Yearly archives: 2005


Blows to democracy

From The Guardian

The retreat from the rule of law – despite the enactment of the Human Rights Act – has been the deepest flaw of the Blair administration. Some retreat on civil rights was obviously necessary in the wake of this summer’s terrorist attacks. But as an eminent QC noted after the bombings: “It is all too easy to respond in a way that undermines commitment to our most deeply held values and convictions and cheapens our right to call ourselves a civilised nation.” Yesterday, towards the end of an interview on the BBC Today programme in which he unequivocally defended this week’s proposed strengthening of anti-terrorist measures, the prime minister was read a part of the QC’s opinion and reminded that the author was his wife, Cherie Booth. Expressing gratitude for the reminder, he conceded: “It’s important that we don’t respond in a way that damages the very fabric of our democracy.”

Here are three ways fundamental democratic principles are being quite unnecessarily damaged by this week’s moves. First, free speech. Under the proposed law anyone who “glorifies, exalts or celebrates” any terrorist act committed over the past 20 years could face a sentence of up to five years. Rarely, even within notorious conspiracy legislation, has there been such a broadly drafted clause. What makes it even more unnecessary is that the bill already tightens up the incitement to terrorism offence. If the test has to be overt endorsement of terrorism – as officials suggested this week – why not prosecute them under the direct incitement clause? More absurd still, the home secretary will be empowered to go even further and draw up a list of historical terrorist acts which if “glorified” could mean a criminal act had been committed. Consider the huge distractions such a list would generate, when all efforts ought to be concentrated on effective moves to pre-empt terrorism.

Second – which both opposition parties are rightly opposing – is a clause extending the right to detain suspects for questioning for up to three months. Remember, we are talking about suspects. Many will turn out to be innocent. The current 14 days was only recently introduced. Even at the height of the IRA campaign in the 1970s and 1980s, only seven-day detentions were allowed. Three months would be the equivalent of a six-month prison sentence given current 50% remission rules. Clearly the home secretary had doubts himself. An early draft of a letter he sent to shadow spokesmen was leaked yesterday. It included the line – “I believe there is room for debate as to whether we should go as far as three months” – that was deleted from the final version. Charles Clarke is not going to win the cross-party support which he was rightly seeking to build if he sticks to this proposal. He should drop it now.

The third threat to fundamental rights concerns the detention of seven Algerians earlier this week. They were alleged to have been involved in a plot to spread ricin, a deadly toxin. But the substances the police claimed were ricin contained no trace of the poison. Four who faced trial were found not guilty and the proceedings against the other three dropped, but they have still been declared by the home secretary as “a threat to national security”. There is no right for a foreigner in Britain to remain in this country once declared “non conducive to public good” save for two important caveats: that deportation does not lead to either torture or capital punishment. Algeria has a notorious reputation, documented by Amnesty International, for ill treatment and torture of prisoners. Our courts are bound to uphold these defences, set out in the Human Rights Act, and refuse their deportation to Algeria. The courts should stand firm – despite pressures from the prime minister -and uphold the rule of law. Our values, as Cherie Booth asserted, need protection.

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Arts world unites for plea to pull troops out of Iraq

By Ben Russell writing in The Independent

A coalition of artists, musicians and writers have joined anti-war campaigners to make a collective appeal to Tony Blair to pull British troops out of Iraq by the end of the year.

The diverse group, including the musician Brian Eno, the actor and film director Mark Rylance and the guitar player John Williams, as well as 100 academics, MPs and activists, signed an open letter of protest condemning the continued occupation of Iraq as “an unmitigated disaster”.

The letter, which was also signed by the film director Ken Loach, the Body Shop founder Anita Roddick and the poet Benjamin Zephaniah, urged Mr Blair to start moves to pull troops out of Iraq when the US-led alliance’s United Nations mandate expires at the end of December.

Mr Eno and the film star Julie Christie delivered the letter to Downing Street yesterday, the day after a suicide bomber killed more than 150 in Baghdad’s bloodiest day since the fall of Saddam. And in the past week, three more British soldiers have been killed in Iraq, bringing to 95 the number of British service personnel killed in there since March 2003.

The text states: “The war and occupation of Iraq have been an unmitigated disaster, both for the people of Iraq and Britain. Countless innocent Iraqis have lost their lives and still more innocents have been killed on our streets.

“British soldiers, many of whom do not want to serve in Iraq, have been killed, wounded or maimed.”

The letter argues that a pullout would stop Iraqi deaths at the hands of British troops and make Britain’s streets safer.

Speaking in Downing Street, Mr Eno told The Independent: “We are saying that the war is a disaster and has failed in every way and is continuing to fail. Personally I’m saying I do not want to be associated with a bunch of red necks with big guns and small minds.

“People who were perhaps agnostic about the war have become much more sceptical about it. I want to say to Mr Blair that he would not be that badly off if he admitted he had made the wrong decision.” Ms Christie added: “What we are doing is encouraging the growth of terrorism, despite Tony Blair’s vociferous denials.

“People will not stop fighting against occupation,” Asked what her message was to Mr Blair, she said: “It’s hard to talk to someone who isn’t listening.”

The letter was drawn up by the Stop the War coalition. The group is hoping for a huge turnout at a demonstration in London on 24 September, on the eve of the Labour Party conference.

Labour left-wingers are planning to raise the war at the conference, and are hoping for a significant demonstration to increase the pressure on Mr Blair to act. Jeremy Corbyn, the MP for Islington North, said campaigners were attempting to secure a debate on an emergency resolution on Iraq at Labour’s conference later this month.

He said: “The message of the eve of the Labour Party conference will remind Tony Blair of the anger about the Iraq war. We want to … build support for the march on September 24.”

Other signatories include Professor Richard Dawkins, the scientist, Billy Bragg, Tony Woodley, the general secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union and the playwright Harold Pinter.

The letter to the Prime Minister

The war and occupation of Iraq have been an unmitigated disaster both for the people of Iraq and Britain. Countless innocent Iraqis have lost their lives and still more innocents have been killed on our streets. British soldiers, many of whom do not want to serve in Iraq, have been killed, wounded or maimed.

The United Nations’ mandate for the occupation of Iraq expires this December. We call on you to initiate the first steps to end this carnage by announcing that British troops will be brought home by the end of this year.

If you do this, you can stop the killing of any more Iraqis by British troops. You can save the lives of our soldiers. You can make Britain’s streets safer. You can defend civil liberties rather than erode them.

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Deportations not based on intelligence assessment of risk

In the Home Affairs Committee hearings Charles Clarke admits that there is no intelligence assessment to suggest that his plans for deportation will reduce the threat of terrorism. This admission follows concerns about the risk of torture for people being deported to countries with a track record of abuse. The hearing was also told of the first British citizen to be subject to executive detention without trial (control orders).

JAMES KIRKUP, writing in the Scotsman looks at what was said.

“MI5 HAS not told ministers that deporting alleged Islamic extremists will significantly reduce the threat of terrorist attacks, Charles Clarke admitted yesterday, prompting suggestions the government’s policy is driven more by politics than genuine security concerns.

The Home Secretary’s revelation came as he gave evidence to a committee of MPs investigating anti-terrorism laws.

The Home Secretary was asked by Janet Dean, a Labour MP, if he had been advised by MI5 that deporting foreign preachers would significantly reduce the risk of bombings.

“It does not reflect specific security service advice in the way that you put your question,” Mr Clarke replied.

A senior Whitehall official later confirmed that MI5 had not been involved in the formulation of the deportation policy, and would only become involved if asked to provide a security assessment of individuals facing expulsion. The deportation plan was conceived in the Home Office, the official said.

Mr Clarke told the committee that in the wake of the London bomb attacks, the “climate” around terrorism had changed, which explained new government policies.

But, questioned about officials’ decision to lower their threat assessment in the months before the 7 July attack, he insisted that the level of danger had not risen and that intelligence did not suggest any specific threat facing Britain.

John Denham, the former Labour Home Office minister who chairs the committee, said afterwards that Mr Clarke’s answers suggested a government policy driven by the desire simply to reflect public opinion and not sensible precautions.

“The implication is that the decision to deport is based not on the actual threat but on the change of mood and atmosphere since the bombings.

Mr Denham pointed out that earlier this year the government had argued that its “control orders” curbing individual freedoms were an adequate safeguard against terrorism.

Since the London bombings, Mr Denham said, the government’s stance had changed, “even though there has been no change in the threat”.

He added: “Some of the policies from the government appear to be reflective only of the need to be seen to be doing something.”

So far, the government has not successfully deported anyone suspected of encouraging militancy, though officials have drawn up a list of several likely targets for expulsion.

Nine of the people on that list were previously interned at Belmarsh jail in London, then released and subject to “control orders.” Those orders have been allowed to lapse pending deportation proceedings, Mr Clarke revealed yesterday. He also said that the first control order has been imposed on an unnamed British citizen, last Monday.

There are now three people in Britain under control orders, among them believed to be Abu Qatada, a preacher who is linked to Osama bin Laden and was arrested last month.

Mr Clarke said he had refused three requests to modify terms of the control orders, which impose a loose form of house arrest on suspects, including a curfew and restrictions on who they can speak to and meet.

Mr Clarke also said “hundreds” of people in Britain remained under surveillance.”

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Death in Bobur Square

In a remarkable dispatch, Ed Vulliamy pieces together for the first time the full story of the Uzbek massacre that the world forgot

From The Guardian

Enough bricks had finally arrived to build a bread oven, and they finished it within hours: a splendid creation with a dome of clay, wood smoke rising into the late afternoon sun as it baked some lepeshka bread, deliciously special to Uzbekistan. It was yet another day’s hard work by those trying to make this place home. These are Uzbeks, but this is not Uzbekistan; this is a refugee camp on the outskirts of the Romanian town of Timisoara, where huge efforts have gone into making a temporary staging post, before this tightknit group is scattered across the globe to whichever countries may take them.

These are not ordinary refugees, outcast and dispossessed, like so many millions are, as the human side-effect of war. These 439 people are eyewitnesses to and, remarkably, survivors of one of the worst atrocities of recent times, a massacre which the perpetrators have tried to keep secret, and with whom the international diplomatic community cooperates through a conspiracy of silence.

The May 13 massacre of hundreds, possibly thousands, of innocent civilians at Andijan in eastern Uzbekistan was carried out by soldiers and paramilitary units dispatched to kill by the regime of President Islam Karimov – protege of Vladimir Putin and, until recently, a crucial ally to Britain and America in the “war on terror”. The dead were among thousands who had gathered to protest for democratic and economic reforms, and in support of businessmen arrested and held on trumped-up charges. To date, there has been no official tally of how many perished, nor an official acknowledgement of the atrocity by the authorities, who have refused an international investigation.

And when these refugees disperse, so too will the only available testimony to what happened that terrible day, in what has been called central Asia’s Tiananmen Square. Despite their wish to remain together, no single country has agreed to take all 439, and these people will therefore scatter across the globe, along with their account of the carnage. Meanwhile, the Karimov regime is harassing, arresting and torturing the refugees’ families to the point that the refugees prefer not to endanger them with further contact.

For this article, their names have been changed and faces cannot be shown, for fear of what might happen to their loved ones back home. Karimov has refused an international inquiry into the bloodletting and closed his borders to human rights organisations and journalists wanting to investigate the massacre. Instead, a series of trials will reportedly begin next week of those charged with “fomenting” the violence of May 13. Perversely, it is not Karimov’s troops who will stand accused, but those who organised and participated in the demonstration.

Most of the refugees manage to hold on to the odd photograph or memento from home. But these people at Timisoara have nothing. They left for the demonstration that morning, only to find themselves lucky to be alive, and to be here. Most of the women left their children at home that day and have not seen them since. These are families torn asunder. But their eyes are defiant and alive; there is a curious strength amid the wretchedness. “There is light in our eyes,” says one woman, Zarnigor. “Do not think we are weak people. We are not.”

Armed jailbreak

Karimov came to power in Uzbekistan in 1991, shortly after the country gained independence from the Soviet Union. US and European officials declined to send observers to the country’s most recent elections in 2000, saying there was no possibility that it could be fair; Karimov has since changed the constitution to extend his presidential term. His regime has persecuted the democratic opposition and representatives of what human rights organisations call “independent Islam”, accusing anyone who dares criticise him of fundamentalism or terrorism. After the September 2001 attacks on the US, Uzbekistan, thanks to its Afghan border, became a crucial strategic ally to the Anglo-American axis; after Britain’s ambassador to Tashkent, Craig Murray, questioned Tony Blair’s support of such a regime in October 2002 he faced disciplinary proceedings. In 2003, the UN special rapporteur for torture, Theo van Boven, called the use of such practice “systematic” in Uzbekistan. There were and are small, militant and violent ‘ ‘ Islamic factions in Uzbekistan, but they have never propelled the democratic movement and had nothing to do with the events of May 13.

Andijan was a focal point for opposition, lying in the densely populated but desperately poor Fergana valley. It was here that 23 businessmen, who provided work independent of the state, were arrested in June 2004; they were tried eight months later in February 2005 on trumped-up charges of “religious extremism”, and imprisoned. On the night of May 12, relatives and supporters of the men reportedly seized weapons from a police station and barracks, mounted an armed jailbreak and released the 23. Some of those dealing with the refugees suspect a set-up by agents provocateurs, but whatever the truth, the dramatic breakout sparked spirits and set the scene for an opposition rally planned for the next day.

Unfortunately for the regime, a correspondent for the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Galima Bukharbaeva, was present in Bobur Square as the state militia descended on a crowd of 10,000-30,000 demonstrators and began to shoot indiscriminately. Otherwise, news of the ensuing massacre might never have reached the west. Bukharbaeva’s notebook and press card now carry a bullet hole as a souvenir from the day.

Even more inconveniently for those who would wish the massacre forgotten, hundreds of demonstrators escaped to Kyrgyzstan where they were given shelter by the UN High Commission for Refugees. Four refugees have been deported back to Uzbekistan and an unknown fate, but at the end of July UNHCR secured the transfer of the remaining 439 to Romania, pending asylum in other countries. In June, Human Rights Watch published an account of the slaughter pieced together from interviews with refugees. Amnesty International also interviewed the survivors, and reported similarly. And yet the diplomatic and political silence has been deafening. Initial demands for an international inquiry have tapered into nothing. When Jack Straw hosted the EU foreign ministers’ summit earlier this month, he could have included the massacre on its agenda, but did not. The EU’s “Partnership and Co-operation” scheme with the Karimov regime remains intact. The Foreign Office, like the EU, is not discussing sanctions of any kind.

After being squeezed into cramped tents in Kyrgyzstan, the refugees’ Romanian camp is well run and tidy. Women work on bright-coloured textiles while men play football. There is a school with lessons in English, Russian and Uzbek, for adults and children alike. One man is learning phrases from his exercise book. “Where is your family?” it reads. “Why are you here?”

They ask to tell their story in two groups, men first, then women. “We went on the demonstration because there was no work,” says Pulat, a mason. “I couldn’t find a job,” agrees Timur, also a mason. Both were laid off when the businessmen were arrested. “I couldn’t feed my children,” says Yuldash, who owned a bakery and hairdressers in Andijan, and who shows me a bullethole in his hat. “We hoped the local government would come to hear our grievances. People said even Karimov himself would come,” says Dolim. “We went because of unemployment, low salaries not paid, pensions not received.” Questions about religious fundamentalism receive a hollow laugh.

Crowds began to gather in Bobur Square from 7am on May 13. There were some armed oppositionists around a local government building at one end, say the refugees and international organisations that have investigated the massacre, but not among the 10,000 demonstrators in the square, who included large numbers of women and children. The first shooting began at 8am, says Hakim, as government militiamen drove up, opened fire and left, during which time he saw a woman and child killed. The car was followed by a military jeep, spraying the crowd with gunfire. Then “it came from all sides,” says Dolim. “We had gone expecting speeches, not bullets.”

Why did they stay in the square? “Because,” says Hakim, “if you tried to leave by side streets, they were blocked by armoured cars. I saw people trying to escape being killed up those streets.” Anyway, says Nizomidin, “we were expecting people from the government to arrive and stop it, to save us. Someone said Karimov was on his way, and people started cheering.”

Instead, at about 10am, a group of armoured cars entered the square, criss-crossing its edges and firing indiscriminately. In no way, say the witnesses, were they targeting the armed men at the other end. The shooting continued sporadically until 5pm, when two columns of armed personnel carriers arrived. “The second [column] opened fire directly at us,” says Yuldash. “I saw people falling around me, women and children too; screaming and blood everywhere. I saw at least five small children killed.”

By the end, says Pulat, “there was one road open, along which we could get away”. It led to a junction, blocked by APCs, but for a left turn, and along this route, the bedraggled procession proceeded. “We formed a group – I’d say about 3,000-strong,” recalls Nizomidin. “We put men on the edges, to protect women and children.”

As they advanced, some members of the crowd took six policemen hostage to use as human shields. Even so, the column was ambushed by snipers positioned in four-storey buildings along the route. “You could tell they were marksmen, because those around me were being hit in the head or heart,” says Timur. “A boy of about 16 in front of me was hit and his head smashed away. Another was shot between the eyes.”

Further along, a military unit was lined up in battle formation, as though facing an advancing army, not an unarmed crowd. Soldiers were lying behind sandbags; behind them were APCs. As the fleeing people approached, they were assailed by gunfire. The slaughter lasted 90 minutes. “The dead were lying in front of me piled three-thick,” says Nizomidin. “At one point, I passed out. When I regained consciousness, it was raining – on the ground, I could see water running with blood.”

There was one street open, “one way out”, says Pulat. Turning right here, a few survivors made their escape. “To get to that street,” says Nizomidin, “I had to climb over the bodies. There were dead women and children; I saw one woman lying dead with a small baby in her arms.”

Not everyone took that escape route immediately. Nafruz, 34, lay on the ground, realising that “whoever raised their head would be shot. I was surrounded from all sides by shooting.” It seems likely, from the size of ordnance described by the survivors, and the fact that bodies were reportedly being flung back a metre and a half when hit, that anti-aircraft weaponry was being used against the unarmed crowd. “My clothes were covered in brains and blood,” says Nafruz. “I stayed two hours after the shooting stopped, then crawled over the bodies to the college.”

‘A scene from hell’

Nafruz’s 38-year-old cousin Baltabai had gone on the march, he says, “because I was unemployed and wanted to demand my rights. I tried to carry a wounded boy, but the man helping me was shot in the head, so we dropped him. People were shouting, ‘Don’t stand up!’ but a woman rose when her child was killed to hold the body, crying, and a sniper shot her through the head too.”

Like his cousin, Baltabai hid under piles of corpses until after the shooting stopped, he thinks at about 8pm – 10 hours after the gunfire began. “Then I crawled behind a tree and stood, looking at what I saw. Dead people everywhere, and some alive, just moving. I felt sick, because of all the things splattered on my clothes. I went into the college and saw the APCs moving over the bodies. They wanted to kill anyone who was wounded. Soldiers walked down the sidewalk, firing single shots at anyone moving. It was a scene from hell, but I saw it, just a hundred days ago.”

The crowd which had taken the side street wound its way by night towards the Kyrgyz border, a 50km road along which the refugees were periodically ambushed. “We had to leave the wounded by the wayside,” recalls Pulat. “There was nothing we could do for them.”

“A lot of women turned back at the border town of Teshiktash because they had left their babies at home,” says Timur. “Most were killed as they walked back.” Some did make it to the border, however, their clothes caked in blood and mud. “We carried white flags to show we were not armed,” says Hakim. “The border guards searched us, five by five.”

Even though they had got to Kyrgyzstan, though, the Uzbek authorities did not relent in ‘ ‘ their pursuit. Family members of those who had fled were rounded up and escorted across the border to plead with them to return, apparently with full Kyrgyz cooperation. “My wife was sent to tell me my son was going to be arrested if I didn’t return,” says Yuldash. Hakim’s father was also sent to tell him that soldiers and the neighbourhood committee had raided their house. “He said: ‘Don’t come back, son, you’ll be arrested. Try to run!’, but when we came outside again with the Uzbek guards watching, we had to go through this stupid performance of him pulling me and me pushing him away, for his own safety.”

At least in Kyrgyzstan, however, the refugees heard news of family members and of and those who elected to go back (in Romania, they are almost entirely isolated). “One man’s son decided to go,” says Yuldash, “and they broke his arms and legs at the border. It was clear what was waiting for anyone who went back: prison and torture.” “Our families told us that ever since we left they were being watched and raided,” says Pulat. “One man who went back had been taken for interrogation with needles in his nails. Later, they killed him, took the body to his parents and said: ‘Here is your child. Let that be an example.'”

“Someone gave the order to kill all of us,” says Yuldash. He looks at me. “But can you tell us, sir: why this silence over what happened in Andijan?”

‘If you can, just run’

We conclude, exhausted, for the women are waiting to talk. There are more of them, in brilliantly coloured headscarves. Mutabar was expecting a peaceful march, and took three of her children; likewise Yulduzhon, who took her son, “but we left our babies. We thought we were going home after the demonstration.” Their account of what happened accords with that of the men. “When they were shooting, we lay on top of our children to protect them,” says one woman, Gulchera. “The dead were spread all over the street, there was blood in the rain, running like rivers. Everywhere was the smell of blood.” “My son was shot in the head,” cries another. “I saw my own son shot in the head. You could see women and children’s shoes all over the street.”

Then one new, horrific detail emerges about the border crossing into Kyrgyzstan. “When we reached a crossroads, near Teshiktash,” says Zarnigor, “some men said, ‘Let’s go this way, over the hills,’ but a group of mostly women and children sat down to rest. When we got up and were walking over the crossroads, a ring of soldiers opened fire, even though we were waving white shawls and shouting ‘Don’t shoot!'”

“We were mostly women in that group,” says Naziba, “about to join the main column. I saw three women and children die next to me – women killed by soldiers.” “There was one woman next to me,” adds Barchinoi, “who said, ‘You go, you go,’ and I answered, ‘What about you?’ Then I saw that the bullets had torn away the other half of her body.”

“The men shouted: ‘If you can, just run,'” says Zarnigor. “They said that we would have to leave the dead and wounded. When we crossed the border, the guards told us, ‘Just be quiet – don’t talk about it.'”

Of 13 women round the table, 11 have left children at home. “I have left six sons,” says one. “I miss them, and I wonder . . .” Another, Barchinoi, says, “I was still breastfeeding one of the babies I left behind. But I am scared to ask for news, because of what might happen.”

The Uzbek regime denies that military or internal security troops fired on demonstrators on May 13. President Karimov initially estimated a death toll of nine, although the official figure was increased to 169 by May 18. The Uzbek government insists that any firing was directed against armed insurgents, and that “only bandits” were killed. While UN demands for an international inquiry are denied, a series of programmes has been aired on Uzbek television showing what human rights organisations insist is a fabricated history of events.

Showing a determination conspicuously unmatched by international governments and the diplomatic community, Human Rights Watch and IWPR have tried to find out what is happening in Uzbekistan. IWPR reports that in the massacre’s wake, “security forces went round methodically finishing off the injured”. A policeman interviewed for the report expresses “the disquiet he felt after three days gathering corpses”. HRW has established that bodies were hastily removed from the square and surrounding streets. There are rumours that “some bodies were buried near Bogshamal cemetery”, says HRW, but that “this and other suspected burial places were off-limits for journalists and human rights workers”. Both organisations confirm the policy of harassing and detaining refugees’ relatives, and a further HRW report, due imminently, will detail the torture of massacre survivors, attempting to persuade them to confess to possession of weapons, membership of illegal organisations, attempting to portray a fictitious armed uprising. The new UN torture rapporteur, Manfred Novak, has accused Uzbekistan of torturing citizens in the aftermath of the massacre. But information is agonisingly scarce.

Meanwhile, the 439 are by no means the only refugees, nor the only ones at risk. Amnesty International estimates that as many as 1,000 Uzbeks could still be hiding in Kyrgyzstan, and that “the authorities in Kyrgyzstan are effectively not in a position to provide refugees physical protection from the Uzbekistani government forces they were fleeing.” There are reports of Uzbek security forces operating on Kyrgyz territory in pursuit of their quarry.

‘Disgraceful and dismaying’

Fifteen further survivors of the massacre remain in custody in Kyrgyzstan: UNHCR has established refugee status for 12 of them, and found destination countries for 11. The remaining three are of concern to UNHCR; their status is being assessed separately by both UNHCR and the Kyrgyz authorities. “We continue to appeal for the immediate release of the 15 who have now been in prison for some three months, after having gone through the terrible ordeal in Andijan,” says UNHCR’s Astrid van Genderen Stort, speaking from Geneva.

“It’s disgraceful and dismaying,” says the London director for Human Rights Watch, Steve Crawshaw, “that there is still no international attempt to address the horror of what took place. The facts are undeniable, and the response is foolish, cynical or both. We come across this notion among governments of Europe, including the British presidency of the EU, that there shouldn’t be too much pressure on Uzbekistan in case something worse happens; but what more does it take than a massacre? If the EU looks away after the foreign ministers meet again in October, that would be more than shameful.”

After we have finished talking in Romania, a young man comes forward, alone. His father was among the four deported back from Kyrgyzstan, and there is no information on whether he is alive or not. His sister-in-law visited him in Kyrgyzstan to tell him that on June 13 he became a father. “The boy is called Fathullo,” says the young man, “but I have no idea what he looks like, or whether I will ever see him.”

“We are ordinary people,” says Timur. “Shoemakers, traders, workers. And all we want is to go back, when it is safe. Wherever we go, we will work hard, but we believe that as night follows day, so day follows night; that this is night, and day must again dawn in Uzbekistan.”

Indeed, it is now morning. These conversations have lasted hours and hours, and a group of us is standing beside a pile of chopped and meticulously arranged kindling, in preparation for winter. “I’m not convinced about this dawn,” says a hitherto silent man at the back. He stares not at Timur, but at me. “We are free to speak here; if we went home we would be silenced. So we tell you about what happened – but words remain words, and nothing happens”.

State of fear … Uzbekistan

The regime

President Islam Abduganievich Karimov, 67, runs a dictatorship with electoral windowdressing: on any ballot, only approved candidates appear. The republic’s post- Soviet leadership stands accused of torture, show trials, disappearances – and butchery. On May 14, he warned potential protesters, “a bullet will not choose who it shoots”.

US links

The US pays $15m a year to the Karimov regime to site a military air base in southern Uzbekistan towards the Afghan border, in pursuit of its battle against the Taliban and al-Qaida. But Karimov recently gave it notice to quit by January 2006 – whether due to criticism from Islamists or because of US noises about human rights is unclear.

British links

The Foreign Office says Britain “bilaterally and with EU partners, regularly and repeatedly draws its concern about the human rights situation in Uzbekistan to senior-level attention within the Uzbek government”. When a British ambassador to Tashkent, Craig Murray, asked in 2002 why the UK continued to support such a regime, he faced disciplinary proceedings. Britain remains a significant buyer of Uzbek cotton and metals, but corruption and instability are causing western investors to back away.

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MPs from all parties prepare campaign to halt CIA terror flights from Britain

By Ian Cobain, Stephen Grey and Richard Norton-Taylor

The Guardian

MPs from all parties are planning to campaign against the CIA’s use of British airports and RAF bases when abducting terrorism suspects who are then flown to countries where they are allegedly tortured. An all-party group is to be established this autumn to coordinate the campaign and to inquire into the extent of Britain’s support for the operations, which are said to violate international law.

The development was announced as the UN began inquiring into the operations, known in US intelligence circles as “extraordinary renditions”, and as an investigation by the Guardian uncovered the extent of British logistical support.

Andrew Tyrie, Conservative MP for Chichester, is setting up the group after demanding information from the Foreign Office about the UK’s involvement in US prisoner operations. He said: “I am appalled by what appears to be growing evidence of complicity by the British government in torture of terrorist suspects or people whom the US may have information on, which could assist them to prosecute the war on terror. I don’t think the information that comes from torture is reliable, but more importantly, the use of such practices undermines the values we espouse. The damage to those values is far greater than any benefit we might gain from these practices.”

Sir Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said the government was going to considerable lengths to enter agreements with governments to try to ensure deportees from Britain would not be subjected to torture. But, he added, it appeared the government was “allowing free passage to the Americans to transfer people from one jurisdiction to another where they are likely to be subjected to torture”.

Sir Menzies has tabled parliamentary questions about the practice, asking how many individuals had been deported or otherwise involuntarily transferred from the US on flights which have landed in Britain. He is asking ministers what records they have of individuals transported in this way, what records are maintained of aircraft used for the purpose, and what military airfields were involved.

He is also asking how many detainees are being held against their will on US vessels in territorial waters off Diego Garcia, the British Indian Ocean Territory, on which the US has a large aircraft base. Ministers have repeatedly denied any prisoners are, or have been, held on Diego Garcia.

Chris Mullin, Labour MP and former Foreign Office minister, said of the use of British airports: “If the government’s policy is against rendition, then we must make that clear. The franchising out of torture is wholly unacceptable.” He added that while the CIA may have legitimate reasons to fly in and out of the UK on other businesses, “unless we can clarify what is legitimate and what is not, it may be that the best thing is for them to be kept out”.

Amnesty International is demanding the US “ceases the practice of renditions that bypass human rights protections”.

The Guardian’s investigation established that aircraft used by the CIA in renditions have flown in and out of the UK at least 210 times since the attacks of September 11. Some of those flights were connected to the abduction of terror suspects.

About 150 men have been abducted over the last four years and flown to countries where torture is common. A few have been released, and have given harrowing accounts of their treatment. Human rights lawyers say the operations violate the UN convention against torture, and say the CIA agents involved may also be in breach of the 1988 Criminal Justice Act.

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One thousand British casualties in Iraq

With the news of the deaths two more British soldiers earlier last week and another on Sunday, people may start asking again about the true cost of the Iraq war. In a previous post we have highlighted evidence of the high levels of casualties inflicted on the Iraqi people. However, the cost to the people serving in the British military should also be remembered. A posting on LFCM draws attention to the fact that British military casualties in Iraq are now in the region of one thousand. A milestone that deserves attention.

Update 01.03.06: Fresh evidence of the UK governments attempts to underplay the true extent of British casualties is featured in this new posting.

MOD letter reveals John Reid issued misleading figures on British casualties in Iraq

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Evidence emerges of Britains role in extraordinary rendition

The United Nations is seeking to examine Britain’s role in the policy, as part of a wider inquiry into ways in which counter-terrorism operations around the world may breach basic human rights.

By Ian Cobain, Stephen Grey and Richard Norton-Taylor writing in

The Guardian

It was only a matter of time before the CIA caught up with Saad Iqbal Madni. A Pakistani Islamist and, allegedly, a close associate of Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, he turned up in Indonesia in November 2001, just as the Taliban regime was crumbling and members of al-Qaida were fleeing Afghanistan. Renting a room in a Jakarta boarding house, he told locals he had arrived to hand over an inheritance to his late father’s second wife.

On January 9 2002, Iqbal was seized by Indonesian intelligence agents. Two days later, according to Indonesian officials, he was bundled aboard a Gulfstream V executive jet which had flown into a military airfield in the city. Then, without any extradition hearing or judicial process, he was flown to Cairo.

Iqbal, 24, had become the latest terrorism suspect to fall into a system known in US intelligence circles as “extraordinary rendition” – the apprehension of a suspect who is not placed on trial, or flown to Guant’namo, but taken to a country where torture is common.

These suspects are denied legal representation, and their detention is concealed from the International Committee of the Red Cross. The most common destination is Egypt, but there is evidence of detainees also being flown to Jordan, Morocco, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Syria.

Precise numbers are impossible to determine. A report on renditions published by New York University school of law and the New York City Bar Association suggests that around 150 people have been “rendered” in the last four years, but that is only an estimate. A handful have emerged from what has been labelled a secret gulag, and have given deeply disturbing accounts of horrific mistreatment.

Previous media reports have uncovered sketchy details of a British link to CIA abduction operations, but the full extent of the UK’s support can now be revealed. Drawing on publicly available information from the US Federal Aviation Administration, the Guardian has compiled a database of flight records which shows the extent of British logistical support.

Aircraft involved in the operations have flown into the UK at least 210 times since 9/11, an average of one flight a week. The 26-strong fleet run by the CIA have used 19 British airports and RAF bases, including Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham, Luton, Bournemouth and Belfast. The favourite destination is Prestwick, which CIA aircraft have flown into and out from more than 75 times. Glasgow has seen 74 flights, and RAF Northolt 33.

The Gulfstream V on to which Iqbal was bundled and flown to Egypt, for example, left Cairo on January 15 and headed for Scotland. After a brief stopover at Prestwick, probably to refuel, it departed again for Washington. Iqbal was held in Cairo for two years before appearing in Guant’namo, where he told other detainees who have since been released that he was tortured by having electrodes placed on his knees. It also appears that his bladder was damaged during interrogation.

Human rights campaigners insist that these operations violate international law. Washington insists they do not. Nevertheless, the United Nations is seeking to examine Britain’s role in the policy, as part of a wider inquiry into ways in which counter-terrorism operations around the world may breach basic human rights.

Martin Scheinin, a UN commission on human rights special rapporteur, has submitted a number of queries to the British government. His view about complicity in renditions is clear: “When several states can, through cooperating, breach their obligations under international law simultaneously, if they are all involved in torture, they all bear their own responsibility. It is my intention to look at acts where more than one state is involved. It is too early to say what will happen with the UK.”

Although the Foreign Office has denied any knowledge of the use of British airports during renditions, Prof Scheinin says: “It isn’t unusual that governments deny involvement and try to keep it secret as long as possible.” Some of the flights which the Guardian has examined were made during operations which clearly ended in the abduction of a terrorism suspect who was then tortured, such as Iqbal.

Other data points to the strong possibility that the CIA was using British airports during an abduction operation. On March 26 2002, the Gulfstream used in the abduction of Iqbal flew from North Carolina to Washington and on to Prestwick, where it remained overnight before flying to Dubai. Two days later, FBI officials and Pakistani police stormed a house in Faisalabad, where they arrested a number of al-Qaida suspects, including Abu Zubaydah, one of Osama bin Laden’s senior aides.

Flight records do not show where the aircraft flew after Dubai, and where Zubaydah was taken remains a mystery. There have been rumours that he is being held in the far east, however, and the Gulfstream next appeared in Alaska before returning to Washington.

On other occasions the same aircraft has stopped off at Prestwick before and after flying people from Pakistan to Tashkent in Uzbekistan. Craig Murray, the former British ambassador in Tashkent, says he is aware of detainees being flown into the country on an executive jet, and believes they were probably tortured.

It is not clear whether any detainees are on board the aircraft when they land in the UK, or whether the CIA is using British airports purely for refuelling and other logistical support. There is no suggestion that any of the UK airport authorities have colluded in any wrongdoing. The CIA’s renditions programme, and its use of UK airports, has angered some human rights lawyers. Concern is also being expressed in a number of other European countries, where authorities have barred the agency from making unauthorised flights or have launched investigations into abductions.

Last month Denmark announced that unauthorised CIA flights would not be allowed into the country’s airspace, while in Austria, in January 2003, two fighters were scrambled to intercept a Hercules transport plane thought to be involved in the renditions operation which had not declared itself to be on a government mission. In Sweden, a parliamentary investigator into the abduction of two Egyptian men flown from Stockholm to Cairo in December 2001 concluded that CIA agents had broken the country’s laws by subjecting the pair to “inhuman treatment”. In Italy, a judge has issued warrants for the arrest of 19 CIA agents said to have been behind the kidnapping of Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr, an Islamist cleric dragged into a van near his home in Milan in February 2003. He was flown to Egypt for interrogation, and later told relatives that he had been tortured with electric shocks.

The aircraft and their crews are the successors to Air America, the CIA-owned airline that flew covert missions during the Vietnam war. Many of the aircraft are operated by a company called Aero Contractors, which was founded by a former chief pilot of Air America, and is based in a remote corner of an airfield at Smithfield, North Carolina.

Most of the CIA’s fleet, which includes executive jets, a Boeing 737 and a Hercules transport plane, is owned, at least on paper, by a network of seven other companies. Examination of records in the US shows these seven firms to be a series of shell companies with no premises, and the directors of the companies appear to be fictitious. Aero’s company president, Norman Richardson, would not talk to the Guardian, although he has told one American journalist: “Most of the work we do is for the government. It’s on the basis that we can’t say anything about it.” A former Aero Contractors pilot has confirmed to the New York Times that he had been recruited by the CIA, and that the agency ran the airline. He said the crews did not use the term extraordinary rendition: “We used to call them snatches.”

British assistance for covert CIA kidnapping operations may violate international law, according to some lawyers, while the CIA agents involved may also be breaking British domestic law. “In international law, states are required to prevent acts of torture, and not turn a blind eye to it,” said Paul Green, a member of the Law Society’s international human rights committee.

It remains illegal under US law for any American citizen to torture a foreigner. Critics of the rendition campaign argue that the CIA gets around this by practising “torture by proxy”, taking detainees to countries where they know they will be tortured.

President George Bush has defended the renditions programme, saying: “We operate within the law and we send people to countries where they say they’re not going to torture the people.” Critics doubt whether such pledges are credible. The US State Department describes torture as being systemic in most of the countries. Even the CIA has described the “curtailment of human rights” in Uzbekistan as a concern.

The CIA declined to comment.

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ICRC – International Humanitarian Law and the “war on terror”

The International Committe of the Red Cross is a unique organisation that works in conflicts around the world to try and minimise suffering by promoting international humanitarian law. In a recent paper they provide answers to some of the most frequently asked questions and help set straight many of the misconceptions propgated by interested governments.

International Humanitarian Law and the “global war on terror”

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Indefinete executive detention without trial is approved by appeals court in the US

BBC online report on a significant stengthening of Presicent Bush’s executive powers in the so called war on terror

“The US government has the power to detain a man being held as an enemy combatant without charges, a federal appeals court has ruled.

The court overturned an earlier ruling that Jose Padilla, accused of planning an attack with a “dirty bomb”, should either be charged or freed.

Mr Padilla, a convert to Islam, has been under arrest since 2002.

He is one of only two US citizens designated as enemy combatants. The other one, Yaser Hamdi, has been freed.

The three-judge panel ruled that President George Bush had the power to detain Mr Padilla, based on the resolution authorising military force which was approved by Congress in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks.

“The exceedingly important question before us is whether the president of the United States possesses the authority to detain militarily a citizen of this country who is closely associated with al-Qaeda,” the Virginia court ruling said.

“We conclude that the president does possess such authority,” added the ruling written by Judge Michael Luttig, who is seen as one of Mr Bush’s possible nominations for the Supreme Court.

A federal judge had ruled earlier this year that Mr Padilla could not be held indefinitely without charge.

Lawyers have argued that the president is exceeding his authority by denying him access to lawyers and courts.

But the government says such detentions are necessary to prevent terrorism in the US. A further appeal in the case is possible.”

As reported by the Washington Post:

“Attorneys for Padilla and a host of civil liberties organizations blasted the detention as illegal and said it could lead to the military being allowed to hold anyone, from protesters to people who check out what the government considers the wrong books from the library.”

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‘The Ambassador’s Last Stand’ – A forthcoming BBC TV documentary on the Craig Murray election campaign against Jack Straw

The date and time of the broadcast has now been changed by the BBC. Please see the revised information below:

On Wednesday September 21, at 7.00pm, BBC 2 will be showing ‘The Ambassador’s Last Stand’, the story of the Craig Murray election campaign against Jack Straw in Blackburn, and the reasons for it. More than just a nostalgic look back ‘ it raises issues of the alienation of Muslims through New Labour foreign policy. In the wake of the London bomb attacks these issues are of continuing and urgent concern.

There appears to have been a degree of debate within the BBC about whether to broadcast this programme, perhaps reflected by the decision to change the broadcast day to midweek and the time to coincide with Channel 4 news! We are sorry for the change in information but, as you will understand, it was outside of our control.

For press enquiries or for further information please contact

[email protected]

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UK government threatens judiciary with regime change over human rights

By Aine Gallagher writing in Reuters AltertNet

European Union states may have to accept an erosion of some civil liberties if their citizens are to be protected from organised crime and terrorism, EU president Britain told the European Parliament on Wednesday.

Interior Minister Charles Clarke told EU lawmakers the right to life outweighed concerns over invasion of privacy and warned judges in European courts that if they failed to recognise this, the European Convention of Human Rights may need to be changed.

“It seems to me we have to give the same rights to those humans who want to travel without being blown up on an underground train,” Clarke earlier told reporters in London.

“If the judges don’t understand that message and don’t take decisions which reflect where the people of the continent want to be, then the conclusion will be that politicians … will be saying we have got to have a change in this regime.”

Clarke hosts a two-day meeting of justice and home affairs ministers from the 25 EU states on Thursday. They will discuss proposals to log and keep records of telephone calls, email and Internet use to help police track down terrorists.

Ministers will also meet telecommunications industry and law enforcement officials to find a way to reconcile concerns about the cost of the proposed measures, which industry sources in Germany say could run into hundreds of millions of euro.

Since al Qaeda militants attacked the United States in 2001, bombers have hit transport systems in two European capitals, killing 191 commuters in Madrid last year and 52 in London in July.

“THE RIGHT NOT TO BE BLOWN UP”

Clarke’s tough stance on human rights drew criticism from the EU assembly’s Liberal Democrats and Greens.

“We do not agree … that the human rights of the victims are more important than the human rights of the terrorists,” said Graham Watson, British leader of the Liberal Democrats.

“Human rights are indivisible. Freedom and security are not alternatives, they go hand-in-hand … Much as the public may dislike it, suspected terrorists have rights.”

Watson qouted criticism by human rights lawyer Cherie Booth — wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair — of Britain’s hardline anti-terror measures.

“To … invoke a form of summary justice would in the words of the lawyer Cherie Booth cheapen our right to call ourselves a civilised society,” he said.

EU lawmakers, sticklers for civil rights, have strongly criticised Britain’s drive for a quick deal among EU governments on the data retention plans because it would deprive them of a say on the measures, with some threatening a legal challenge.

Earlier, Clarke told reporters in London there was an impression the EU was not doing enough to tackle some of its citizens’ main concerns over serious organised crime, illegal immigration and terrorism.

He said Britain’s presidency would seek to redress the balance between an individual’s rights and national security by giving authorities more access to information for intelligence.

Law-enforcement agencies needed surveillance cameras, passports and visas should include internationally consistent biometric data, and phone companies should retain details of all calls made for a year, including unanswered ones.

“I say the doubts about civil liberties of a person who’s being photographed on a CCTV camera … or a person who has made a phone call to another person are small civil liberties in comparison with the overall civil liberty of the right not to be blown up,” he said.

Clarke’s comments reflect a frustration felt by the British government that the rights of suspects and defendants, backed by UK courts, were hindering the fight against terrorism and were taking precedence over the rights of ordinary citizens.

“The judges both in my country and in the European Court need to understand that the people of Europe … will not for a long time accept that action cannot be taken against people who are offering a real threat to our way of life because of human rights considerations,” he said.

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Extraordinary Rendition – another European country says no to the US

In June we posted an article on the Italian decision to seek the arrest of 13 suspected CIA agents who are wanted for the kidnapping of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr in Milan in Feb 2003. It was a landmark decision which marked an important stand against the illegal process of extraordinary rendition, adopted by the USA as part of its so called “war-on-terror”.

While there is little news being reported on the process of the Italian investigation more recently another country, Denmark, appears to have also taken a position against these practices. It is reported that the Danes have imposed a ban on the CIA using their airspace for rendition flights.

Foreign Minister Per Stig M’ller is quoted as saying:

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made it quite clear to U.S. officials that Denmark does not want its airspace used for purposes that are in conflict with international conventions”

The UK government by contrast is reported to have been asking the CIA to interrogate its terror suspects, held at a network of secret detention centres as part of the investigation into the London 7/7 attacks.

With thanks to Blair Watch

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The Uzbekistan blog! – Preview of a book the UK government would like to ban

Thanks to everyone who logged on on the 1st Spetember as part of the day of blogging on Uzbekistan. The book chapter preview is now no longer available on this site but we will continue to post news on the book, its publication, and any further attempts by the UK government to ban it.

Roundups of the many posting on Uzbekistan that took place yesterday can be found here and here.

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Update on the Pledge Bank list for Uzbekistan Blog

Tomorrow is independence day in Uzbekistan and will be marked by an international day of blogging on the call for sanctions and how to affect positive change in the country.

A pledgebank list was established to help solidify support for the idea and we are pleased to let you know that the list target has now been exceeded. However, there is still time to sign up or just take part!

A 20 second reminder of why this is a good idea.

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The White House silence

US journalist David Corn comments on the White House’s silence on Uzbekistan – an American administration more than capable of being loud and undiplomatic – as the regime victimises witnesses to the massacres in May.

From www.davidcorn.com.

While Bush has been busy rah-rahing his war for freedom in Iraq, has anyone heard him refer to the Uzbekistan massacre that occurred in May, in which perhaps up to a 1000 civilians were gunned down by the military goons of strongman Islam Karimov? No, Bush and his top officials have not said much about this human rights abuse, which is probably the worst attack of this sort since the Tiananmen Square massacre. Karimov has canceled his agreement with Washington regarding an important US military base there (which probably was the reason for Bush’s low-volume reaction to the massacre), but Karimov’s decision has not apparently caused Bush to feel freer to denounce Karimov. (The base is still being used, and perhaps the White House hopes to work out a deal with Karimov.) It’s no surprise that much of the world dismisses Bush’s pro-freedom rhetoric, given that he has much to say about freedom in some places and little to say about freedom in other places.

What reminded me of Bush’s inadequate reaction to the Uzbekistan massacre is a piece by Anne Penketh in today’s Independent. It starts:

‘Uzbek authorities have jailed hundreds of people and forced them to confess to links to Islamists to justify the army crackdown on peaceful demonstrators last May that left 500 people dead, The Independent has learnt.

‘Human Rights Watch reports that witnesses of the massacre in the eastern city of Andizhan and relatives of the victims, have been rounded up and jailed for between 10 to 15 days on fabricated charges. “They are severely beaten and tortured until they sign statements confessing to being members of radical Islamic groups,” a researcher for the group who has just visited the central Asian region said.

‘The authoritarian government of President Islam Karimov has refused all calls for an international inquiry into the worst massacre of civilians by an army since China’s 1994 crackdown in Tiananmen Square.

‘Despite eyewitness accounts contradicting the government version, the Uzbek authorities continue to insist that the army was forced to act on 13 May to put down an attempt by radical extremist Muslims to overthrow it. Human Rights Watch fears that the jailing and coercion of “hundreds, or even thousands” of people is a deliberate tactic aimed at bolstering the government’s case. It appears that some have been so intimidated that they have readily confessed to having been manipulated by the radicals.’

I’m not expecting Bush to address this latest human rights tragedy in Uzbekistan. After all, being consistent on such matters can be hard work.

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Uzbekistan – America and the European Union have let a dictator get away with murder

Published in The Economist on 25th August

ON MAY 13th, the authorities in Uzbekistan opened fire on a peaceful demonstration of close to 10,000 people in the eastern city of Andijan, probably killing several hundred of them and possibly as many as 1,000. According to survivors, tanks rolled through the main square, firing indiscriminately, snipers picked off their victims from convenient buildings, and, later on, soldiers shot some of the wounded dead. That was three months ago. Since then, the European Union and America have expressed their horror at the worst massacre of demonstrators since Tiananmen Square by imposing the following sanctions on Uzbekistan:

Weary observers of realpolitik might think that they have seen it all before: that the democracies often enough turn a blind eye to misdeeds of dictators like Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov when it suits them. But this is something special. On few, if any, occasions since the cold war has so little been done by so many in the face of such atrocity. At least China was thrown into the diplomatic ice-box for a few years after Tiananmen, and the arms embargo imposed on it is largely intact 16 years on. Myanmar remains a pariah even among pariahs’in both cases for misdeeds on about the same scale as Andijan. America claims that it is indeed pondering sanctions, but awaiting Europe’s lead. This not a widely noted feature of its foreign policy these days, but there is a kind of sense behind it. A former member of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan is a part of the widest of Europe’s concentric circles. It is a member of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and it has a partnership and co-operation agreement (PCA) with the EU. So there is some justification in allowing Europe, with its famous common foreign and security policy, to take the lead.

If so, the European Union has risen to the occasion as grandly as it did over Bosnia, Iraq and on so many other occasions: with a display of spinelessness worthy of a sea full of jellyfish. First, in June, it demanded that Uzbekistan submit to an international investigation to determine precisely what happened in Andijan. Failure to comply by July 1st, it terrifyingly threatened, might lead to a ‘partial suspension’ of the PCA. Some countries wanted to go so far as to threaten a visa ban for (some) Uzbek officials and possibly even an arms embargo’but that was reckoned to be a bit too tough.

July 1st came and went, as did August 1st. Still the EU has done nothing. It has tried to send a ranking bureaucrat, one Jan Kubis, to take a look: but Uzbekistan has refused to let him go to Andijan. Fortunately, outfits such as Human Rights Watch, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe have proved more enterprising than Mr Kubis’so there is no excuse to be made that the EU does not have a pretty good idea of what happened. The latest word is that the issue of Uzbekistan may be looked at when the EU’s foreign ministers meet in Wales on September 1st. But it is not even certain that the massacre of about 500 people by one of Europe’s associates will merit a discussion there. Meanwhile, the Uzbek government is pressing ahead with its own investigation of what happened on May 13th. This involves beating ‘confessions’ out of demonstrators who are made to say that they carried weapons to the square, and forcing neighbouring Kirgizstan to send Uzbek refugees back before they can tell any more tales to journalists, NGO workers, or even Mr Kubis.

But doesn’t the West ignore equally grisly abuses in Chechnya? Yes, but there it can at least be argued that friendship with Russia is in its vital interest. Friendship with Uzbekistan is not. Uzbekistan has gas, but it is not very accessible to westerners. And until now America has had an airbase, but others in the region will do just as well. The failure to punish Mr Karimov discredits the West, and provides ammunition to its enemies. It has gone on for far too long.

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Blair knew of Iraq war terror link one year before London attacks

By Martin Bright writing in The Observer

“The Foreign Office’s top official warned Downing Street that the Iraq war was fuelling Muslim extremism in Britain a year before the 7 July bombings, The Observer can reveal. Despite repeated denials by Number 10 that the war made Britain a target for terrorists, a letter from Michael Jay, the Foreign Office permanent under-secretary, to the cabinet secretary, Sir Andrew Turnbull – obtained by this newspaper – makes the connection clear.

The letter, dated 18 May 2004, says British foreign policy was a ‘recurring theme’ in the Muslim community, ‘especially in the context of the Middle East peace process and Iraq’.

‘Colleagues have flagged up some of the potential underlying causes of extremism that can affect the Muslim community, such as discrimination, disadvantage and exclusion,’ the letter says. ‘But another recurring theme is the issue of British foreign policy, especially in the context of the Middle East peace process and Iraq.

‘Experience of both ministers and officials … suggests that … British foreign policy and the perception of its negative effect on Muslims globally plays a significant role in creating a feeling of anger and impotence among especially the younger generation of British Muslims.’

The letter continues: ‘This seems to be a key driver behind recruitment by extremist organisations (e.g. recruitment drives by groups such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir and al Muhajiroon). The FCO has a relevant and crucial role to play in the wider context of engagement with British Muslims on policy issues, and more broadly, in convincing young Muslims that they have a legitimate and credible voice, including on foreign policy issues, through an active participation in the democratic process.’

Al Muhajiroon, formed by Omar Bakri Mohammed, the radical preacher who fled Britain after the 7 July bombings, was a recruiting organisation for young Islamic extremists in Britain.

Attached to the letter is a strategy document, also obtained by The Observer, which reveals further concerns. It says Britain is now viewed as a ‘crusader state’, on a par with America as a potential target. ‘Muslim resentment towards the West is worse than ever,’ the document, ‘Building Bridges with Mainstream Islam’, says.

‘This was previously focused on the US, but the war in Iraq has meant the UK is now seen in similar terms – both are now seen by many Muslims as “Crusader states”.

‘Though we are moving on from a conflict to a reconstruction phase in Iraq, there are no signs of any moderation of this resentment. Our work on engaging with Islam has therefore been knocked back. Mr O’Brien [then a Foreign Office minister] has expressed his concern.’

However, all mention of the Iraq connection to extremism was removed from ‘core scripts’ – briefing papers given to ministers to defend the government’s position on Iraq and terror.

The document begins: ‘We do not see the Muslim community as a threat. Muslims have always made, and continue to make, a valuable contribution to society.’

The lines to be used by ministers include measures designed to address Muslim concerns, such as the introduction of religious hatred legislation and tackling educational underachievement among Muslims. But there is nothing to address the concerns raised by Jay eight months earlier.

The documents reveal deep divisions at the heart of government over home-grown religious extremism and its connections to British intervention in Iraq.

The Prime Minister has consistently said that the bombers were motivated not by a sense of injustice but by a ‘perverted and poisonous misinterpretation of Islam’. Although Iraq was clearly used as a pretext by extremists, he said he believed it was ideology that drove them to kill. To press home the point, Downing Street issued a list of atrocities carried out before intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq. The claim was later undermined by the MI5, which said that Iraq was the ‘dominant issue’ for Islamic extremists in Britain.

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, also rowed back from his comments immediately after the bombings that there was no connection with Iraq and the terror threat after it became clear that the public remained unconvinced.

But Jay’s letter shows that the Foreign Office was convinced that foreign policy played a key role in radicalising young Muslims.

The letter outlines a list of 11 ‘work streams’ to discourage extremism. They included delegations to the Islamic world, ministerial briefings for key members of the Muslim community and receptions to mark key Muslim festivals.

It is not known how Turnbull responded to the letter, although it is clear that, by January, there was a significant difference between what was being said within the Foreign Office and what ministers were officially being permitted to say in speeches.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Mark Oaten last night called on the government to come clean about the link between extremism among British Muslims and anger about Iraq: ‘For the government to deny a link between the war in Iraq and dismay among the Muslim community is ridiculous. But to try to cover it up, when senior civil servants have recognised the seriousness of the resentment, is even worse.'”

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