15 May 09 | Uncategorized
In his latest efforts to keep details of the UK’s alleged involvement in the torture of former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed secret, the Foreign Secretary David Miliband has made a third public interest immunity (PII) certificate.
On 6 May, the High Court ruled that the judgment on Binyam Mohamed should be reopened, following an application from both UK and international media, including Index on Censorship.
The Court had, with reluctance, originally redacted seven paragraphs from the judgment, after the government claimed that their publication would affect the UK’s intelligence sharing relationship with the American administration. The media then made an application for the judgment to be reopened.
In a highly dramatic day at the High Court on 22 April, lawyers for Binyam Mohamed and the media accused the government of misleading the court. It transpired that the government had not in fact actually asked the Obama administration if the publication of the paragraphs would endanger their relationship.
The government then took advantage of the time given it by the court following the hearing last month to approach the Obama administration for a statement, as follows: “Public disclosure of this information reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the United Kingdom’s national security. Specifically, disclosure of this information may result in a constriction of the US-UK relationship, as well as UK relationships with other countries.”
But there are many questions that need to be answered, and lawyers for the Guardian have now made a request for further clarification — who in the Obama administration wrote the statement? Was it preceded by any correspondence between the foreign office and the US administration? Did the foreign office assist in the drafting of the letter? It’s clear how desperate the government is to keep the paragraphs secret. And even though Lord Justice Thomas declared himself “baffled” as to why the Obama administration should have any objection to the release of the Mohamed paragraphs when it had just released the torture memos, it may be tough for the High Court judges to resist the foreign secretary. However much they may like to.
01 May 09 | News and features, United Kingdom
Index on Censorship has learned that government lawyers are attempting to submit secret evidence on the treatment of former Guantanamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed, as the Foreign Office continues to attempt to prevent the release of potentially damning information about his detention.
In a letter to the judges presiding over the case, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones, the Treasury Solicitor has claimed that a Public Interest Immunity certificate could be necessary for any further evidence submitted by the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. This would allow the Foreign Office to supply evidence to the court in secret, on a basis not open to challenge or scrutiny.
The government is fighting an application by international media organisations, including Index on Censorship, to obtain the release of seven paragraphs that were redacted from an earlier judgment concerning Mohamed’s treatment at the hands of US officials. The Foreign Office had claimed that any release would endanger future intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US, a claim Mohamed’s lawyer, Dinah Rose QC, has described as ‘seriously misleading’.
Read the government letter here (pdf)
22 Apr 09 | Uncategorized
Index on Censorship joined the US and UK media today in an application to the High Court in London, seeking the disclosure of evidence in the case of Binyam Mohamed, the former Guantanamo detainee. Last year, information outlining Binyam Mohamed’s treatment at the hands of US officials was redacted from a court judgment. Lawyers for the foreign secretary, David Miliband, had claimed that if the seven paragraphs containing the information were released, it would endanger the UK’s intelligence-sharing relationship with the US. However, Binyam Mohamed’s lawyer Dinah Rose QC argued today that the government’s representation had been ‘seriously misleading’. Although officials in the Bush administration had suggested last year that relations would be affected, it transpired that the Foreign Office had not in fact contacted the new US administration to ask if it held the same line. Rose described the failure of the foreign secretary to clarify the position as ‘indefensible’ and added that the basis on which the Public Interest Immunity certificate had been signed could no longer be sustained.
Following the publication of ‘the torture memos’ on 16 April, detailing the shocking interrogation tactics used on detainees, and President Obama’s call for transparency and accountability, Lord Justice Thomas said today that he was ‘baffled’ as to what objections the new administration might have to publishing the paragraphs.
Geoffrey Robertson QC, acting for Index on Censorship, Associated Press, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post, is also seeking the release of the 33-page closed judgment which considers 42 documents outlining Binyam Mohamed’s treatment while in custody in Pakistan. The hearing today raised profound and troubling questions about the manner in which the Foreign Office has conducted the case and the ambiguity of the arguments it has employed to keep the full story about Binyam Mohamed’s treatment out of the public domain.
30 Jan 13 | Uncategorized
Sunday Times editor Martin Ivens yesterday issued an apology for publishing a cartoon by Gerald Scarfe depicting Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
The cartoon, which appeared in the paper as Britain marked Holocaust Memorial Day, showed the Israeli leader building a wall, and crushing Palestinians in the process. With its blood splashes and thuggish, brawny depiction of Netanyahu, the cartoon was, in the words of a Sunday Times spokesperson (before the apology), a “typically robust” piece of work by Scarfe.
The editor’s apology came after public criticism from his proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, who tweeted “Gerald Scarfe has never reflected the opinions of the Sunday Times. Nevertheless, we owe major apology for grotesque, offensive cartoon.”
It does seem slightly odd to apologise for a “grotesque, offensive” cartoon. As Martin Rowson (who draws strips for Index on Censorship magazine) points out in this article, and this Free Speech Bites podcast, cartoons are usually, by their very nature grotesque, and often offensive (to borrow a phrase from Woody Allen, at least if they’re done right).
Did this cartoon, however, cross a line? Lord Sacks, the chief rabbi, put out a statement, saying:
“The deplorable cartoon published in The Sunday Times on Holocaust Memorial Day, whether antisemitic or not, has caused immense pain to the Jewish community in the UK and around the world. Whatever the intention, the danger of such images is that they reinforce a great slander of our time: that Jews, victims of the Holocaust, are now perpetrators of a similar crime against the Palestinians. Not only is this manifestly untrue, it is also inflammatory and deeply dangerous.”
But Israeli journalist Anshel Pfeffer at Ha’aretz says that, while it may have been unpleasant, it did not contain any of the anti-Semitic blood libel and Nazi imagery that characterises genuinely Jew-hating cartoons.
Moreover, Scarfe has not notably singled out the Israeli leader for special treatment — a glance through the cartoonists archives shows portrayals of many equally blood-spattered world leaders (take, for example, this horrendous but riveting image of Bashar Al Assad, drenched in the blood of children)
Scarfe has apologised for the timing of the cartoon, though some, including Pfeffer, will say that Israeli leaders should not be immune from criticism on Holocaust Memorial Day.
Context is crucial in any debate over free speech and offence.
In 1981, far-right cartoonist Robert Edwards was given a 12-month sentence for “”aiding and abetting, counselling and procuring the publication of material likely to incite racial hatred”.
Robert Edwards’s work was unsubtle to say the least. The conviction came after the one off publication of a comic aimed at children called “The Stormer” (I did say he was unsubtle). The comic contained such delights as “”Billy the Yid”, and “Dresden and Auschwitz — The Facts!”, as well as strips targeting black and Asian people.
More recently, in 2009, Simon Shepherd and Stephen Whittle were convicted for several offences including pushing a leaflet entitled Tales of the Holohoax through the door of a Blackpool synagogue.
It is clear that Scarfe’s blood-spattered commentary on Netanyahu was quite different to the output of Edwards, Whittle and Shepherd (and there is another discussion to be had about free speech in those cases).
As such the intervention by 20 MPs writing a letter demanding an apology from the Sunday Times is a dismayingly knee-jerk reaction. As was Murdoch’s tweet.
At Index on Censorship’s Taking the Offensive conference yesterday, hundreds of artists discussed their fears of expressing themselves, lest they fall foul of local politicians, commercial sponsors, community leaders or even a Twitter mob. The censorious will always tend towards the literal, a mindset rather unsuited to the reading of the exaggerated, ironic world of art, including political cartooning.
