I have been refused entry clearance to the USA to chair the presentation of the Sam Adams Award to CIA torture whistleblower John Kiriakou and to speak at the World Beyond War conference in Washington DC. Like millions of British passport holders I have frequently visited the USA before and never been refused entry clearance under the visa waiver programme.
I shall apply for a visa via the State Department as suggested but I must be on a list to be refused under the ESTA system, and in any event it is most unlikely to be completed before the conference.
It is worth noting that despite the highly critical things I have published about Putin, about civil liberties in Russia and the annexation of the Crimea, I have never been refused entry to Russia. The only two countries that have ever refused me entry clearance are Uzbekistan and the USA. What does that tell you?
I have no criminal record, no connection to drugs or terrorism, have a return ticket, hotel booking and sufficient funds. I have a passport from a visa waiver country and have visited the USA frquently before during 38 years and never overstayed. The only possible grounds for this refusal of entry clearance are things I have written against neo-liberalism, attacks on civil liberties and neo-conservative foreign policy. People at the conference in Washington will now not be able to hear me speak.
Plainly ideas can be dangerous. So much for the land of the free!
More machinations from Westminster, as Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson insisted that arms sales from the dis-United Kingdom, would continue to the rogue state of Saudi Arabia.
It is thought that Westminster could be breaking International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in Yemen, by continuing to sell arms to Saudi Arabia. However Johnson claims that the Westminster government, found that weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and how Saudi Arabia uses them, and who they use them on, on, posed no risk.
Johnson added tha Saudi Arabia is best placed to carry out its own internal investigation, as to whether (IHL) had been broken. It’s a bit like giving a arsonist matches and petrol, and leaving them to their own devices.
Incidently Keith Vaz (Mr Popper) is Yemeni-born, Vaz once said regarding Yemen, “it’s bleeding to death.”
I’ve just bumped into this post from the archives, which is a very good thing to bump into:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2005/12/damning_documen/
– actually much more comprehensively damning collection of official UK government memos on torture than the documents Craig republished in an article a few weeks ago in connection with the war crimes of Jack Straw. Quote:
“With Tony Blair and Jack Straw cornered on extraordinary rendition, the UK government is particularly anxious to suppress all evidence of our complicity in obtaining intelligence extracted by foreign torturers.
The British Foreign Office is now seeking to block publication of Craig Murray’s forthcoming book, which documents his time as Ambassador to Uzbekistan. The Foreign Office has demanded that Craig Murray remove all references to two especially damning British government documents, indicating that our government was knowingly receiving information extracted by the Uzbeks through torture, and return every copy that he has in his possession.
Craig Murray is refusing to do this. Instead, the documents are today being published simultaneously on blogs all around the world.”
FIRST CLASS RESPONSE!!! Bravo!
The documents are all the more potent in combination with Craig’s recent revelation that the UK and US were deliberately renditioning non-Uzbek detainees from around the world to Tashkent to be tortured by Karimov’s regime in order to get the confessions they want, rather than being restricted to the local prisoners as Craig assumed at the time. The US and UK governments were arguably complicit in the torture of local Uzbek detainees by virtue of their foreign policies, but a fortiori complicit in the torture of Bagram detainees flown in specially for that purpose by the CIA. The references of Matthew Kydd to material obtained through torture being “very useful indeed” to the British Intelligence agencies gain a whole new meaning thereby.
The threat to take Craig to court under the Official Secrets Act was also a first class joke, apart from the obvious stress to Craig it would have entailed. Quite apart from the massive own-goal in advertising UK government torture policies that had already become public knowledge, the illegal nature of torture and the obligation to report it would make it very hard to enforce its covering up in a court! A criminal act cannot legally be enforced by a court, especially when the details are already in the public domain.
Allow Craig Murray to enter the USA. Stop stifling freedom of speech. Denial in this case is fear on your part. Are we the Thought police now? America and the entire world has had more than enough of your condescending bs. You have dumbed America down, yes..but we aren’t stupid and we are awake and aware….aware of all the wrong doing our so called government has done in OUR name WITHOUT our permission. Right this wrong!
What on earth were you doing trying to get into that fascist shitehole for? Do you want to help those unconscionable bastards put your knackers in a vice?
wonderfully ironic seeing as Nigel Farage was granted entry recently!
I filled out the paper version on the plane some years back and was somewhat consternated at the tick box for ‘are you or have you ever been a member of the Nazi Party?’
Werner Braun must have missed that box,
More recently I had to do the online version and was unable to get a coherent explanation of the term; moral turpitude, I decided that if I didn’t know what it was I probably wasn’t guilty of it,
I was granted entry on both occasions, the more recent time I felt more unsure of myself, my mother was with me and enquired as to the breed of the sniffer dog present,
his handler explained it was a ‘coon dog’.. we managed to keep a straight face…
still if you really want to get into the States you only need whistleblow the right thing or hack a government database, or even convert to Islam and take up preaching, you’ll in all likelihood be rewarded with a free flight and the blessings of our government,
I think Skype is probably the best way to visit the USA today, Assange and Snowden find it very useful and it would also give you a chance to explain in person why you were unable to physically visit,
The next Nazis to threaten the world won’t be speaking German, they’ll speak English with an American accent.
Of course, the Sam Adams Award only goes so far.
Spy Aldrich ‘Rick’ Ames would never receive it, though his spying for Moscow helped prevent the Reagan non-nuclear showdown with the Soviets from resulting in a most unexpected nuclear war.
David Swanson has created a petition demanding Craig be allowed entry for the event..it has over 3,000 signatures including my own, all in just a few hours
https://diy.rootsaction.org/petitions/tell-u-s-to-let-craig-murray-into-the-country?source=twitter-share-button#
signed
Please grant Mr. Murray entrance to the US. To deny him entrance clearly gives the message that his first amendment rights have Been stripped. If he has no first amendment rights then none of us do.
Elizabeth, the good ole US of A is now a fascist police state; as is the UK.
This fact is right there in front of everyone, but most folks don’t want to believe it.
SKYPE
USA treated President of Russia V. Putin in the same way USA treated the whistleblowers including John Kiriakou .
Posters may be interested in Peter Van Buren’s article about CM’s denial on consortiumnews.com.
So the nine white leftards responsible for closing down London City Airport earlier today were representing the radical race-baiting organization, ‘Black Lives Matter’. Apparently the “Climate crisis is a racist crisis”.
I would have re-opened the runway immediately.
I would not go as far as you’ve suggested, Anon, and have them run over by some rather large tyres.
But I do hope that the law of the land will bear down on them severely.
In particular I feel that they should be made to pay damages to the amount of the economic loss caused to the airport and user airlines by their stupid action. Hit those virtue-signalers, faux campaigners and gesture makers where it hurts!
The London City Airport was largely financed by the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC); ie, tax payer’s money, which included the infrastructure such as roads and railways, without which the airport couldn’t operate.
London City Airport was recently flogged off to a Canadian corporation…
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/25/canadian-consortium-buys-london-city-airport-2bn
It makes Dick Turpin look tame by comparison.
Oh, and the ‘law of the land’ is mostly made by a bunch of criminal psychopaths.
They are unemployed and on benefits so there is no chance of hitting them in the pocket.
Better to leave them pulverized on the track or consumed by a jet engine indiscriminately. It’s what they would have wanted.
Yeah, they’re all benefit scroungers, just like all those totally evil doctors in the NHS…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3771685/EXPOSED-hard-Left-doctors-care-bashing-Tories-health.html
I call myself a patriot, and I am utterly ashamed at what my country has become.
‘Leftards’..? That’s a bit retro, isn’t it?
And I’m sure you would have re-opened the runway, unless there was a whiff of terrorism (real or otherwise), in which case you’d be quaking in your highly polished jackboots.
‘Leftards’..? That’s a bit retro, isn’t it?
He meant “Fucktards” but sadly auto-correct wouldn’t allow it. Probably.
Come on, Anon1 – don’t be modest here.
If you’d _really_ had your druthers, the Totenkopf division of your Waffen-SS – your personal favourites – would have quickly marched them away to teach them a lesson nobody would ever forget.
I think Craig will be interested in this as an ex civil-servant and diplomat. The US thought-police have been using UK facilities at Menwith Hill for their targeting of civilians abroad in drone-strikes. It was only suspected until Edward Snowden released files that we were providing coordinates and intelligence for these extra-judicial murders. Now we know.
https://theintercept.com/2016/09/06/nsa-menwith-hill-targeted-killing-surveillance/
Holding fake elections reported on by fake journalists with the votes tabulated on fake computerized voting machines in a fake democracy, that’s the true, sorry-assed state of demonocracy in the USA today. It appears Stalin’s pithy little aphorism about what is really important when it comes to voting and elections has been taken well to heart in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
More at: http://blackboxvoting.org/fraction-magic-1/
Looks like I am one of the Americans who triggered CM being hit on a No Fly List because of what this site allowed me to post, and how it was treated on google by linking such articles and images about them, especially his image on here.
Think it was well worth it, and if his denial of entry to the shit hole continues, he should address the meeting honoring John Kiriakou, the CIA analyst who leaked its use of water-boarding, and went to prison for it, by phone.
The only government agents who suffer for vile Western practices are those who convincingly complain about them.
Picking up the crumpled feathers and sticking them into his hat he said ‘it was all my fault’….
The cowards who are weak on Brexit, weak and split internally are now copying futile Israeli policies by building a concrete wall to keep refugees in France.
Where are those who set an example? showing France how to do it?
None of these refugees want to stay in France, many children have relatives here, so why are we not building an ‘official’ camp here and start dispersing them?
I’m sure Wolverhampton, Norwich, Bristol and many other towns and Cities are not ‘full’, just unwilling to take their share of UK bomb victims, be they Afghan, Libyan or Syrian.
off course, we can’t let them into London, they are full. Full of shits, crooks and tax evaders with no time to even look at their neighbours, never mind care for them.
It is also an unsustainable City which will eventually get its wet and salty end, I’m surprised anybody wants to live in that stink.
Rumours which moot that Israel is bidding to spread and advertise its wall building expertise, under protection of the IDF, off course, are untrue and greatly exaggerated….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/06/work-to-begin-on-big-wall-at-calais-to-block-migrants/
OK Craig, so they refuse you entry to the US, while at the same time allowing in a certain Looney Toon from the Isle of White; no names, no pack drill, but the clue is that he once told Terry Wogan on TV that he was “the son of God”.
Q. What can we deduce from that?
A. You’re better off not going there.
Alan, Being perceived as a Looney has certain advantages, though I do not see gaining entrance to the USA as one of them. As far as David Icke is concerned, I think it highly probable that his “Son of God” and “tall, blood-drinking, shape-shifting reptilian humanoids from the Alpha Draconis star system”, is subconscious psychological protection on his part to balance the very real conspiracy theories he was writing about and presenting 20 years before the likes of Alex Jones was ever heard of. I bought at least one of his books over 10 years ago, and what I would then have often considered to be nutty conspiracy theory has turned out to be very true indeed.
I think Craig has been very brave traveling to the USA, and still is to want to continue doing so.
Maybe if he came clean about 9/11, like David Icke did 14 years ago, they’d let him in again.
Tony
But all of them tend to simple recycle the work of Jordan Maxwell.
And if, as he states Tony, we are all “consciousness having a life experience” or whichever way he puts it, why do we need to be worrying about the state of the world if our only purpose is to observe?
Because there is loads of money to be made selling books to gullible people, that’s why.
Oh yes, and what else can we deduce that he regularly gets to visit America while somebody like Craig gets banned?
Is there any better evidence of how out of touch the USA is today than the two leading presidential misfits, Hillary and The Donald, debating tonight national security policy on the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid aka The Decrepit since it was built during WWII!
Speaking of the Sam Adams Award, I can’t wait for Assange’s “October surprise”.
When growing up i admired the people of the USA. They originated from people escaping persecution and wanted to be free.
Now greed has taken hold and they are the oppressors.Because of their support for dictators like the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein etc they are responsible for the growth of ISIS and it is easy to see why they are hated by the majority of people in the middle east. The Vietnam war for them was the beginning of the end.
I recall a QI programme where Stephen Fry said that the puritans originally came to America not to escape persection but precisely to install persecution i.e. they thought that the old country was too free!
One of the very early things the Mayflower Pilgrims did was to team up a group of native Americans for a surprise night attack on the village of another tribe; their Western guns ensured that no man, woman or child was left alive; I wonder how they squared that up with their religious faith ?
Now Obama has joined the presidential fray by saying that Trump is “wacky” for claiming Putin is a better leader than he.
Can’t the President see that this is just helping him at Hillary’s expense?
Obama should just shut up for a change.
Have you travelled to Iraq, Iran, Syria or Sudan since 2011? A new law in the U.S. Makes people with travel there ineligible for ESTA – they must apply for a visa at a U.S. Embassy or Connsulate.
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/01/21/united-states-begins-implementation-changes-visa-waiver-program
http://www.huschblackwell.com/businessinsights/us-explains-changes-to-visa-waiver-program-01-26-15
“Individuals who have traveled to Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria within the past five years are precluded from being admitted to the U.S. under the VWP. Exceptions include members of the military of a VWP country and full-time employees of a VWP country’s federal government who have traveled to Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria on official government orders. These individuals should carry proof of their military or government service activity on any trips to the United States. Additional exceptions may be made on a case-by-case basis to people who have engaged in the excluded countries in specified activities such as journalism or NGO humanitarian work.”
Ho hum. A day suddenly goes topsy turvy and more troubles follow in the life of a neuroscientist cannabis researcher and licensed medical marijuana user and her husband in the most democratic and freedom-loving country on the planet.
Embedded video at link: http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/war-on-drugs/pro-cannabis-neuroscientistattacked-by-lapd-.html
Craig, congratulations on being selected “Truthdigger of the Week”.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/truthdigger_former_british_ambassador_whistleblower_craig_murray_20160910
The USA Government is torturing its own citizens haven’t you heard of Organized Gang Stalking just for being an Activist or just getting notice