National security seems to trump human rights

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/29/national-security-trump-human-rights

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This has been a depressing month for those who care about the UK's record on human rights and justice.

Despite mounting evidence of the involvement of UK officials in the rendition and torture of detainees overseas (MI6 'turned blind eye' to torture of rendered detainees, finds Gibson report, 20 December), we've seen a likely U-turn over there being a judge-led inquiry, as well as an important civil court case on rendition struck out by the high court.

The Libyan national Abdel Hakim Belhaj's civil action against the UK over his rendition to Libya has been described by the presiding judge as "well-founded" (Report, 21 December). So it's deeply disappointing that the court has accepted the government's argument that UK officials should benefit from immunity for acts committed by agents of foreign states and that it would somehow harm our relations with other countries or even our own "national security" to allow the claim to proceed.

Ministers from Mr Cameron down are willing to talk about human rights and justice in the context of selected foreign visits, but at home "national security" seems to trump human rights every single time. Allan Hogarth Head of policy and government affairs, Amnesty International UK

• Previously we were encouraged by the coalition's commitment to hold an independent, judge-led inquiry into the UK's post 9/11 complicity in torture. Yet Sir Peter Gibson's detainee inquiry failed to meet human rights standards from the start. Now the government has passed the buck to the secretive intelligence and security committee, hinting that this will obviate the need for a judge-led process. We do not see how a less transparent and independent process can expose the truth and restore the UK's reputation as a promoter of the rule of law.

We work with 1,500 torture survivors a year. We know from experience that redress is essential for them to move on and rebuild their lives; but the government's actions thrusts them to the sidelines. They and the UK public deserve accountability. Unless the prime minister delivers a proper human rights-compliant inquiry he will lose the moral high ground he sought to assert when he came to power. Instead he will face accusations that he has slowly but surely become part of the whitewash. Keith Best Chief executive, Freedom from Torture

• Is this really what centuries fighting for the rule of law have come to – that the CIA would not like it? Julian Le Vay Oxford

• Given the profoundly unsatisfactory outcome to Belhaj's "well-founded rendition claim", it seems appropriate to this rank and file Labour party member of 35 years that our party should show how it feels about Jack Straw's role in this sordid chapter in our country's history by petitioning the leadership to deny him a peerage on his retirement from the Commons in 2015. David Helliwell Holmfirth, West Yorkshire

• The British state has increasingly used its powers to inflict punishment without trial or any burden of evidence. The latest target has been the former Guantánamo Bay inmate Moazzam Begg, now deprived of his passport on grounds that it is "not in the public interest" for him to travel abroad (Home Office confiscates Moazzam Begg's passport, 23 December). He had been exposing the UK's crimes in outsourcing kidnapping and torture, as well as publicising these crimes globally; apparently the home secretary equates a cover-up with the public interest.

This year Theresa May also has deprived at least 20 people of their UK citizenship, on grounds that they endanger the "public good"; they have no legal redress because they were abroad at the time. On similarly vague grounds she attempted to deport the Australian Boat Race protester Trenton Oldfield, though fortunately her attempt has been rejected by the immigration appeals tribunal (Report, 24 December). These arbitrary, unaccountable powers should be opposed as a threat to us all. Les Levidow Campaign Against Criminalising Communities

• While the government and MI6 dodge and weave around the issue of the abduction and torture of Belhaj, Alexander Blackman [the marine recently convicted of murdering a Taliban insurgent in 2011], one of our many heroes, languishes in a British jail. We have to decide, once and for all, whether we will protect our people or pursue all injustices. If we choose to protect, as we seem to be doing in the case of Belhaj, Blackman must be released immediately. Neville Woods Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire

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