Britain Can Be Sued For Torture.

I covered this months ago, finally and thankfully the case went the way of the Kenyans, as BBC News reports with typical English understatement:

“Four elderly Kenyans have been told they can sue the Foreign Office for their alleged torture by British colonial authorities 50 years ago.

The High Court said the group could seek damages over their treatment during the 1950s and 60s.

Mr Justice McCombe said the claimants had an “arguable case” and it would be “dishonourable” to block the action.

Ministers say the UK government is not responsible for the actions of the colonial administration.

The decision means that the government will have to defend accusations of torture, murder, sexual assault and other alleged abuses at a full damages trial in 2012.

The four Kenyans, Ndiku Mutwiwa Mutua, Paulo Muoka Nzili, Wambugu Wa Nyingi and Jane Muthoni Mara, all in their 70s and 80s, say ministers in London approved systematic abuse in special camps. A fifth claimant has died since the action began.

The High Court heard that Mr Mutua and Mr Nzili had been castrated, Mr Nyingi was beaten unconscious in an incident in which 11 men were clubbed to death, and Mrs Mara had been subjected to appalling sexual abuse.”

After Kenya, Malaya.

The British Government has done it again, tried to hide its crimes and murders:

“The documents, released by Malaysian sources ahead of a judicial review related to the massacre, also reveal how a Metropolitan police investigation in 1970 into the allegations was “terminated” because an incoming Conservative government did not want the darker aspects of Britain’s colonial past exposed.

The plantation workers were shot in cold blood by a 16-man patrol of Scots Guards in December 1948. Many of the victims’ bodies were found to have been mutilated and their village of Batang Kali was burned to the ground. No weapons were found when the village was searched during a military operation against Chinese communists in the post-second world war Malayan emergency.

The British government has refused to apologise for the incident or offer reparations, and last November it said it would not hold a public inquiry into an incident that campaigners dub “Britain’s My Lai massacre”. A recent letter from Treasury solicitors indicates that the government is not prepared to discuss whether the killings were lawful or not.

News of the suppressed investigations follows last week’s disclosure of government reports in the high court revealing the extent of British brutality during the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya.”

(H/T: Peter Tatchell)

Her Majesty’s Government And Torture.

British newspapers were rightly critical when the US government used rendition and carted people off to faraway countries to be tortured, but Britain’s own use of torture is often forgotten.

A new court case concerning HMG’s activities in 1950-60s Kenya should reveal more.

Dave Osler has details:

“The Foreign and Commonwealth Office – which denies all liability – will tell the judge that the case should be thrown out, because legal responsibility for any abuses were transferred to the Kenyan government upon independence in 1963.

Mr Justice McCombe will listen to both sides over the next week or so and come to a decision in line with the applicable laws. Not being a lawyer myself, I have no worthwhile opinion on the strict legal aspects of this matter.

Yet the ethical issues surrounding this case seem to be absolutely clear. True, there were atrocities on both sides, to use the classic formula, and the exact death toll is a matter of debate between specialist historians.

But it is firmly established that the bulk of the atrocities were perpetrated by the colonialists, who of course had no business being in the country in the first place.

The lowest credible estimate of the number of Kenyans killed is around 11,500, although the claims go as high 70,000. The Mau Mau were responsible for around 2,000 of these deaths. The courts authorised 1,090 executions, and the use of torture and mass detention was widespread.

It must of course be established whether the plaintiffs were indeed the recipients of such treatment. But if this is demonstrably so, they have a moral right to recompense.

Of course, if Britain were to be held retrospectively liable for the slave trade, the Irish and Indian famines, the decimation of Australia’s indigenous population, the concentration camps of the Boer war, the Amritsar massacre and all too many other occurrences throughout its imperialist history, this country would be skint.

There is an argument to be had as to what cut off point – if any – should apply. But the suppression of what was known at the time as ‘the Kenya emergency’, with the first word pronounced ‘keen-yer’, was the work of my father’s generation.

The PA has more:

“The test case claimants, Ndiku Mutua, Paulo Nzili, Wambugu Wa Nyingi and Jane Muthoni Mara, who are in their 70s and 80s, have flown 4,000 miles from their rural homes for the trial, which will also consider whether the claim was brought outside the legal time limit.

The judge heard that Mr Mutua and Mr Nzili had been castrated, Mr Nyingi was beaten unconscious in an incident in which 11 men were clubbed to death, and Mrs Mara had been subjected to appalling sexual abuse.

Update on Bita and Mohsen.

HMG certainly likes sending people back to Iran, irrespective of the consequences that they might face: torture or death.

Thankfully the British High Court and European Court of Human Rights have ruled that Bita Ghaedi won’t be deported today.

As with Nadia Arzane and Bashir Foris, HMG in the form of the Home Office are content to kick people out of Britain no matter the consequences, when certainly many of these activists would face the prospect of torture or death at the hands of Ahmadinejad’s regime.

Although the deportation has been delayed, Bita Ghaedi is still not safe and has a further hearing set for the 21st July 2010.

I wish her the best of luck dealing with the Home Office.

Deportation Campaign Against Iranian Activists.

I was alarmed to see the HMG is still deporting activists back to Iran and the clutches of the Ahmadinejad regime, Nadia Arzane and Bashir Foris are about to be sent back:

“The UK continues its deportation campaign against Iranian activists, this time a young pregnant couple whose deportation was scheduled for today. The woman, Nadia Arzane, became very distressed at time of boarding and due to stress on the unborn child, they did not fly today as planned. However, they are back in detention and still at very high risk fo deportation.

Any deportation of people to Iran, which detains, tortures, and executes political activists just like this couple, is unconscionable. But somehow the idea of sending a pregnant woman to her death is more revolting still. “

The background:

“Nadia Arzane and Bashir Foris are a married Iranian couple in their early 20s. They are currently detained in Yarl’s Wood IRC and due to be forcibly removed from the UK tomorrow, Friday 23rd April on Air Baltic BT652, from Gatwick airport to Riga, Latvia. Where it is likely they will be returned to Iran.

Nadia is an activist from Iran who supported the opposition party by making a stand against human right abuses. On a protest in July 2009, in the town of Bandar Abbas, she saw a person beaten to death by government agents. She handed out leaflets and CDs in her local area calling on people to vote against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A few days later, she returned home from work and witnessed her father being beaten and arrested because he would not hand over information about her. Her father spent two months in an Iranian prison where he was tortured. As a young Christian and human rights activist she has suffered prolonged persecution from the Iranian government and will be arrested and possibly executed if she is returned.

Nadia has shown immense courage and conviction in her Christian Faith and her belief in Human Rights. Her and her husband have been detained since their arrival in the UK and are currently being detained in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre.

Nadia and Bashir are under immense stress. Nadia’s physical and mental health are a serious concern. Nadia she is terrified. She is 14 weeks pregnant and at the stage during which miscarriages are most common. She has not had a full psychological assessment as recommended by health professionals; She is showing signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and is unable to eat or sleep. Without a full psychological assessment there is no way of knowing the full state of Nadia’s mental health, and how the stress of the imminent removal will affect the health of her unborn child. She is not receiving any treatment.”

Shades of Spycatcher?

I remember reading Wright’s Spycatcher about 25 years back, having purchased it in Paris. The British Government, under Thatcher had banned publication on British soil, but it didn’t stop people obtaining a copy. It wasn’t a bad read, not too controversial, as far as I can remember.

Now does history repeat itself, second time around as farce?

HMG has just stopped the publication of Andy Hayman’s book, he’s a retired assistant commissioner of the Met Police and knows a fair bit about 7/7 and counter-terrorism.

It seems a bit of a cackhanded attempt to limit whatever critical information the book contains, thus ensuring that it will get a wider audience and the secret eventually leaked on the Internet, outside of HMG’s jurisdiction.

Silly really, when will governments learn?