Sim-O

I’m not the only one that feels a little uneasy (it’s not quite the right word, but can’t seem to get the right one) about this, am I?

“[Prince Andrew] wants to raise the profile of the all-party group and wants us to make the case in parliament and to the business secretary of the business opportunities out in Azerbaijan. He feels it is a Cinderella country that has tremendous opportunities.

“One of the things he talked about was his feeling that a place like Azerbaijan is somewhere of great opportunity, and the more British politicians and businesses engage themselves with their counterparts in Azerbaijan, there will be material benefits.”

I know Prince Andrew is envoy for trade and not something touchy-feely like morals and ethics, but it’s a bit crass to say the least, isn’t it? Nevermind that ‘we’ would be doing business with a torturer and his regime, eh? Just show me the money!

Maybe I’m being a little unfair. Business, especially big business has never been about that, and if Andrew started bleating on about human rights everyone would wonder what had gotten into him. After all, he is the Trade Envoy, not the Amabassador For Not Being Beastly To People. That role is somebody elses. Probably.

I can’t be easy for Andrew, having to visit these places, be entertained by horribe characters and in turn entertain them when they visit UK. At least he only visits Azerbaijan in his proffessional capacity. If he visited there in his personal capacity, that might really cast doubt over whether he gives a toss or not.

Andrew has been to the former Soviet republic three times since 2008 in a private capacity

Oh. Well, it’s only three times in just over three years. It could be worse. The media there could give him pet name. Now that would be disatrous for ones’ reputation.

He is often described as “the dear guest” by local media

Oh.

From the Guardian…

The true extent of the Labour government’s involvement in the illegal abduction and torture of its own citizens after the al-Qaida attacks of September 2001 has been spelled out in stark detail with the disclosure during high court proceedings of a mass of highly classified documents.

Previously secret papers that have been disclosed include a number implicating Tony Blair’s office in many of the events that are to be the subject of the judicial inquiry that David Cameron announced last week.

Among the most damning documents are a series of interrogation reports from MI5 officers that betray their disregard for the suffering a British resident whom they were questioning at a US airbase in Afghanistan. The documents also show that the officers were content to see the mistreatment continue.

Read the rest.

via TenPercent on Twitter

Update: By being on the ball, as usual *rolls eyes*, I missed this, the Guardians’ small library of documents. (via D-Notice)

Dan Choi is one if 54 Arabic translators dismissed due to their sexual preference
So it was okay to waterboard a guy over 80 times, but God forbid the guy who could understand what that prick was saying has a boyfriend.

via Stop the War

Update:
Arse. I forgot to add a link to Mr Power who has those photos.

ORIGINAL DOWNING ST SMEARS VICTIM
RETURNS TO HAUNT NEW LABOUR

Thatcher Room
Portcullis House
Tuesday 28 April 1.45pm
Formal Evidence Session on UK Complicity in Torture
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights
Witness: Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan
(currently Rector of the University of Dundee).

In 2004, Craig Murray told us that:

– The British Government was complicit in the most vicious forms of torture
– He had been the victim of a lurid smear campaign initiated by New Labour
– The government was lying about all this

In 2004, much of the public and media was not willing to accept that the government would cooperate with torture or with false allegations against an innocent man. Many still had trust in the basic honesty and decency of government.

The evidence that Craig Murray was telling the truth about torture has now become overwhelming, including from the case of Binyam Mohammed. The UK “benefited” continually from intelligence passed on from the CIA waterboarding programme and from torture in countries including Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Egypt.

Craig Murray suffered the most high profile sacking of any British Ambassador for a century. But in 2005 the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee refused to hear him in evidence, despite allowing Jack Straw to appear and attack him.

Astonishingly, this is the first time Craig Murray will ever have been allowed to give formal evidence in the UK on his grave allegations, and be questioned on the truth of his testimony.

As the Scotland Yard investigation proceeds into MI5 and MI6 collusion in 16 cases of torture, Craig Murray will argue that it is not the security service operatives, but the Ministers who set the policy – and specifically Jack Straw – who should be facing criminal charges.

Contact: Craig Murray on 07979 691085 or craigmurray@mail.ru
Transcript of Craig Murray’s formal evidence statement is at http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/03/trying_again_my.html

Torture Memos: The Music Video…

Jon Stewart:

Craig Murray…

This is the most important blog post I have ever made. I would be grateful if you could do everything in your power to disseminate a link to anyone you know who has the remotest interest in human rights – or should have. This blog will be silent for a few days now.

Tucked away at Page 15 of its annual Human Rights report, the FCO has finally made a public admission of its use of intelligence from torture. Despite the Orwellian doublespeak about “unreserved condemnation of torture”, this is the clearest statement the government has ever made that it, as a policy, employs intelligence from torture.

Read the rest.

Via D-Notice

The Guardian…

The rules that determine how MI5 and MI6 are allowed to interrogate suspects, including strict guidance banning the use of torture, will be published for the first time, Gordon Brown said today.

Just because there are rules banning something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

Participation in politics is well, disappointing. People do not give a toss because they think there is no point. No ones going to listen to what they have to say or what they think.

There is a lot of truth in that. and here is just one example of that…

Emails sent by members of the public to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights were deleted by the committee without even being read. Two people who happened to have enabled tracking sent me the following two automated repllies they received:

Your message

To: Joint Committee On Human Rights
Subject: Craig Murray:
Sent: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 20:51:41 -0000

was deleted without being read on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:46:42 -0000

and

Your message

To: Joint Committee On Human Rights
Cc: craig murray
Subject: Torture evidence on 10 March
Sent: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 14:47:36 -0000

was deleted without being read on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:46:42 -0000

Note the identical time of deletion. Evidently people’s emails were not even deleted individually but selected as a group and deleted en masse.

This is a shame because there was no template and people made some very telling individual points. Plainly people put time and thought into attempting to participate actively in a key part of a supposedly democratic process. It is a disgrace that these emails were deleted unread. Is the UK really a democracy now?

Follow the link for some of the letters sent.

Timothy Garton Ash (CiF) [my emphasis]…

So, here’s the charge sheet in shorthand summary: American-authorised torture; British complicity; an American-British attempt to withhold evidence; and now the predictable temptation to cover up.
…
Last October, all the papers from the court hearings, open and closed, were given by the home secretary to the attorney general. If she thinks there might be a case for criminal prosecution against Witness B, or anyone else, she must either start a criminal investigation herself or hand it over to the director of public prosecutions. More than four months later, nothing has happened. Why? Well, perhaps she has just been busy. But there remains, in the British system, this latent conflict of interest which the high court summarises thus: “the Attorney General is a Minister of the Crown and thus a member of the Executive branch of the state whose officials are alleged to have facilitated cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or torture“.

A comment of Justins’ applies equally well here, I think…

They’re going to get away with this, aren’t they?