How David Davis Exposed Britain’s Secret Torture Scandal

[kpete]

How David Davis Exposed Britain’s Secret Torture Scandal
Andy Worthington

9.7.09

David Davis MPThe following is the statement that David Davis MP made to the House of Commons on the evening of July 7, which exposed the extent of British complicity in the torture in Pakistan of British citizen Rangzieb Ahmed. For further information, see the article “Britain’s Secret Torture Policy Exposed.”
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/07/09/britains-secret-torture-policy-exposed/

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Let me conclude by saying that our handling of the subject of torture has, in my view, been completely wrong. The Americans have made a clean breast of their complicity, while explicitly not prosecuting the junior officers who were acting under instruction at a time of enormous duress and perceived threat after 9/11. We have done the opposite. As things stand, we are awaiting a police investigation that will presumably end in the prosecution of the frontline officers involved. At the same time, the government are fighting tooth and nail to use state secrecy to cover up crimes and political embarrassments to protect those who are probably the real villains in the piece — those who approved these policies in the first place.

The battle against terrorism is not just a fight for life; it is a battle of ideas and ideals. It is a battle between good and evil, between civilisation and barbarism. In that fight, we should never allow our standards to drop to those of our enemies. We cannot defend our civilisation by giving up the values of that civilisation. I hope the minister will today help me in ensuring that we find out what has gone wrong so we can return to defending those values once again.

[Senator]

1. It could happen here

We (presumably) still have a speech and debate clause.

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