London 2012 Tortures and Censors Human Rights

international | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis

Saturday June 16, 2012 05:52

by BrianClarkeNUJ - AllVoices

Lessons of the History of Internment & Torture Without Trial

British Headlines screamed; REES LASHES DUBLIN OVER TORTURE REPORT, Times, ANGRY REES ATTACK AS DUBLIN CHARGE OF TORTURE IS UPHELD: Daily Telegraph,REES ANGRY AS EIRE PRESSES TORTURE ISSUE, Sun,TORTURE TURMOIL, BRITAIN LASHES BACK OVER THE GUILTY VERDICT, Financial Times, IRISH PERSISTANCE ANGERS UK, Mirror, REES IN STORM OVER TORTURE.

Protest At London 2012 Olympic Games

Most leading British journalists with experience in Ireland, have come to believe that the ongoing conflict in British Occupied Ireland is political and not religious and that its origins lie in the conquest of Ireland by England with the subsequent establishment of a colony on the basis of a Protestant headcount in Ulster to keep the province secure for the Crown. They have realized that the conflict stems from the partition of the country almost a hundred years ago, an artificial division, designed to be temporary, engineered by the British to guarantee Protestant dominance,supremacy and privilege, in the remaining six counties of Ulster. These journalists realize that the price is what the British Army’s senior counter-insurgency expert, Brigadier Frank Kitson, wrote : ‘The real difficulty lies in the political price which a democratic country pays in order to influence the ways in which its people think.’

The publication of the European Commission report concluding that Britain had been guilty of torture in Northern Ireland, was preceded then by the then British Secretary of Occupied Ireland and his officials calling several newspaper along with TV editors into his Whitehall offices for drinks to chat about what was to be published in the report, with the result of almost every British newspaper carrying identical editorials on the day of the report’s publication. Editorial leaders diverting attention away from a guilty verdict and suggesting that the Irish Government was wrong to raise the issue.

British Headlines screamed; REES LASHES DUBLIN OVER TORTURE REPORT, Times, ANGRY REES ATTACK AS DUBLIN CHARGE OF TORTURE IS UPHELD: Daily Telegraph,REES ANGRY AS EIRE PRESSES TORTURE ISSUE, Sun,TORTURE TURMOIL, BRITAIN LASHES BACK OVER THE GUILTY VERDICT, Financial Times, IRISH PERSISTANCE ANGERS UK, Mirror, REES IN STORM OVER TORTURE.

The last means of redress that does not include violence, left to Irish people in British Occupied Ireland is publicity. There has never been in the last 40 odd years proper procedure for the hearing of complaints regarding violations of human rights and murder by the British army, paramilitary police, state sponsored assassination forces, with torture and brutality in interrogation centres, internment without trial, solitary confinement and excessive punishment in prison. It is absolutely clear that sanction for these ongoing violations of human rights come from the British Government. It still uses the law and counter-terrorism as part of its ongoing war effort against a defenceless civilian people. In short, Irish people have been wasting their time for 800 years asking the very people responsible for human right violations against them to hear their complaints and grant justice.

The British Government has exercised great pressure at home and abroad to distort the truth, about British Occupied Ireland portraying their case as being honest peacemakers caught in the middle of a sectarian war between Catholics and Protestants, while censoring the fact that they have sponsored division, sectarianism and murder as they have always done throughout their former colonies, with their tactic of divide and conquer. When they murder civilians directly or indirectly they always get their story to the media first and almost exclusively, such as, they were fired on first, or their murdered victim was carrying a weapon, etc.,etc. British media usually accepts their military or paramilitary police spokespersons. THE BIG BRITISH LIE is often the most painful things the Irish people suffer who experience the actual truth. The British military version is what the people in charge of British media want themselves, so they do not seek out the truth.

When Internment without trial was introduced in British Occupied Ireland 40 years ago, the leading nationalist party of that time, the SDLP took a principled stand and resigned from Stormont, "the sectarian parliament for a sectarian people," as boasted by Unionist leaders. The British then flew leading Provos who were interned in Long Kesh concentration camp, to talks in London which came up with an agreement that was eventually called the Good Friday Agreement. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness who led those talks, were vetoed by their republican leadership. The British then mentored them into the ascendancy within the republican movement, promising the a media platform instead of the armed struggle. Unfortunately that media platform was used instead for personal promotion and careerism rather than righting the considerable injustices of statelet set up strcitly on a sectarian headcount of British planted colonialists.

Britain has now once again broken the terms of the peace agreement and is again interning political activists who oppose the British Occupation in Ireland, whether they support armed struggle or oppose it. One of those interned is Marian Price who has been tortured now in solitary confinement for more than year. The British refuse to allow UN monitors into the prison to independently research exactly what is happening. Marian Price now a mature woman with considerable years of political activity on behalf of Sinn Fein is in both physical and psychological daily agony but the British agents who have infiltrated Sinn Fein have abandoned her.

When Britain introduced internment 40 years ago their sensory deprivation techniques of subjecting the interned Irish to noise, deprivation of sleep, along with deprivation of food and drink were investigated by the European Court of Human Rights. In a trial "Ireland v. the United Kingdom," the European Court in Strasbourg ruled that the techniques amounted to torture.

In response to the public and Parliamentary disquiet on 16 November 1971, the British Government commissioned a committee of inquiry chaired by Lord Parker, the Lord Chief Justice of England to look into the legal and moral aspects of the use of "Sensory Deprivation."
The "Parker Report"was published on 2 March 1972, and found the techniques of "Sensory Deprivation" to be illegal under domestic law:

10. Domestic Law ...(c) We have received both written and oral representations from many legal bodies and individual lawyers from both England and Northern Ireland. There has been no dissent from the view that the procedures are illegal alike by the law of England and the law of Northern Ireland. ... (d) This being so, no Army Directive and no Minister could lawfully or validly have authorized the use of the procedures. Only Parliament can alter the law. The procedures were and are illegal.
On the same day the Prime Minister Edward Heath stated in the House of Commons:

The Government, having reviewed the whole matter with great care and with reference to any future operations, have decided that the techniques...The statement that I have made covers all future circumstances.
"As foreshadowed in the Prime Minister's statement, directives expressly prohibiting the use of the techniques, whether singly or in combination, were then issued to the security forces by the Government."[3] These are still in force and the use of such methods by UK security forces would not be condoned by the Government.

A United Nations expert on torture has already called on Britain and all countries to ban the solitary confinement of prisoners except in very exceptional circumstances and for as short a time as possible, with an absolute prohibition in the case of juveniles and people with mental disabilities.

“Segregation, isolation, separation, cellular, lockdown, Supermax, the hole, Secure Housing Unit… whatever the name, solitary confinement should be banned by States as a punishment or extortion technique,” UN Special Rapporteur on torture Juan E. Méndez told the General Assembly’s third committee, which deals with social, humanitarian and cultural affairs, saying the practice could amount to torture.Segregation, isolation, separation, cellular, lockdown, Supermax, the hole, Secure Housing Unit… whatever the name, solitary confinement should be banned by States as a punishment or extortion technique

“Solitary confinement is a harsh measure which is contrary to rehabilitation, the aim of the penitentiary system,” he stressed in presenting his first interim report on the practice, calling it global in nature and subject to widespread abuse.

Indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement in excess of 15 days should also be subject to an absolute prohibition, he added, citing scientific studies that have established that some lasting mental damage is caused after a few days of social isolation.

“Considering the severe mental pain or suffering solitary confinement may cause, it can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment when used as a punishment, during pre-trial detention, indefinitely or for a prolonged period, for persons with mental disabilities or juveniles,” he warned.

The practice should be used only in very exceptional circumstances and for as short a time as possible, he stressed. “In the exceptional circumstances in which its use is legitimate, procedural safeguards must be followed. I urge States to apply a set of guiding principles when using solitary confinement,” he said.

He warned of an increased risk of torture in these cases because of the absence of witnesses and said some detainees have been held in solitary confinement facilities for years, without any charge and without trial, as well as in secret detention centres.

“Social isolation is one of the harmful elements of solitary confinement and its main objective. It reduces meaningful social contact to an absolute minimum,” Mr. Méndez told the committee, noting that a significant number of individuals will experience serious health problems regardless of specific conditions of time, place, and pre-existing personal factors.

One of the interned, Marian Price has now been interned for more than a year of solitary confinement, was force fed by the British for 6 months as political prisoner of conscience. The Queen ordered her release many years ago with an unconditional pardon witnessed by the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, which the British now say they have lost or shredded, without conducting any investigation. Two judges have already ordered her release based on the same evidence as and unelected Englishman overuling everyone in Ireland, including the judiciary and his own Queen on the matter. It is generally accepted that his motives are bigoted and personal as he is a close ally of certain sectarian unionists, whom he in the process of co-opting into his British Tory party, along with most of the elite horsey set of fox hunting Tories in British Occupied Ireland.

For the above reasons we ask those who care about human rights, peace and justice to protest at the Olympic Games in London 2012 is the same way that the hypocrites of the British Government protested the Olympic Games in Beijing !