Controlling information and the ability to publicly "name" are crucial to maintaining social power and dominance. As a result, we are seeing increasingly bizarre abuses of "gag orders" as the victims of abuse are now longer willing to be shamed into silence, and abusers look for new ways to maintain the upper hand. Surely "gag orders" have a (limited) place when someone has yet to be tried. But this UNNAMED DAD has confessed and been convicted of abusing his infant son! So we can't even pretend that this gag order is related to the need of a fair trial. It's to maintain lack of accountability and ignorance. And to further clamp down on the victims and keep them from speaking openly about what happened to them.
And it's totally outrageous that this dad got the legal equivalent of a wrist slap for what he did to this baby.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/dorset/8371889.stm
Page last updated at 14:35 GMT, Saturday, 21 November 2009
Baby abuse father 'must be named'
A Dorset woman whose ex-husband broke the ribs of their new born son has said she wants a court order to be lifted so she can name and shame him.
The baby, whose identity is protected by the order, had four ribs broken by his father when he was five weeks old.
The man, who admitted two assaults on the child, was sentenced to 170 hours of community service.
The mother is unable to name her ex-partner without breaching the order protecting her son.
She said: "I think when he gets older he will be very disappointed that his biological father was not named and shamed in a way, especially with what he got in court.
"I have to act on my son's behalf and do what I think as a mother will be right for him when he is older."
She added: "He's now free to be around other children. My ex-husband is not on any sort of register and I think that it's awful."