that CSIS does not have the power to detain or arrest suspects. Yet, the amendment also cemented the impression that the Conservatives members of the committee were instructed to reject all opposition amendments. Right after their change, the committee voted down several opposition changes that would have forbidden CSIS from detaining suspects abroad—not just in Canada.

Otherwise, the bill stayed the same as when it was first introduced. Conservative members of the committee read from binders of prepared statements as they verbally shredded opposition changes to the bill. Government MPs mostly switched back and forth from two arguments: the amendment is redundant, or the amendment would tie law enforcement's hands.

Some of the strangest debate came in the committee's seventh hour, when government lawyers contended that the legislation wouldn't breach the constitution, despite language in the bill saying that CSIS agents, in tackling a threat, would be allowed to ignore Canadians' rights, if they have a warrant. They argued that, by obtaining a warrant, CSIS' actions inherently could not be unconstitutional.

Yet, minutes later, when the NDP and Green Party introduced amendments to forbid CSIS from breaking Canadians' constitutional rights, the Conservatives balked.

One lawyer from the Department of Public Safety told the committee if they put such restrictions on Canada's spies, "this would have a massive operational impact," adding that if the amendments were adopted, it would render the entire bill useless.

The fact that, in the end, only a paltry few amendments were adopted means that the two weeks of committee hearings leading up to Tuesday—during which the committee heard opposition from the Canadian Bar Association, all 13 of Canada's privacy commissioners, several former prime ministers, a gaggle of former Supreme Court justices and a host of others—were ultimately an exercise in futility.

Most of the opponents, including the federal privacy commissioner, did not get to testify before the committee.

Of those who testified, roughly a third of the witnesses were supportive of C-51. Most of them were specifically supportive of the changes that allow police to go after terrorist propaganda and to use preventative detention if there is an imminent threat.

Many of the witnesses, however, were brought in to underscore the threat of terrorism and talk about anti-radicalization strategies, without addressing much in the way of specifics on the legislation.

Law professor Michael Geist broke down the numbers of how ineffective those committee hearings ended up being.

Yet the hearings likely would have made little difference, as the results of the committee study appeared to be predestined.

Critics such as law scholars Craig Forcese and Kent Roach, the Canadian Bar Association, and the BC Civil Liberties Association warned that giving CSIS too broad powers would lead to an infringement of Canadians' rights.

The Conservative MPs on the committee appeared genuinely offended when opposition MPs read quotes from those organizations.

Conservative MP Rick Norlock said he could not think of a single piece of government legislation the Bar Association supported. Roxanne James, parliamentary secretary to the minister of public safety, made a similar dig against the Civil Liberties Association.

There's some dramatic irony in their statements given that, during debate over the Liberals' 2001 anti-terror bill, it was Conservative MPs who were citing those two organizations.

"The Canadian Bar Association, the Criminal Lawyers' Association of Ontario and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have already raised concerns about what is in the bill," said Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz during the 2001 debate on the legislation. Breitkreuz is still an MP, in the Conservative Party.

Breitkreuz worried the 2001 bill would allow arrest without a warrant (which C-51 does), it would allow information to be shared with police without charges being laid (which C-51 does) and it would make it much easier for police to get a warrant (which C-51 does.)

"The Canadian bar is concerned about compromising Canadian civil rights and numerous groups of Islamic faith share that concern," said former MP Chuck Strahl during the same debate. Strahl was later appointed by Prime Minister Harper to the Security Intelligence Review Committee, but resigned after it came out that he was also a lobbyist with a pipeline giant Enbridge.

"Now, the deputy information commissioner warns that the government's amendments threaten the rights of Canadians even more than the original flawed bill itself. Why is it, when everyone agrees this is one of the most significant bills to hit parliament in years, the government has moved to shut down debate after only three hours of time here in the House of Commons?" Strahl continued.

That legislation, in 2001, had twice as many committee hearings as C-51.

While Conservatives on the committee continued to insist that worries over Canadians' civil liberties was simply "fear mongering," it has been traditionally conservative voices that are becoming some of the strongest critics of the legislation.

The National Post published an editorial while the committee sat, concluding that "such grudging, belated concessions are not sufficient, nor do they address many of the most telling concerns about the bill."

Ironically, committee member Diane Ablonczy, who is also the Minister of State for Consular Affairs, read a copy of the National Post as the committee debated some of the amendments.

Conservative activists Connie and Mark Fournier re-opened their right-wing forum FreeDominion specifically to re-iterate their concerns with the bill.

Conservative MP Michael Chong openly criticized C-51, which is a rarity for an MP of any party.

A representative of the right-leaning think-tank the Mackenzie Institute, which studies terrorism and security threats, said the bill risked riding roughshod over Canadians' civil liberties.

The Centre for Israeli and Jewish Affairs, which is considered close to the Harper government, also heavily chastised parts of the bill. B'nai Brith similarly offered amendments that were ignored.

Conservative MPs nevertheless refused amendment after amendment that would have addressed the concerns of their conservative allies.

The legislation now goes back to the House, where the opposition has another chance to try and delete sections of the bill—efforts that are unlikely to succeed. Once it passes, it will head to the Senate, which has already begun committee study of the bill. It's unlikely that the Senate will introduce amendments on C-51 without support from the Prime Minister's Office.

That means the bill is destined to become law by early June.

Follow Justin Ling on Twitter.

On Monday, three assailants hacked a man to death with meat cleavers outside of his home in Dhaka, Bangladesh's Begunbari district. Hospital staff identified the corpse, dead on arrival, by his voter ID card as Washiqur (or Oyasiqur) Rahman, a 27-year-old part-time atheist blogger who wrote critical pieces against Bangladesh's Muslim majority under the penname Kutshit Hasher Chhana ("Ugly Duckling").

Bangladesh has never been an especially safe place for opposition, minority, or otherwise less-than-mainstream writers. Due to government crackdowns on political blogs and newspapers promoting the political opposition or printing what local authorities declare to be blasphemy, Reporters without Borders has ranked Bangladesh 146 out of 180 nations on its press freedom index. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 16 writers have been killed there since 1992, and in 12 of those cases the murderers were never brought to justice. In 2012, it was declared the sixth most dangerous nation for reporters to work in after four journalists were murdered in the country that year.

Things got worse in 2013, with a wave of Islamist attacks and threats against atheist and secular writers. That January, the Islamo-skeptical writer Asif Mohiuddin survived a stabbing by religiously motivated assailants. The next month, the anti-fundamentalist blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider was hacked to death in a fashion similar to Rahman's execution.

This February, an American author of Bangladeshi origin was killed during a visit to Dhaka. Avijit Roy, the creator and moderator of the rationalist, humanist, Islamo-skeptic blog Mukto-Mona ("Free Mind"), received death threats throughout 2014 after publishing a very critical book against fundamentalism. He and his wife, Rafida Ahmed Bonna, were assaulted in broad daylight. Cops have arrested Shafiur Rahman Farabi, a 29-year-old Islamist who threatened Roy online and who had run into trouble with the law for threatening others on religious grounds in 2013, but as of yet he has not been prosecuted for the crime.

The frequency and similarity of the attacks have led police to suspect that these assaults are organized strikes. These fears were stoked by a Tweet posted by the militant group Ansar Bangla-7 soon after Roy's murder reading, "Target Down here in Bangladesh."

"These murders are organized as far as the confessional statements of the murderers of Mr. Oyasiqur Rahman are concerned," Habibul Khondker, a professor of Bangladeshi religious and identity politics at Abu Dhabi's Zayed University and keen observer of the plight of atheist bloggers, told VICE. "The mastermind not only briefed them about the mission but also provided them with the murder weapons, cleavers. The assailants, according to their confessions, did not read the so-called controversial blog. They simply followed the instructions of their superiors—in this case, one Mr. Masum, who is absconding." (A man referred to as Masum reportedly encouraged the attack.)

Sumit Galhotra, an Asia Program Research Associate at the Committee to Protect Journalists, is hesitant to say the attacks are the concentrated and organized work of one group. But he did suggest the attacks may at least be linked via target lists circulating among militants.

"A hit list is not out of the realm of possibilities," he told VICE. "In 2013, local media reports cited a list of 84 bloggers [several of whom have since been attacked, including Rahman] that had been circulated by Islamist groups. Bloggers said those named on the list were at risk."

Galhotra and others believe that these attacks, organized or not, stem from bloggers' involvement in the highly contentious 2013 Shahbag movement in Dhaka. Back then, secularists and writers called for the execution of the Islamist politician Abdul Quader Mollah for his role in war crimes committed during the 1971 struggle for independence from Pakistan, and also sought a ban on the Jamaat-e-Islami, a national Islamist political party with which Mollah and other convicted criminals had been associated. Matters only got worse after the violence and religious tensions surrounding boycotts of the 2014 elections led by the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party—and supported by their Islamist allies—against the ostensibly secular Awami League incumbents, which has itself made concessions to Islamist groups by cracking down on "blasphemous" blogs. These confrontations have highlighted old religious tensions that have never been too far below the surface.

There is a "growing polarization of the Bangladeshi society on the issue of the role of religion in the public sphere and politics," Ali Riaz, a professor of Bangladeshi politics at Illinois State University, told VICE. "The society seems to be divided down the middle.

"When the law and order situation deteriorates, and the political landscape becomes inundated with violence and violent rhetoric, the fringe extremist groups find it easier to operate."

Khondker suspects that the Awami League's successful effort to get more Bangladeshis online has stoked conflict as well. As people joined the internet, he believes, they may have been exposed to more religious vitriol right as these conflicts were revving up. And it put the nation's bloggers right in the crosshairs of rapidly escalating confrontations.

As a number of bloggers have started to shut down their sites and consider leaving the country, some fear the attacks are succeeding in Islamists' goals of chilling critical dialogue.

"In previous [incidents], bloggers have gone underground, have toned down their commentary, or have stopped writing," said Galhotra. "These attacks highlight how dangerous it has become to engage in commentary on sensitive topics, and will most certainly make some bloggers think twice before they raise their voice."

Others suspect Bangladesh's secularist writers will muscle through the intimidation.

"Some young writers online may be frightened," according to Khondker, "but the mainstream writers and members of the civil society cannot be intimidated so easily because Bangladesh has a long tradition of religious tolerance and most Bangladeshis hold a moderate position on religion."

Galhotra and others do worry that the lack of a muscular government response to such attacks is creating an environment of impunity that will encourage further violence against atheist and secular writers, increasing the existing chilling effect on religious dialogue in the country. To date, according to Khondker, officials have shut down a few fundamentalist forums, but this is only a token reaction. No one has a firm idea of what steps the government should take, but all agree that somehow more protection must be offered to writers, and that efforts should be made to moderate the nation's religious environment.

"The society needs to start an open conversation on tolerance," said Riaz, the professor. "Irrespective of political persuasions, political parties need to agree and act to stem the growing trend. If anyone is under the illusion that they are safe because they are neither blogger not discuss religion in public, history tells us they are absolutely wrong. Next time it could be them, but for a different reason.

The attack on Rahman "should serve as a wake-up call," he said.

Follow Mark Hay on Twitter.

From the minute he took office in 2010, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been criticized for favoring the One Percent. His administration has scaled back corporate taxes of all shapes and sizes, and the Democrat is often criticized for cozying up to the state's wealthy residents and, by extension, their campaign wallets. His closest legislative ally, former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, is facing fraud charges. And currently, the federal investigation into the Cuomo administration's handling of the Moreland Commission—which was supposed to rout this corruption—is directly linked to billionaires who have donated to the governor's campaigns, and benefited from his policies.

So yeah, the major tax break for rich yacht and private jet owners included in the latest state budget shouldn't surprise those familiar with New York politics.

On Monday night, in a 44-17 vote, the New York state Senate passed a tax break for New Yorkers who own "vessels" valued at more than $230,000, placing the Empire State in the same league as Florida and Connecticut. Basically, that means that anyone who owns a yacht or, according to state law, any naval vehicle "used or capable of being used as a means of transportation on water" that costs more than $230,000 will not have to pay a sales tax on anything above that amount. Meanwhile, the entire purchase of private jets carrying fewer than 20 people would be tax-less.

The bipartisan provision had already appeared earlier this year, in separate proposals by Assembly Democrats and the Senate GOP, and was ultimately added to the $150 billion budget submitted by Cuomo's team before it was approved by both parties earlier this week. This marks another year that his administration has passed a budget on time—a welcome change in Albany, where budget deadlines were once regarded as a suggestion—and, almost like clockwork, another year that New Yorkers are pissed off.

On Tuesday, a small group of protesters pissed off at the new leisure tax break gathered at the North Cove Marina in Manhattan, just a few blocks from the Freedom Tower and Wall Street. The setting on this overcast afternoon was ideally suited to their purpose: In the distance, yachts could be seen floating at docks scattered along the Hudson River coastline. With various corporate headquarters towering overhead, this was Ground Zero for the rich fucks who would benefit from the new tax provision.

"Billionaires!"

"Pay your taxes!"

"Yacht owners!"

"Pay your taxes!"

Charles Khan, a member of the Strong Economy for All Coalition and a group called Hedge Clippers, led the chant among a handful of progressive activists from groups like New York Communities for Change, Citizen Action NY, and Make the Road. Demonstrators waved a black banner that read, "Hedge Funds = Inequality," as a sole local news camera focused in. Khan described the yacht tax break as "absolutely ridiculous," and called for its immediate repeal.

The tax break was hailed by lawmakers from both parties as a job-creating tool: as State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a leading Long Island Republican, told reporters this week, "We felt that it was important, especially with the state that we have, with all our natural resources, that people be able to create jobs here in New York State." He compared it to the tax credit that exists for filming in the state, although how having a yacht or a private jet would create jobs is not so clear.

Khan dismissed the idea that the yacht tax break would spur employment. "Any jobs it might create is marginal," he told me after the press conference Tuesday. "At least compared to the jobs that would be created from establishing a living wage for millions of New Yorkers, helping out Dreamers, funding our public school and children's future, and preventing homeowners from foreclosures."

The idea behind the credit, it seems, is to entice rich New Yorkers to buy their giant boats in the state, rather than register the yachts offshore or in Florida. Other states, including Connecticut and Maryland, have recently imposed similar sales tax caps. But yachts are only a tiny sliver of the boating market. Both conservatives and liberals have criticized these and other tax breaks for picking winners and losers, rather than providing substantive relief or policy reform.

James Parrott, an economist at the Fiscal Policy Institute, the New York-based think tank that first spotlighted the yacht tax break, derided this "three men in a room" style of governing, invoking an image of Cuomo, Skelos, and (formerly) Silver drafting the state budget behind closed doors, presumably handing out pet projects to whoever donated the most.

The yacht and jet exemption, Parrott said, was no different, once again underscoring the flagrant cronyism that has long been a hallmark of Albany politics. According to the New York Times, Cuomo met with industry executives at the New York Boat Show in January, and stumped for the exemption. (We reached out to the Governor's office for comment, but yet to hear back.)

"We all know it was once three men in a room," Parrott told the small crowd at the marina, as it began to drizzle. "But now we know it's really three men on a yacht!"

"Get off the yacht," he added later, "and get back to the table."

Other demonstrators echoed these arguments. A man introduced as a McDonald's employee told reporters that he didn't even have money to afford a paddle boat. An education advocate and mother of eight argued that kids in under-funded public schools need computers and textbooks that aren't ripped. A documented Dreamer said he's waited five years for Cuomo to push through the state's DREAM Act, and now has to wait another.

In this sense, the yacht and jet tax exemption exists more so as a symbol of what has become a commonality of the Cuomo years: this fallout and frustration from what critics see as his lack of pure liberalism, centered around issues like a minimum wage hike, funding public education, and immigration reform. To them, these are promises the governor has made, but has yet to follow through on.

"Instead, the people who want to buy yachts or private planes..." Khan proclaimed, as chants of 'Criminal!' and 'Un-American!' were heard in the background. "That has to be made affordable."

Follow John on Twitter.

Moon > Sun are an experimental electronic pop group from across the pond in Brighton. They've built up their own unique combination of weird electronic chaos, lo-fi vocal recording, and meandering beats—the music constantly threatens to fall apart, but always manages to drop a great hook and keep everything together. The band has a new record coming out on April 8 via Little L Records, a cool little Irish label that's been building up a nice roster lately. Check out "MTR" above.

Preorder Moon > Sun's upcoming EP here.

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Queer kiss-in outside Westboro Baptist Church

Two years ago, charity organization called Planting Peace decided to open the "Equality House," a rainbow-painted LGBT-themed building that sits directly opposite the notorious Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), in Kansas, as "a symbol of peace, compassion, and positive change."

You may well know about the WBC from the film we made on the controversial church and the massive amount of other media coverage it has gotten. To sum up, the WBC is an extremist hate group that likes to upload videos of themselves doing anti-gay covers of pop hits, picket the funerals of "fags and fag-enablers" (which, it turns out, is pretty much everyone), and look upon Obama's presidency as a sign of the impending apocalypse. Needless to say, they didn't serve up any glitter-studded realness at Planting Peace's drag show last year, but apparently the two organizations have become "cordial."

Last week, the Equality House celebrated their second anniversary by staging a mass "kiss-in," where couples and families of all orientations kissed each other outside the homophobic church. Among those who attended were a number of Ex-Westboro members who had abandoned the home of hate in favor of the big, fun, gay house across the road.

One of those attendees was Libby Phelps, the granddaughter of Westboro founder Fred Phelps, who died a year ago this month (although bear in mind it's not hard to be his grandchild, given that he had 54 of them). I had a chat with Libby about how she went from waving about signs that said "God Hates Fags" to attending this celebratory queer love-in.

VICE: Can you tell me a bit about your decision to leave Westboro Baptist Church? What happened?
Libby Phelps: I left on March 13, 2009. There are so many reasons; bottom line is I don't believe in WBC theology. I don't think it's right to display such a hateful message. I especially don't think it's right picketing funerals. I don't think it's right how WBC treats people outside of the church. WBC members are very arrogant and think they're the only ones who are right, and I don't like people who think they're better than others. When they think someone is not part of "God's elect" (the only people who go to Heaven, in the eyes of WBC), they would be ostracized. I remember once my uncle said WBC isn't a social club, but it seemed that way to me when they would all of a sudden find someone unfit to be a part of the group.

[body_image width='913' height='525' path='images/content-images/2015/04/01/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/04/01/' filename='westboro-baptist-church-interview-body-image-1427889013.png' id='42029']The Equality House

You were at the second anniversary of the Equality House earlier this week. Why did you decide to attend?
I was thrilled to be a part of celebrating two years of the Equality House, as it has made such a positive impact on the community. Within the first month of them painting it, I stopped by and wanted to help out. The owners gave me a paintbrush, and I helped paint the house. At the recent celebration, I participated in "Plant One for Peace," where all of us stood in front of WBC and gave our partners a big smooch. We also participated in the handprint mural, which signifies unity. I decided to attend because I believe in equality for all. I think it's important to stand up for people who are discriminated against. It sends a powerful message for me in particular to attend simply because of my past. Me being there shows that people can and do change. I'm living proof that hearts and minds do change.

Did any of the Westboro Baptist members see you at the celebration?
Yeah, I could also see them looking through the cracks in their fence. I saw my cousin, but I didn't see my aunt—I just heard she walked by. My cousin didn't even look over at us, which is something very expected from them. They know what's going on. They would think just by seeing them everyone will think "God Hates Fags" and "You're Going to Hell." That's something they thought happened at school. We were told we were walking picket signs.

How did you go from using those anti-gay signs to supporting LBGT rights? How did your opinion change?
Picketing with anti-gay signs was something I was raised to do. As a child you trust your parents to raise you right and to lead you down the correct path. My parents thought they were doing the right thing. They believe in WBC doctrine. As I got older, I decided I didn't believe in the doctrine and the only option was to leave everyone I'd ever known behind and start a new life.

It's definitely been a growing process that has helped change my view. I think I've always thought nobody was better than anyone else, I just couldn't express it. At WBC your actions and thoughts were conditioned and controlled by the older generations.

Are you still in contact with any Westboro members?
No, once you leave WBC you can't talk to anyone any more. It's weird, but that's how it is. You leave your entire life, everything you've ever known. That's why it's so hard to leave.

Did any other ex-Westboro members attend the Equality House celebration?
I had a young cousin who left recently and wanted to be there, so I wanted to be there to support her too. I hope her being at the Equality House will be as helpful as it was for me. It was part of my growing progress, being so close to the church. When I was at the Equality House early on, I saw my parents for the first time in four years and immediately started crying. I wished I could run out there and give them a hug. It was nice being in a place where I felt supported and respected. It was nice being there for my cousin and being able to help her grow as well.

What was it like growing up in Westboro?
We were only really able to develop relationships with those who attended WBC. We went to public schools, and I had acquaintances at school, but we rarely got to spend time with anyone outside of the church. Sometimes classmates, and even teachers, were mean to me, but we were told that the world hated us, so we expected it. I was really close to my cousins and sister. We exercised together. My sister is a really good singer, and I would sing duets with her while my dad played the piano. I miss the closeness of my family. You don't see that type of closeness in the "real world."

Have you made many gay friends since leaving?
One of my favorite friends is gay. He was actually my friend before I left the church. He didn't tell me he was gay until after I left and I asked him. I was pretty sure he was, but I just wanted him to tell me. I know it sounds weird that he was my friend while I was still at WBC.

Have you got involved in any other LGBT rights campaigns?
I posed for NoH8 with my little family very shortly after [my son] Paxton was born.

What is your life like now?
The biggest life events were getting married and having a baby. One of my aunts had said that it would be unlikely that anyone at WBC would get married because the Lord was coming, so I never saw it as an option. I never really looked for it. I've done so many things that weren't possible at WBC. I got to travel abroad for the first time, I got married, had a baby. I did things as simple as cutting my hair and getting my ears pierced, which both weren't allowed.

For the most part everyone has been so supportive and understanding, including my friends at the Equality House. WBC had raised us to believe that everyone outside of the church hated us, and it's so refreshing to see that's not true. I tell my son every night how much I love him, as I often think about how absolutely devastated I'd be if I lost Paxton, like my parents lost me.

Follow Daisy on Twitter.

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March's Pegida demonstration in Edinburgh. All photos author's own

This post originally appeared on VICE UK.

The far right in Scotland is totally useless. Last month saw the first effort by Pegida, the European "anti-Islamization" street movement that's been on the rise since starting in Germany last year, to hold a demonstration here. If all had gone to plan, the protest would have seen Pegida establish themselves as the shiny new face of right-wing populism in Scotland, following their 400-strong showing in Newcastle a month ago.

Except on this occasion, they forgot to show up. Despite screaming headlines about a "Pegida recruitment drive," just seven of the group's supporters came along and hid out in an Edinburgh pub while the police stood outside and hundreds rallied elsewhere to oppose them. "There's more horses than there are fascists" noted one anti-Pegida protester, referencing the huge police operation that swamped the city over the course of the day.

As it happens, this wasn't the first time that one of the rising stars of the anti-immigrant right has had a difficult time in a pub near the Royal Mile. Two years ago, Nigel Farage famously made an effort to stage a press conference in the city, showing up in a pub with the media in tow. It didn't quite go to plan either, with the UKIP leader bundled into a police van after protesters besieged the press call. That debacle has since become a byword for UKIP's fortunes in Scotland, where they've consistently struggled to achieve the same level of support as elsewhere in the UK. It's therefore extremely unlikely that any Scottish constituencies will be represented by someone in a purple rosette come May.

Until last year, the UKIP had never come close to winning anything in Scotland. That changed when they got 10.5 percent of the Scottish vote in last year's European election, with David Coburn becoming an MEP. He's since become the most reviled figure in Scottish politics, with his frequent outbursts—like last week when he compared Scottish Government minister Humza Yousaf to convicted terrorist Abu Hamza—provoking justified condemnation.

A lot of the outrage over Coburn's antics, and the self-congratulatory backslapping over the continuing failure of far-right street movements in Scotland, verges into the territory of saying that racism just "isn't what we do" up here in our near-mythical progressive Caledonian utopia. But can that really explain why the radical right in Scotland are so utterly hopeless? Is Scotland just inherently less receptive to organized racism than England?

I thought asking Pegida themselves might be a good place to start, so I dug them out in the pub they were hiding out in, in Edinburgh's Old Town. For a group which is supposed to be taking a defiant stand against the "Islamization" of Europe, there was a distinct lack of defiance around their table.

"Nobody turned up. There was ten of us and we were given a Section 14 order by the police to disperse," said despondent Pegida UK organizer Emma Foreman as she explained why they hadn't gone ahead with the demo. Although Emma had travelled up from Sunderland for the day, she appeared to be the main organizer, and promised that despite the derisory turnout it wouldn't represent the end for Pegida Scotland. "We'll be back. When I get back home tonight I'll be in touch with the other members," she insisted.

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A BNP supporter in Glasgow in 2012

This is far from the first time that a big day out for the far right in Scotland has ended in absolute farce. The Scottish Defence League, an EDL offshoot, have been drinking their way around the country for over five years, struggling to ever get more than a few dozen along to each leg of their glorified pub crawl. Similarly, organizations like Britain First, the BNP, the National Front, and their interchangeable memberships have never gained serious traction north of the border. The fascist rump that remains has been driven to increasingly outlandish stunts, like the former Scottish BNP organizer now trying to set up "Britain's first fascist town" in Elgin in the Highlands, or the white supremacists waging a bizarre sticker war in rural Aberdeenshire. In Glasgow, ex-BNP members have formed something called the "Britannica Party," which frequently picks up literally tens of votes in local elections.

It's true that public opinion in Scotland is to the left of elsewhere in the UK, as confirmed by YouGov recently, but that doesn't entirely account for the failures of the far right. The reality is both less clear-cut and less comforting, with a different dynamic of prejudice existing in Scotland, bringing its own set of issues.

During the referendum campaign, a few commentators made an effort to invoke the idea of a sinister, intolerant side to Scottish nationalism, with some even accusing the forebears of the pro-independence movement of being Nazi sympathizers. This line of argument was given some credence by the publication of a book, Fascist Scotland, by the academic Gavin Bowd. When Bowd penned an article for Scotland on Sunday on this theme, the paper illustrated it by sticking a swastika over a saltire. It had the desired effect of provoking outrage, but the point it was making was also pretty tenuous, because fascism in Scotland has nearly always been rooted in British rather than Scottish nationalism. There is some crossover with the sectarian religious divide in Scotland which, although much less prominent now, is still a factor in some areas. However, the parties of the British far right have always found this difficult to successfully exploit—not that it's stopped them from trying.

Take this BBC documentary from 1992, in which Glasgow activists with Anti-Fascist Action—a militant anti-fascist group who spent the early 1990s physically confronting Nazis—discuss the BNP's attempt to gain a foothold among Rangers fans by playing to their loyalist sympathies. The narrator warns that Glasgow has become the "area of highest recruitment for the BNP," who were still in their neo-Nazi phase at the time, prior to achieving greater success after Nick Griffin "modernized" the party later on. Ultimately though, the BNP's efforts never amounted to much, with the party never gaining many members or an electoral breakthrough in Scotland. Similarly, just last year Britain First activists made a foray into Edinburgh for the Orange Order's march to save the union, where they handed out leaflets "honoring" the murdered soldier Lee Rigby and warning of the dangers of Islamic extremism. They too didn't make much headway.

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The SDL in Glasgow in their 2012 heyday

Going as far back as the 1930s, Oswald Mosley , the British Union of Fascists' aspiring Hitler figure, attempted to pick up support in Scotland. His efforts floundered, with the party unable to get to grips with the idea that the Scotland's bigots were more concerned with hating Irish immigrants than the country's tiny Jewish population. While the BUF were chased off the streets every time it tried to organize, fervently anti-Catholic parties in Glasgow and Edinburgh were garnering mass support. What was true then remains true today, albeit on a lesser scale: for those craving a cultural identity, a feeling of supremacy, a uniform or a street fight, there's already a host of "legitimate" organizations to get involved with, without joining an explicitly far-right group imported from England. Take a trip to the west of Scotland during the summer months, when Protestant loyalist flute bands are out in force, and this becomes pretty obvious, so it's hardly surprising that groups like the BNP and SDL lack appeal.

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Some protestant loyalists marchers in Glasgow last year

It's likely also the case that for others, Scottish nationalism is a more valid expression of their discontent with society than the solutions offered by the BNP, Pegida or even UKIP. With its civic rather than ethnic outlook, and broadly social democratic discourse, it's never really provided fertile ground for xenophobia to develop, with anti-English sentiment largely consigned to its extreme fringes. On top of that, the predominantly English identity and imagery attached to the British far right—all St. George's Crosses, bulldogs, and Churchill memes—has not given them mass appeal in a country where most people identify solely as Scottish.

The Pegida supporters I spoke to on Saturday were keen to differentiate themselves from groups like the SDL and EDL, saying that they're not racist and simply concerned about "mass immigration and Islamism," and warning that people in Scotland need to "wake up" to this threat. While they insisted they'll be taking to the streets again soon, judging by the history of far-right organizations in Scotland over the past few decades, they can probably consider it a success if their attendance next time breaks into double figures.

Meanwhile, UKIP, as the more acceptable face of anti-immigration populism, do have a stable vote in Scotland and may well pick up a few seats in the Scottish Parliament next year, but they remain firmly on the fringes and a serious breakthrough looks unlikely.

Follow Liam Turbett on Twitter.

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Two suspected pickpockets being searched on Oxford Street by plain-clothes police officers (whose identities have to be concealed because it would make their job kind of hard if everyone knew what they looked like).

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Of the £5 billion [$7 billion] of transactions that took place on Oxford Street in 2014, many more happened without the say-so of the person paying up. While the Topshops and H&Ms and Zaras will do you the courtesy of swiping your card at the till, other international organizations are taking your wallet. And your phone. And your handbag. All while you stare dumbly at the fancy new John Lewis window display.

These aren't opportunist bag-dippers who've seen a chance and taken it. They are highly skilled, organized squads of world-class thieves, working in relay tandem.

They fly in for one weekend, fill their boots (one gang recently made off with £140,000 [$207,000] in cash in a single day), and head off to the next city—Madrid, Barcelona, Milan—making them almost impossible to catch. When they're gone, another team takes their place.

According to police, the Chileans are the best, then the Romanians, and then a whole league of nations fills the places for minor honors. This isn't to say there aren't homegrown criminals, but—as with soccer—England probably wouldn't make it out of the group stages in a World Cup of snatching.

As I follow PC Darren Bond of the "Oxford Street, Regent Street, Bond Street Pickpocket team" (ORB) on his weekend retail beat, he tells me, "I wouldn't ever say that if you come from certain nations you're here to thieve. That's just not true. But we do see trends—anecdotally, around 70 percent of arrested pickpockets are Romanians or Bulgarians, 10 percent young Algerian males, 5 percent Chileans, etc... The rest would be UK-based thefts. Big city theft is now organized, international crime with bosses and a hierarchy."

So why are the Chileans best? "They are intelligence-led—they don't go after anyone but wealthy tourists—and operate in mixed teams of three to six, often middle-aged," says Bond. "They will look like a nice family or group of businessmen to fit in. It allows them to walk through hotels unchallenged, sit down and have breakfast, then walk out with bags, laptops, etc... They are so hard to trace. They will be here on a six-month VISA, go off on a European tour, then pop up again in London later. We have to trawl through weeks of CCTV footage just to keep track of what members are in any Chilean gang at any one time. You are constantly creating a web of info."

The best groups work like this: They will spot a target in a department store or coming out of a hotel, they will track them throughout the day, often swapping roles as lookout or following in close pursuit. Then they'll swoop, while you're trying on shoes, sat at a coffee table or on an escalator. Escalators are useful as the narrow exit means you can be blocked; a lady accomplice might accidentally drop her bags to seal the exit, then shoppers naturally bump into each other, forming the perfect ruse for bag dipping.

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A group of young teenagers being questioned on Oxford Street.

The skill level is high. Two Chilean women were arrested and charged after wearing burkas to rob wealthy Arab tourists filing out of Park Lane and Mayfair.

"Generally, security guards and shop staff don't question middle-aged women in Islamic clothing," says Bond. "It allows them to get close and then drop the edges of their garment over your bag and just take it away. The two women we caught were working alongside two or three males who were on a separate scam, but constantly passing information to each other. We apprehended the women with a bag containing €130,000 and £20,000 [$140,000 and $30,000], then gold and diamond jewelry. As I say, the Chileans don't mess about."

So committed are the theft factories the professional thieves from Chile train in, Met officers report many arrested have scarring on their hands, earned from stealthily lifting items from handbags filled with razor blades.

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PC Bond's small group work 12-hour plain-clothes shifts in the most hectic shopping district in Europe. Pushing through the claustrophobic thrum of Oxford Street, the slow churn of customers congesting the tube station, every second you face a shoulder charge or blocked path. Forget running after bad guys. This is all about analyzing faces and tracking potential offenders in mass crowds.

Despite his squad achieving a 50 percent drop in thefts in the last 12 months, his job is a living migraine, says PC Bond: "Every day you are looking for offenders among hundreds of faces you see each minute. It's very hard and—with many thefts—you have to catch them in the act to prove they did it."

We spend hours walking around in circles, taking phone calls, or tips from in-store detectives. The police team operate like the thieves—acting alone or in groups, having a mixed team and regularly changing clothes, hats, or jackets. If a known pickpocket gang are in the area, we follow them, but even when you suspect a thief may have nicked a phone, they give it to a pal who stood outside the door who gives it to someone else. The best thieves work in chains and are rarely, if ever, caught in possession.

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The manager of a big chain's flagship store on Oxford Street tells us on our rounds, "The gangs are big and have many different fronts. We intercept sweet old ladies with dodgy cards to groups of lads who are inexplicably hanging around the ladies' section after bags."

We're staking the outside of a designer outlet on Regent Street when a grey security tag spins to the floor from a jacket. The man who's unpicked it stealthily folds the garment over his arm and goes to walk out. It's here where we intercept him. The man, and another guy he's with, are Romanian and are found to have a stash of clothes without receipts, a load of phones they have no passwords for, and multiple denominations of cash.

The handcuffs are on, but the gears of justice grind slowly. The suspect can't identify any of the numbers or pictures in any of the phones he claims are his, and insists the security tag just fell off in his hand.

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Officers checking the phones the suspects had on them.

ORB officer PC Paul Penrose says that if these two suspects are charged, it's unlikely he'll see them again in this group. "With the Romanians or Eastern Europeans, they all move around—up north or to a new country entirely," he tells me. "Few stay here for longer than three months. Even the Romanian beggars work in chains, having people come and collect their money so it isn't confiscated at source. The thieves are operating in gangs and each will have their own specialism—bag thefts, ATM fraud, pickpocketing."

Unlike in the UK, getting a new identity is relatively easy in Romania. A felon can go home and come back with a whole new ID within a matter of weeks. What they can't change, though, is their face, which is where the ORB team come in.

One senior officer tells me, "We had a South American gang who had been operating in the area. They had been hitting bars, restaurants, shops. They may have made off with as much as £1 million [$1.5 million] in just a few months. But we couldn't lay a glove on them. Then I saw one of them out and about and followed them until they committed a theft. We eventually pulled them in and managed to charge them with 15 offenses and [got] a custodial sentence."

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The offenses don't stop when shops close. "Hugger mugging"—a crime popular with Algerian gangs—is common across Soho and Mayfair. These are groups of men who target wealthy drunks in central London, usually on side streets. They'll go to high five a victim, grab their hand, and—while a cohort body blocks or distracts them–they'll slip your watch off your wrist. While working in the area, an officer himself was even targeted, giving chase as the assailants made off down a side street.

The attempts for cash are endless in W1. In the last few weeks, the number of reported thefts around flower sellers has also spiked. "They use the flowers as means to get close to the table, then, with their hand under the flowers, swipe the table of any valuables," one female officer tells me.

The job can be a dangerous one. In the last few weeks PC Bond has had a couple of teeth punched out, and a female colleague was knocked unconscious when tackling an Eastern European offender who made off in a getaway car.

Though, as you've probably realized by now, it's often hard enough to get that close to them in the first place.

Follow Andy on Twitter.