HOME Secretary Johnson and MI5 director general, Evans, yesterday launched a hysterical witch-hunt against the exposers of the fact that both MI5 and the Labour government knew of and covered up the torture of British resident Binyam Mohamed by the US authorities.
They argued that legal actions such as the current Reprieve case were providing propaganda for the enemy. This is just a step away from declaring such actions are endangering British lives and are treasonable.
For good measure they added: keep quiet about torture or the Americans will dump us.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Evans says about the current case: ‘We must hope for our safety and our security that this does not make it (the US) less ready to share intelligence with us.’
The British ruling class will clearly do anything to stay on the right side of US imperialism, however sickening and degrading it is.
The government not only covered up for the torture of a British resident by the US authorities, it applied pressure on the Court of Appeal and got judges to change a judgement that had already gone out to the parties in the legal action – all to please the US.
It was prepared to humiliate its judiciary, and demonstrate that British justice remains class justice, and that there is no such thing as a judiciary that is above the requirements of the ruling class to try to achieve this.
MI5 director general Evans wrote in the Daily Telegraph that, ‘There have also been a series of allegations that MI5 has been trying to “cover up” its activities. That is the opposite of the truth.’ In fact it was Lord Neuberger, the country’s second most senior judge, who decided that there was a ‘culture of suppression’ at MI5.
Amnesty commented yesterday on the developing witch-hunt: ‘Quite simply, all UK officials should have known that they could not be party to any acts of torture or cruel treatment. Indeed, they had a duty to try to prevent or at least report these acts if they become aware of them.
‘The Binyam Mohamed case has thrown a spotlight on what appears to have been a clear failure to prevent torture when it was known to be happening.
‘What Messrs Miliband, Johnson and Evans are saying doesn’t add anything new and now more then ever we need an independent and wide-ranging inquiry into all aspects of the UK’s alleged involvement in human rights abuses like rendition, secret detention and torture.
‘It is offensive to suggest that by fighting torture through the British legal system, Reprieve and others are giving succour to our enemies.’
Johnson responded immediately to the call for a public inquiry by vetoing it.
The last thing that he or British imperialism want is the Pandora’s Box of US torture and British ruling class collusion fully opened, and the whole foul truth emerge.
The MI5 chief issued a barely disguised warning in the Telegraph to human rights movements that, ‘We would do well to maintain a fair and balanced view of events as they unfold’.
With a hint of threat he added: ‘We will do all that we can to keep the country safe from terrorist attack. We will use all the powers available to us under the law.
‘For their part, our enemies will also seek to use all tools at their disposal to attack us. That means not just bombs, bullets and aircraft but also propaganda.’ This comes close to suggesting that exposing torture is in fact becoming a tool of the enemy.
British workers must defend Reprieve and its legal team who are defending all our rights when they expose the torturers and their accomplices.
The ruling class reaction to their struggle reminds us that there is only one way to defend basic rights against the capitalist state and that is to smash it up and destroy it with a socialist revolution.
For the working class the defence of freedom equals the struggle for the socialist revolution.
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