Uzbek Cotton Slavery Campaign 1094


I am delighted that a new canpaign has started today against the state enforced child slavery in the uzbek cotton industry, especially as this campaign originates in Germany, where a significant portion of society appears to have finally woken up to the reality of the German government’s appalling complicity in the Nazi style regime and atrocities of Karimov.

However in the UK it remains the case that since the coalition government came to power, there has not been one single government statement on the human rights atrocities in Uzbekistan or – even more damning of our sham democracy – one single statement or question from New Labour.


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1,094 thoughts on “Uzbek Cotton Slavery Campaign

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  • Mary

    An illustration of the importance of Craig’s blog. This post is from Medialens and a thread follows it. http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1359201816.html

    The Assange ‘case’
    Posted by Curtis on January 26, 2013, 12:03 pm

    For anyone who is interested in this case and has plenty of time on their hands, the 7 pages of comments on Craig Murrays’s piece provide lots of insight into the nature of the case against Julian Assange, including links to source material.

    To call the case against him weak is a gross understatement. The nature of the allegations are such that in any fair legal system he could never be found guilty given that it comes down to one person’s word against another, there being no possible physical evidence which proves anything beyond consensual sex.

    On one point raised on earlier thread by GloriousRevolution wondering whether or not it would be easier for Assange to go to Sweden to face these, as yet I believe, non existent charges, as far as I understand he would be imprisoned in solitary confinement until such time as a case could be brought, potentially 6 months or more behind bars during which time the Swedish political established could easily engineer his extradition to the U.S. Contrary to some people’s perception, Sweden has a long history of being a faithful servant to Uncle Sam.

  • Villager

    Topic(s), per se i believe is not the issue.

    Bullying and as Thatcrab says “refusals to stop” are an issue.

    Language (though i see very well where you Cryptonym are coming from) is definitely a pervasive issue. The thought of unparliamentary language had also crossed my head. Profane and vulgar language should result in an immediate deletion. Tone, a ‘soft’ element pointed out by Thatcrab, is a more difficult one. Reminds me of the proverbial elephant–difficult to describe, but easy to recognise when you see one. Trying to describe an elephant to an unfortunate blind person is easier than describing tone to a tone-deaf man.

    Minus the couple of repeat offenders on this thread, with regard to bullying and profane/vulgar language, this would be a perfectly good place to be.

    Unfortunately some good, thoughtful longtime commenters here are conspicuous by their absence. I wonder if its related to the messiness of this thread. I wish they could nevertheless contribute to this portion of the dialogue.

  • N_

    @Villager – Don’t feed the trolls. That’s why I’m not taking part. I’ve noticed a few people giving this advice and not following it themselves. I’ve been guilty of doing the same in my past. Realising it’s sensible not to feed the trolls and actually not feeding them are different. People should make more effort. End of!

  • Habbabkuk

    OK, Clark, thanks for your post.

    I’ll make this one the last for today.

    Having read Mary’s post of 21h01, I want to correct any false impression that anyone might have got from a previous post of mine. Namely, I entirely agree that the Julian Asssange thread was an extraordinarily broad, useful and informative one. What I was just saying that a supplementary post from Mary on Julian Assange would perhaps have been better sent to the Julian Assange thread (I assume it was still open for comments at that time?) than to suddenly intrude into this thread. That’s all.

    But the desire to keep threads as discrete as possible is obviously not shared by the likes of Cryptonym at 19h46, who asserts that threads which remained on-topic would become “less topical, diffuse and unfocused”. I must say I can’t quite follow his logic there, but never mind. I do note that nobody else reacted to my suggestions (except to sneer – cf Mary), which is also quite telling on the part of those who claim to have the good of this blog at heart.

    Finally, I agree that perhaps one shouldn’t make too much of an issue of this business. When the next big story comes along everyone will – perhaps on the basis of a lead-on post from Craig – have something more interesting to keep them occupied and they can spend their energies cursing the next public enemy No.1

  • Habbabkuk

    THe above was going to be the last one, but in the light of N-‘s latest (21h31) it might be useful if I re-emphasised something I’ve said before.

    “Don’t feed the trolls”. Well, I don’t consider myself to be a troll (it’s an easy word to throw around when you’re feeling frustrated or when you’ve just had some idiocy of yours highlighted), but I certainly agree with N- in the sense that I don’t actually want you to reply to the majority of my posts. I really don’t. When I’m correcting you in some way, just read, absorb, and endeavour to avoid the mistake next time.

    So I suggest that I just keep posting where required and that you lot don’t respond. Sound OK?

  • Villager

    Mary, what i’m still very curious about is why is Swedish public opinion not pressurising the Swedish Govt to move quicker on the case in order to be just to the alleged victims. They could easily take the next first logical step of completing their interrogation of JA by hopping on a short flight (2h 15m) to London tomorrow. If i’m not wrong, the Ecuador Govt has also offered to the Swedes for JA to be interviewed at their embassy in Stockholm.

    Even Superman puts his trousers on one leg at a time. Its a mystery to me. (Except perhaps Uncle Sam who wants to stamp out JA with both legs and all the other torture in their armoury.)

    And if they still wanted to proceed with the prosecution, wouldn’t public pressure on Assange pile up massively in favour of Assange having to surrender himself.

  • Phil W

    @Fred Re Elm House

    “Its owner Kasir was 47 when she died of a suspected overdose in 1990.

    At her inquest, child protection workers told the coroner of her meetings with them two years earlier.

    She reported that boys from nearby Grafton Close council home were ­brought to her premises and abused.

    The claim was never fully investigated by police. Kasir was at the Elm when cops raided a party there in 1982.

    Twelve boys then told police they had been abused by men in the house but complaints were not pursued.

    The only prosecution in the wake of the raid resulted in Kasir being convicted of keeping a brothel.

    Campaigners believe she did not know of the child abuse until shortly before she reported it in 1988.” – Mirror

    To recap:

    1988 Kasir goes to police to report child abuse.

    Accusations are not fully investigated.

    1990 Kasir dies of non-natural causes.

  • thatcrab

    “1990 Kasir dies of non-natural causes.”
    ..and it took 13 years and a special request in Parliament for the case to get reopened.

    One of those investigated is quoted as saying:

    “They went through everything (the police) in the end I felt like on of the victims”

    What a stupid thing to say — to compare your investigtion by UK police, to the experience of children being terrorized and fucked by adults. What kind of clueless self centered suspect could say such a thing? It was Mary Moss “formerly of The National Association for Young People in Care” (!)

  • Fred

    Phil W

    There has been a lot of speculation for some time.

    This is the first solid evidence of a link between the guest house and the Conservative party and hence the government. It isn’t speculation any more.

  • Habbabkuk

    I thought that you might be interested in M. Laurent Louis’ “political priorities” in order to give you some perspective on your new hero.

    (taken from his official website; my translation; some abbreviation but an honest reflection, I think)

    Read carefully, I’m sure you’ll be enchanted by quite a lot of his stuff.

    Clue : he started off as a member of the MR, which is a right-of-centre Francophone political party.

    **************************

    “Create a 350 – strong citizens parliament chosen by lot. This implies abolishing political parties. Parliamentarians to draw the same salaries they drew before being elected. The citizens Parliament chooses the Cabinet.

    Re-establish the unity of the country and oppose separatism or confederalism. Abolish all regional and ‘community’ parliaments; there would only be the 350 national parliamentarians.

    Put citizens at the centre of political life by giving them their say through referenda.

    No more interfering on the world stage.No more Belgian interference in Central Africa. Withdraw from international organisations such as the United Nations and NATO.

    Leave the European Union. In the longer term a Europe of the peoples could be built on a democratic basis, defending noble interests.

    Make taxation fairer by reducing taxes in a revised tax system. Abolish superfluous taxes like the TV licence. Abolish inheritance tax.

    Revalorise work by abolishing ‘false’ employment subsidies. Dramatically reduce employers’ social security contributions so as tp create more jobs.

    Renew the educational system. Promote courses in civics so as to teach our children to respect authority.

    Ensure that society is a lay society. Oppose the wearing of ostentatious religious symbols.

    Stricter controls on naturalisation; nationality should be granted only to those who truly love our country or can bring added-value. Deal with asylum cases more swiftly and apply expulsion orders more effectively.

    More security by reaffirming the authority of our police. In order to provide respect for victms of crime, it is primordial to abolish parole (early conditional release).

    Defend a reasonable but necessary environmental policy which guarantees energy independence for our country. Respect animal welfare. Oppose vivisection.

    Promote the vaues of liberty, equality and fraternity.”

    *************************************

    Still your new hero ?

  • Fred

    “Promote the vaues of liberty, equality and fraternity.

    *************************************

    Still your new hero ?”

    WHAT!!!!!!!

    He wants people to be free, equal and nice to each other?????

    What the hell is that man thinking about???????

    Hanging’s too good for him.

  • thatcrab

    Lots of very good ideas from Laurent, some problematic. but None anywhere comparable to the problems of political criminality and militarism.

    So Yes he still a hero. Craig too –although we all disagree with an idea or two of his. The notion that we have to renounce the merits every person with challenging or problematic positions is a tactic used to support the fakes and criminals by the fakes and criminals and the hopeless.

  • Lemon Puffs

    Holocaust Memorial Day – A time to contemplate the terrible blight brought about by an inhuman ideology that sets a group of people apart from the rest of humanity in order to justify genocide, ethnic cleansing and collective punishment.

  • Villager

    Thanks for that Thatcrab.

    Here’s George Harrison talking about politics. Quote:
    ” No matter who you vote for, the Government always gets in.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxmG0R9S2Qg

    Its status quo. Nothing changes. But i’m glad that JG is doing his bit.

    Look at the hippies and the flower children what became of that? And then you remember all the fuss about the millennium…we were lead to believe that we were walking into a rainbow…global hype and celebrations etc.and booming economy rife with dot com success stories. The world’s biggest front-page concern and problem was the Y2K And then the dot com bubble burst followed by the technology bubble and then 911. Bring back the days of blow-jos in the Oval Room and Y2K for me. Humanity has taken one big wrong turn (after another), (after another), (after another), and so on and so forth.

  • thatcrab

    Yet potential for civilisation has increased with technology, along with potential for havoc and an impending huge environmental crisis. Crisis that can eclipse the destructiveness and urgency of even these sick Economic and Destruction Industry strategies. Life is going to change more than it has done…

  • Clark

    Habbabkuk at 26 Jan, 11:34 pm; I read your introduction and thought “oh God, Laurent Louis must be awful”, but he doesn’t seem too bad, really, for a politician. Assuming he’s somewhat honest, at least he publishes his position. Everyone is different; nature’s great strength is diversity.

    Do you think he did the right thing when he published those autopsy reports? Any idea how or why they were removed from his web site?

  • Clark

    Habbabkuk at 26 Jan, 5:08 pm:

    “Re. Laurent Louis : since he was first mentioned on this blog, and with my interest increasing in proportion to the reverence he’s being accorded here.
    You know, insofar as he’s known in Belgium, he’s not seen as a serious politician. I don’t expect you’ll believe me, but I’m in a position to know…”

    Could you expound, please? I don’t disbelieve you, but what is this “position” that you refer to? It seems possibly self-contradictory, in that you only became interested when L Louis was mentioned here, but you were “in a position to know”.

  • thatcrab

    I ~thinks good –like Ebeneezer Mark 😀

    Also Laurent Louis policies have to been seen in context, as for a very small country.

  • thatcrab

    Despite everything, this might be the third summer of love.. or the winter of love, when Ison lights the sky..

  • Habbabkuk

    @ ThatCrab (01h51) “Also Laurent Louis’ policies have to be seen in context, as for a very small country”

    Politician’s policies always have to be seen in context. Could you please explain this rather lapidary observation of yours? Eg, explain which of his policies are specifically conditioned by the fact that Belgium is a small country.

    Will reply to Clark shortly.

  • N_

    Dutroux case: the Belgian autopsy report, which is no longer at Louis Laurent’s website, is now up at Cryptome. It is in French, and makes for very disgusting reading. (You have been warned.) Photographs are not included. It is perhaps not as powerful a bring-down-the-whole-tower-of-lies document as some have called it.

    Note on leaked or sensitive material: the more powerful the anticipated opposition to your publishing such documents, the less you should feel content with publishing them only on your own website, especially if it’s UK-based.

    You should publish them on

    a) Usenet, which is a distributed network that, despite Google’s efforts to take it over, is still going strong using a communications protocol which is completely different from WWW, and

    b) Cryptome, the website run by architect John Young. John means it when he says he won’t ever remove anything except when he receives a US court order signed by a US judge ordering him to do so. Cryptome has several mirrors. The history of John’s relationship with Wikileaks is also very interesting.

  • Mary

    Lemon Puffs above We can hardly forget what today is called. Top billing on the BBC today. Enshrined in the national curriculum since 2001 and compulsory visits to Auschwitz for secondary school children. The national arboretum. A special exhibition at the Imperial WAR Museum and so on.

    Yet Mr Ward of the LibDems is being given the knockout treatment for speaking the truth with balance. The use of the word ‘holocaust’ is being used selectively. Our common humanity without exclusion is what is important.

    I will just repeat what I received from a Palestinian who lives in his Occupied country.

    His letter to us finished thus after giving the link to an excellent film he made about Battir –

    “Yesterday we buried 2 martyrs in the same day. A 15 year old boy was shot in the head a few metres from Lajee’s door about a week ago. The life support machne was finally turned off yesterday early afternoon. Within an hour or 2 of hearing that news, 2 female students were shot near Al Aroub Camp (near Beit Ummar) – one of the girls was killed, she was also from Bethlehem. 2 promising young people, 2 beautiful people full of hope, life and dignity, laid to rest within a few hours of each other, and in cemeteries within a kilometre of so of each other. At the same time houses and being destroyed on an almost daily basis, leaving more families trying to survive without even the most basis of human needs and rights. This is ‘our lot’ in Palestine, a situation as you know that is not only turned a blind eye but is actively supported and paid for by so many around the world from informed ‘decision makers’ down to uninformed consumers of propaganda.”

    PS Why don’t we have an Imperial PEACE Museum? Probably because it would be an empty space.

    ~~~
    Villager. I cannot provide an answer to your question about the machinations of the Swedish government vis a vis Julian Assange. Some more of man’s inhumanity to man I would say.

  • Habbabkuk

    @ Clark (01h36 and 0150)

    To deal with your second query first : I prefer not to go into details, but suffice it to say that I’m in very close touch with the political, economic and social scene in Belgium. I don’t think there’s really a contradiction in what I wrote: despite being in this close touch, the chap had simply never come to my attention before he was mentioned on this thread. It’s impossible not to be aware of the doings and sayings of serious political figures in Belgium and I can assure you that M.Louis is not on the radar screen. Of course, those that don’t want to believe this will say ‘oh, of course the MSM don’t talk about him’, but that’s not the way things work there.

    Before turning to your first comment, let me deal with that rather jejeune post from Fred at 00h10. Of course liberty, equality and fraternity are wonderful things, but when used by politicians they are what Jamie Whyte in his book called “A load of Blair” would call “hooray words” – who could be against them? THey are also the motto of the French Republic – so presumably Fred, who approves of libert, equality and fraternity, would without hesitaation give the French Republic his seal of approval? I suspect not.

    Anyway, to your comment : well, as you say, not bad for a politician. I should say, though, that he rather skilfully plays to most of the complaints and prejudices of the public and that from – I should say – a position on the right. I’m just rather interested to see that his ideas on, for example, abolishing regional parliaments (which could be argued bring democracy closer to the citizen), abolishing parole (which could be seen as the humane face of the penal system), restricting the granting of Belian nationality to those who “truly love our country” (what does that mean in practice?), abolishing inheritance tax (which most people probably view as a progressive tax)and sharply reducing social security contributions from employers (how will the shortfall be made up? Would there be a corresponding reduction in social security benefits?) appear to meet favour with at least two of this blog’s regular contributors (see above). Perhaps they are conservatives without knowing it, but it’s more likely that they’ve simply placed him into their personal Pantheon on the strength of his position on Mali.

    Happy to come back again if you wish

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