The current torture scandal in Britain is about how they were willing to use information extracted in Uzbek prisons. Britain, too, has legal beagles to pretend it’s all okay. In their case, it’s supposed to be okay so long as it’s not used in evidence. /Holds head with both hands to prevent explosion./

The British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, protested against this practice until his government decided to remove him from office. He has a book ready for publication on the subject of Britain’s role in using torture. It has to be vetted by the UK Foreign Office. Instead of doing that, or pointing out any bits they object to that compromise national security, they have told the former Ambassador that he may not publish at all, and that all copies are to be destroyed.

Right. Britain, the first nation to have anything like the Magna Carta, the first to have habeas corpus, has decided free speech is inconvenient. So copies of Murray’s unpublished work are multiplying all over the world, to make sure it can’t be suppressed. Please download it to your site and include it in your blog, if you have one.
http://users.pandora.be/quarsan/craig/telegrams.pdf
http://users.pandora.be/quarsan/craig/npaper.jpg
Please let me know in comments or by email if the links no longer work, and I’ll post copies from another server.

Folks, I got up on this soapbox because I couldn’t just sit there when the Abu Ghraib disgrace came out. I had to do something, even if it’s kinda useless in the real world. Unfortunately, I have a very vivid imagination, and I can’t deal with the news about torture. I literally wake up at three in the morning, listening to screams I can’t hear. So I haven’t read any of this. I’m afraid of clicking on the links. But the word just has to get out there.

More information here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3750370.stm
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2005/04/timeline_of_cra.html

Links from: King of Zembla, a href=”http://haloscan.com/tb/simbaud/113593767086382173″ Boiling the Messenger [2014-05-14: link now inactive]
Trackback: http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/trackback/716

Technorati tags: human rights, crimes against humanity, Craig Murray, torture, Uzbekistan