David Ward MP and freedom of speech

Craig Murray was once the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan. He was forced to resign from the Foreign Office after a series of incidents in the country.  In particular he objected to the British government cosying up to a brutal and undemocratic dictatorship which had an appalling human rights record. This included the boiling alive of two members of an opposition group. He also objected to our government relying on information gained through torture to boost their dodgy case for the Iraq War. Not surprisingly he was forced to resign following being charged with a series of 18 disciplinary offences alleging various forms of misconduct. All of these charges were eventually found to be baseless. Murray was forced to go because he had the temerity to go public about them. Tut tut. 

Since then he has worked hard, despite serious health threats to campaign for human rights. This has brought him into conflict with several very rich oligarchs and their legal rottweillers. His blog site has had a stormy existence, at one point being taken off the internet following pressure from m’learned friends. It is well worth keeping in touch with. For example, his latest posting has this to say about current concerns.

“David Ward MP has not been sent to jail.  He has however had the Lib Dem whip removed, which under Clegg’s leadership perhaps he ought to consider an honour.  It is rather a commonplace sentiment that it is a terribly sad thing, that their community having suffered dreadfully in the Holocaust, the European Jews involved in founding the state of Israel went on themselves to inflict terrible pain and devastation on the Palestinians in the Nakba.   Both the Holocaust and the Nakba were horrific events of human suffering.  For this not startling observation, David Ward is removed from the Liberal Democrats.  He also stated that, with its ever increasing number of racially specific laws, its walls and racially restricted roads, Israel is becoming an apartheid state.  That is so commonplace even Sky News’ security correspondent Sam Kiley said it a few months ago, without repercussion.  In Russia you cannot say Putin is corrupt; in the UK you cannot say Israeli state policy is malign.  Neither national state can claim to uphold freedom of speech.  Meanwhile, of course, David Cameron announces plans to place filters on the internet access of all UK households.

In the United States, the House of Representatives failed by just 12 votes to make illegal the mass snooping by the NSA which was not widely publicised until Edward Snowden’s revelations.  What Snowden said was so important that almost half the country’s legislators wished to act on his information.  Yet the executive wish to pursue him and remove all his freedom for the rest of his life, as they are doing to Bradley Manning for Manning’s exposure of war crimes and extreme duplicity.” www.craigmurray.org.uk