The Thick of It

Home Secretary Alan Johnson has just been on the radio castigating press reports that the government has been colluding with torture. He backed up the Head of MI5's claim that criticism was helpful to our enemies. Having seen him parrot what he was told to last night in a documentary about the Home Office, I wonder whether he believes this rubbish or is spouting what he has been told by the spooks. Five independent judges are not convinced.

 “Oh what a tangled web we weave,

 When first we practice to deceive” Sir Walter Scott

 “But with practice dearest chums –

 See how easy it becomes” 

 D. Milliband and A. Johnson (apologies Ogden Nash)

The accounts below from Clive Stafford Smith, writing in the Guardian paint a different picture.

 “In a scathing judgment running to 84 pages, the court of appeal has slapped the government down in the case of Binyam Mohamed. As many will recall, Mohamed was seized by the Pakistanis in April 2002, turned over to the Americans for a $5,000 bounty, abused for three months, rendered to Morocco, tortured with razor blades to the genitals, rendered on to the "Dark Prison" in Kabul, tortured some more, and then held for five years without charge or trial in Bagram air force base and Guantánamo Bay. The verdict of the court – comprised of three of the country's most senior judges – underlines the shameful way in which, in this case and beyond, our political leaders have placed their desire to suppress embarrassing revelations above the welfare of citizens.

Yet two years into the litigation, the foreign secretary, David Miliband, still argued that a court would be "irresponsible" to reveal the material – strong language when aimed by the diplomatic service at the judicial branch.

"No advantage is achieved by bandying deprecatory epithets," the judges replied, before passing out a few polite insults themselves. The foreign secretary's intransigence was "irrational" and lacking in "commonsense". With the original high court judges, that makes five independent members of the judiciary against one US-dependent politician.

So what is truly at stake? At its most significant level, the decision focused on a legacy of the "war on terror" that is more bitter even than abusing prisoners: the conflation of national security with political embarrassment. The fact of torture is horrific; but the concerted effort of British and American officials to cover up the torturers' crimes is far more insidious. How can we learn from history, and avoid repeating mistakes, if we do not know what that history is?

This is a high-profile example of a national disease. Because we fear for our safety and cherish our privacy, politicians argue that we will lose both if we do not sacrifice our right to free speech, our "right to know". We should, in other words, simply trust them.” Extracts from an article by Clive Stafford Smith, Guardian 11/02/2010

Miliband and Johnson's actions and ‘trust us’ justifications place the UK alongside totalitarian regimes infamous throughout history. It is a legacy of shame on this governments actions and reflects deep shame on Miliband and his colleagues. Complicity with torture; complicity with rendition; the use of ‘National Security’ to prevent transparency, and all done in our name. 

As Clive Stafford Smith concluded:

 “Suppressing any evidence of government criminality on grounds of national security sets a very dangerous precedent.”