Human Rights Abuse nightmare continues
Published Date: 05 March 2009
Local audiences have recently had the privilege of hearing Omar Deghayes describe
his long ordeal in Guantanamo.
Many who heard him could only wonder at the capacity of human endurance. Is this
the sort of treatment that should be meted out to any human being?
But this harrowing story is only the tip of the iceberg. The long nightmare of
human rights abuse is not yet over. Hard-
ly any of the detainees were charged with any crime, and some, such as Ahmed Belbacha
and Shaker Aamer, are still to be released.
We welcome the news that Binyam Mohammed can recuperate in the UK, the charges
against him having been dropped.
We appreciate the part that the Foreign Office has played in his return. However,
we cannot rest easy while the allegations of torture inflicted on Binyam, and possible
UK complicity in this, remain unresolved.
History tells us, and our own experience confirms, that wrongdoing will out in
the end. An early, open and honest account by the UK authorities as to what actually
went on is essential.
George Farebrother, on behalf of:
Eastbourne for Peace and Liberty
Eastbourne Amnesty International
Sussex Peace Alliance
Terrorist threat is ever-present
Published Date: 19 March 2009
Mr Farebrother, mouthpiece of three local peacenik outfits, employs extravagant language
(Herald, March 6) to whitewash those held at Guantanamo Bay.
What a shame such
people never seem able to find words to condemn terrorist outrages – particularly
those by Islamists – even though the victims are just as often Muslim as 'kuffir',
to use the opprobrious Islamist term for 'unbeliever'.
Can we rest easy and ignore
intelligence, while there is a potent threat of further outrages along the lines
of the 7/7 London bombings or the attempted atrocity at Glasgow airport?
Andrew
Dakyns, Holywell Close, Eastbourne
6 Gazette, Wednesday, April 18, 2009
No justification for these killings
Andrew Dakyns complains that local peace groups are unable to "find words to condemn
terrorist outrages" (March 19).
He hasn't looked very hard. In the January 28 issue of the Gazette he would find:
"Eastbourne for Peace and Liberty Secretary George Farebrother said: 'We deplore
rocket attacks by Hamas on Israel and condemn all indiscriminate suicide bombings."
As for the 7/7 London bombing, which he cites, he missed: "Sussex Peace Alliance
. . . totally condemns last week's terror bombings in London . . . " (Eastbourne
Herald, Friday, July 15, 2005).
However, Mr Dakyns wants us to pay special attention to Islamic outrages. Here,
he emphasises the Islamic tree at the expense of the wider forest of twisted conviction.
The present round of terrorism is only a symptom. The fundamental malady is the idea
that some political, religious or ideological end can justify the killing of mere
bystanders.
This is true of the IRA in its various guises and the early-20th-century anarchists
before them. It also applies to the deliberate or careless snuffing out of life under
the fig leaf of state security. All such terrorism is our common enemy.
Mr Dakyns should think more broadly and check his sources next time he writes.
George Farebrother, Eastbourne for Peace and Liberty
