h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If doing this means my whole space is hidden I shall be very cross indeed! But I have to say something about the latest Amnesty International report.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/052505Y.shtml gives the story. Amnesty International has said that the USA led 2004's assault on human rights and that Guantanamo Bay is the "gulag of our time". On the local radio, the report gave 30 seconds to a precis of the report, and two minutes to the White House spokesman for his angry denials. Sigh...

The Pre Mod is a pain, and that's all I shall say here, because I don't want this permanently hidden. But it's difficult to guess what might lead to that happening, and that's why h2g2 is not what it was to me.

TTFN!

well the good news is this was moderated very quickly
I don't know what to say about the report
I'm ashamed of our government for its uncritical support of the US but thats hardly a new feeling

don't let current troubles get you down, they will pass

Thank you, Blackberry Cat...

I sent the report to a lot of people I know will be interested, including some who've probably already seen it.

I just cannot believe Blair was re-elected. Were the Lib Dems really that scary?

I don't think people found them scary
I've always found them a bit wishy-washy which is why I ended up voting Green although I also considered Plaid Cymru
I did stick with Labour in 2001 because the Tories were so bad in the 1980s but this time I decided I couldn't continue doing that
Labour didn't do very well but the Tories did worse and under FTP, well you know how that works
hopefully we will get electoral reform eventually

Ah, the Greens, that's good too. What you need in the UK, it seems to me, is proportional representation, so that people won't feel (as it seems many do) that voting for a third party is a wasted vote.

Well looks like they didn't hide it!! That has to be good.

One thing I really don't get about the whole Guantanamo thing was the way they didn't even charge the guys they held. They just locked them up. If they weren't anti-Bush/US/whatever, surely that'd push them over?

I havn't covered this report yet, but I have covered many reports into the USAs failures, in my human rights column.

The scariest story I covered was about ghost detainees where they gave themselves the right to hold people with names such as 'Mohammad Zia' and 'Abdullah Ahmed' without having to tell anyone. More here in the US bit A3893312

Well if that isn't picking on innocents I don't know what is.

Its dreadful seeing what is happening there and no-one can stand upto it, without being labelled a terrorist as well.

Thanks for that link, KazSorrel... The story anhaga linked to is horrifying as well, about the man who was chained in his cell and his legs broken... When I read the Truthout article about that I wept in pity and frustration!

You're right, NPY, surely that *would* push them over! The injustice of it is sickening, but no one seems to be able to do anything about it.

By an odd coincidence, a friend of mine who regularly e-mails funny stuff to me sent something deadly serious today: a video clip that appears to show American troops shooting two helpless, wounded men. Horrifying stuff, and after all that I've read about the treatment of prisoners, I can't say Amnesty's report surprises me at all. I'm just glad that they have the guts to tell it like it is.

Blackberry Cat, you've touched a nerve with this Lib Dem activist. I can't tell you how sick we got of hearing that word 'wishy-washy' during the election campaign. There we were, the only major UK party proposing tax increases for the rich and the only ones clearly opposing the Bush-Blair partnership, and still that essentially meaningless, but damaging, label seems to stick.

Still, at least all the leaflets featuring pictures of Bush and Blair together that my colleagues and I delivered in Leeds North West seemed to work. I'm going to our new Lib Dem MP's victory party on Saturday.

but until you start talking about abolishing the monarchy and the established church and turning the UK into a seculer republic with citizens instead of subjects you won't convince me you're radical
that said perhaps my old Labour prejudices were getting in the way
I'll admit you're better than New Labour or the Tories, not that thats saying much

Well, for admitting that, BC. In return I'll admit that we're fairly unlikely to propose abolishing the monarchy and the Church of England, but then I think you'll have a long search to find a party that *is* proposing those policies. I don't remember them ever being in the Old Labour manifesto either!

Plaid Cymri do
unfortunately some of them have this thing about language and ethnicity
as for old Labour I'd have to admit to some extent Blair was just burying the corpse of socialism in the Labour Party, hopes of its resurrection were probably unrealistic
I think thats enough overworked metaphors from me for now

Well, Ormondroyd, Blackberry, I find this discussion fascinating! I have to say that were I in the UK, I'd vote Lib Dem. (Or Green.) You *so* need MMP there! (We get two votes, constituency and party vote, and it doesn't (contrary to dire warnings beforehand) contribute to instability. In fact, I it.

Count yourselves lucky the Lib Dems actually get a few seats though. The Northern Ireland parties I have to choose between get only a very small handful of seats to share between them. That's nothing. No real representation at all.

How come Uzbekistan never gets mentioned in these reports, even though the leader is a tyrant that tortures his citizens. There are cases were people who have spoken badly against the goverment have been slowly put in to a tub of boiling water or oil and immersed till there dead, then the corpse left on a relatives street to serve as a reminder. Toprture is a very common practice and the USA and UK send suspected terrorist here for holding where they are tortured for confessions, they send people to Egypt as well to be tortured.

I just find in amazing that some bad things are overlooked becasue the countries support the west, or simply becasue there are worse things going on in the world.

Adib

No. you're right and of course Chechniya gets ignored now too
Unfortunately the mrdia can't manage 1 or 2 subjects at a time and if they don't immediately involve 'us' they get ignored

Its lucky we have groups like Amnesty so we can research our own news. I can also recommend Human Rights Watch, whom I use a lot in my Human Rights column in The Post, there has been a lot on Uzbekistan lately.

I thought it was a shame that the ex-UK ambassador who was shamed and sacked for mentioning the human rights abuses whilst there, never won the election in Blackburn where he went up against Jack Straw, I would have voted for him.

http://www.hrw.org/