UK complicity in torture

In a triumph for the principles of open justice, and a snub to the Tory-led coalition government, the British Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday that the government and the intelligence agencies cannot use secret evidence in court to prevent open discussion of allegations that prisoners were subjected to torture. The appeal, by lawyers for [...]

Last Wednesday, just before David Cameron was engulfed in the News of the World phone hacking crisis, he had the opportunity to practice demonstrating the disregard for justice that he called on in response to the Murdoch scandal, when he attempted to distance himself from his friendship with two former News of the World editors, [...]

“This is a day on which we pay our respects to those who have endured the unimaginable. This is an occasion for the world to speak up against the unspeakable.” Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General On Sunday June 26, 2011, the International Day in Support of the Victims of Torture, I’ll be speaking in [...]

“‘Outside the Law’ is a powerful film that has helped ensure that Guantánamo and the men unlawfully held there have not been forgotten.” Kate Allen, Director, Amnesty International UK “[T]his is a strong movie examining the imprisonment and subsequent torture of those falsely accused of anti-American conspiracy.” Joe Burnham, Time Out “Every American needs to [...]

In a recent article, Lawyers and Human Rights Groups Criticize Proposed UK Torture Inquiry, As the Government Fails to Address the Return of Shaker Aamer, the Last British Resident in Guantánamo, I addressed the concerns raised by nine NGOs — Amnesty International, Cageprisoners, JUSTICE, Liberty, the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, [...]

“Whitewash” is a powerful word, but when it comes to the British government’s proposed judicial inquiry into British complicity in torture abroad in the years since the 9/11 attacks, Amnesty International and a number of prominent British NGOs — including Cageprisoners, JUSTICE, Liberty, the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, Redress and [...]

Amnesty International UK has just issued a press release deploring the “mockery of justice” in the case of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, who has been held for nine years without charge or trial. The press release has been issued to mark the ninth aniversary of Shaker Aamer’s arrival at Guantánamo (after [...]

In an attempt to bring to an end a nearly four-year deadlock in the case of Ahmed Belbacha, an Algerian prisoner in Guantánamo, lawyers at the London-based legal action charity Reprieve have “started high court proceedings to force the British government to disclose information that they say could free him from Guantánamo Bay and save [...]

From the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, based in the home borough of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo Bay, comes news of the latest information regarding Shaker’s return from Guantánamo, via an exchange in the House of Commons on Tuesday. Anas Sarwar, the Labour MP for Glasgow Central, asked, “Will the Foreign Secretary [...]

Today is the 60th anniversary of Human Rights Day, declared by the United Nations in 1950 to mark the adoption by the UN of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — essentially, the founding document of the human rights movement — on December 10, 1948. To mark the occasion, and, I think, to highlight American [...]