Going global on racism

Follow @JohnPlatinumG Not having many followers I am pleased to announce that my cartoon on the racist duplicity of Home Secretary, Theresa May, appears to be going global. It has far outstripped any satirical cartoon I have produced to date even those related to the despicable treatment of Julian Assange. In its first day it took more than 200 hits, which by my standards is remarkable. It is too early yet to know where it is getting most support since those figures will not be available for a day or two.

Theresa May is the daughter of a Christian clergyman. You might therefore think she would have some Christian compassion. You might therefore think that she had heard of the parable of the Good Samaritan who helped a foreigner who had been set upon by thieves. Instead, anybody with a non-English sounding name, is temptation to her. She bangs them up in prison for interminably long periods of time, defying the basic tenet of habeas corpus, gets a retiring judge to forgive the police who beat up Babar Ahmad, extradites an Asperger sufferer, Talha Ahsan, to the United States where human rights are almost non-existent today, then to demonstrate just how racist she is, does not extradite a similar sufferer who has a UK-sounding name, Gary McKinnon. I am happy to see that Gary McKinnon was not extradited, but the same law should have been applied to the other Asperger sufferer, UK-born Talha Ahsan.

It is not just me who has noticed this two-faced racist approach to extradition. The Huffington Post and the Independent and probably other quality newspapers noticed these dual standards. And it is not just Theresa May that is racist. Racism is rife throughout the Tory Party. Dominic Grieve did not allow a debate into the Epetition supporting Babar Ahmad which had close to 150,000 signatures. These people bring disgrace on my good name as an Englishman.

Hang your heads in shame if you're British

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I wrote to Lambeth Palace, the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, this week. My email read:

"It is of real concern to have heard nothing from the A of C's office,

and no directives to the Anglican Church regarding the wrongful

imprisonment of Muslims, accused by the United States as having

infringed the same laws that saw almost 800 people imprisoned in

Guantanamo Bay.  Think of the wrongful imprisonment of St Paul and then

let me know that my church is destined to remain silent on such an abuse

of human rights.

http://johngossip.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/english-justice-reeks-like-cesspool-it.html

I await your response eagerly,

John Goss"

There was no response.

I have blogged, almost ad nauseum, to try and get justice for these men, who have been in prison for interminably long times without being charged, more than 8 years in the case of Babar Ahmad and 6 in the case of Talha Ahsan. Compare that with the short time it took to charge Mark Bridger of the murder of the little girl, April Jones, in Wales. These men are not suspected of murder but have been imprisoned on the say so of the United States. It is Friday and millions of Muslims have been praying in the mosques while Khateebs have been asked to remember them in Friday prayers.

As well as the corruption of the judiciary it is particularly disturbing and cynical that Theresa May and her friends the justices chose the Muslim holy day to deliver the verdict, which was not arrived at in court. Thank God Julian Assange is safe in the Ecuadorian Embassy, or he would be illegally sent with them. I am ashamed to be British. There is a law for some, and a law against Muslims. Shame on the law-courts. Shame on Theresa May. Shame on Dominic Grieve. It is not a war on terror. It is a war on Islam.

The Ghost of Dr David Kelly

Follow @JohnPlatinumG After years of theatricals I have gone into the film industry. This 2 minute visitation is a serious satire which questions what kind of a government intercedes to prevent, as the law requires, an inquest into an unexplained death. In this case it concerns the death of Dr David Kelly. 1 in 4 people do not believe his death was suicide. Click here to see 'The Ghost of Dr David Kelly'

Student journalism - is it what it used to be?

Follow @JohnPlatinumG Glen Moutrie is editor of the student newspaper, Redbrick, the student newspaper for the University of Birmingham which is alma mater for my first and masters degrees. In my undergraduate days I used to write for Redbrick. That was when Damien Quinn was editor. I have emailed Glen Moutrie 3 times, the first containing an article which outlines my reasons for calling for the resignation of Dominic Grieve. Grieve has prohibited an inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly. I believe certain sectors of the student fraternity would sign up for Grieve's resignation if they knew about the epetition.

Moutrie was presented with a Guardian award for student journalism last year, so I cannot understand why he failed to get back to me regarding, if I dare write it, the well-argued article I sent him. Either the powers-that-be have diverted these emails to his trash bin without him seeing them (which would not surprise me) or he is rude, which is not what I would like to think. I seek answers.

Why Dominic Grieve should resign (II)

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In December last year I raised an Epetition calling for the resignation of Dominic Grieve because he took it upon himself to investigate the death of Dr David Kelly, the arms inspector who brought attention to the 'dodgy dossier' which took us into an illegal war with Iraq. There was never a proper inquest into Dr Kelly’s death. In fact Dominic Grieve, at the behest of Michael Howard, had himself backed an inquest into Dr Kelly’s death in 2010 providing sufficient evidence warranted such an inquest. But instead he looked into the death himself and concluded that on the ‘evidence’ he had seen there was nothing which led him to believe anything but the Hutton Inquiry’s conclusion that Dr Kelly took his own life.

To begin with the Hutton Inquiry, or any other inquiry, has no legal authority to establish the death of any person dying from unnatural causes. That is the role of a coroner. The Hutton Inquiry was further hampered by the fact that witnesses were not sworn in, and were only marginally cross-examined – if at all. Likewise the Attorney General’s legal background relates to occupational and safety law, and in fact he is rather a career politician than a lawyer. Coroners have profession-specific training and qualifications which it is unlikely either Dominic Grieve or Lord Hutton possess, leaving neither of them in a position to replace a coroner, but which both of them appear to have done. 

·         Coroners have to be available 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

·         Coroners need to have medical-training and very often possess forensic knowledge.

·         Coroners need to keep up to date with changes in Coronial Law – a discipline on its own.

The Attorney General is advisor to the government and the highest legal authority in England and Wales. The last three Attorney Generals, Peter Goldsmith, Patricia Scotland and the current one, Dominic Grieve, have each exceeded their authority. In an email to the Attorney General’s office on 18 May 2011, Christopher Stephen Frost, a specialist in diagnostic radiology, sought reassurance that due process would take place in establishing an inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly. As I've mentioned before, in his email he pointed out that due process had not ensued with both Grieve’s predecessors, “Lord Goldsmith over his twice changed Iraq War legal advice and Baroness Scotland over the twice cancelled Serious Fraud Office investigation of British Aerospace”.

On 19 December 2011 Justice Nicol attempted to bring to an end any chance of an inquest into the death of Dr Kelly, which is alarming since there never was a proper inquest. Instead the findings of the Hutton Inquiry, which dealt with this unnatural event clumsily, was allowed to stand. To add to the lack of justice from what was more correctly labelled “a whitewash” Hutton prohibited papers and photographs related to Kelly’s death from public scrutiny for 70 years, a decision subsequently upheld by Dominic Grieve, and Justice Nicol. Some details of the police investigation and post mortem reports have been released but the all-important photographs, which, in conjunction with an inquest would help establish the truth, are still being withheld.

By not releasing photographs of Dr Kelly’s body and the position where it lay does nothing to allay suspicions that the body was moved at some time between being found and the arrival of the paramedics. There are conflicting reports as to where the body lay when it was discovered and a short time afterwards. Paramedics, David Bartlett and Vanessa Hunt, on their arrival at the police-scene, applied electrodes to the body while the police took photographs. The body at this time was lying flat on the ground far enough away from the tree for a person to walk between the tree and body. The paramedics pronounced Dr Kelly dead at 10.07 a.m. Earlier Ms Holmes and Paul Chapman, who were searching the area found Dr Kelly slumped back against the tree, where the police-dog-team also mentioned they had seen the body. These discrepancies were ignored by the Hutton Inquiry. No coroner in the land would have ignored such a conflict of evidence without cross-examining the witnesses.

A group of dedicated medical experts, who have long questioned Hutton’s finding of suicide in Dr Kelly’s death continue to call for an inquest. Their latest request, made a few days ago, raises the issue about the moving of the body. A proper inquest, when it is granted, will almost certainly establish that the body was moved. Who moved it? When? Why? Those are likely to be the more important additional questions.

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Why Dominic Grieve should resign over the death of David Kelly

Follow @JohnPlatinumG Even if you do not get time to read the following post please sign the epetition (UK residents only) and distribute it widely. Liberty is at stake.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/26133

Over the last decade there has been an erosion of civil liberties and a breach of civil and human rights in the UK. These range from the abandonment of habeas corpus to the creation of foreign prisons where interrogation and torture can be committed without due scrutiny or legal representation. Habeas corpus is a long-established legal tenet to ensure that anyone imprisoned, should be brought before the court. Prior to Tony Blair’s second term as prime minister habeas corpus had only notably been suspended during the Treason Trials of 1790s, at a time when Britain was at war with France, and when it was feared that revolution might spread across the channel. Now President Obama has just signed off a bill to imprison “American citizens without charge or trial”.

A lack of human rights, and the overriding of legal procedures, is even worse today. The Attorney General is advisor to the government and the highest legal authority in England and Wales. The last three Attorney Generals, Peter Goldsmith, Patricia Scotland and the current one, Dominic Grieve, have each exceeded their authority. In an email to the Attorney General’s office on 18 May 2011, Christopher Stephen Frost, a specialist in diagnostic radiology, sought reassurance that due process would take place in establishing an inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly. In his email he pointed out that due process had not ensued with both Grieve’s predecessors, “Lord Goldsmith over his twice changed Iraq War legal advice and Baroness Scotland over the twice cancelled Serious Fraud Office investigation of British Aerospace”.

On 19 December 2011 Justice Nicol effectively brought to an end any chance of an inquest into the death of Dr Kelly, which is alarming since there never was a proper inquest. Instead the Hutton Inquiry dealt with this unnatural event clumsily and without properly cross-examining unsworn witnesses, as former MP Norman Baker, ably argues in his searching account The Strange Death of David Kelly. To add to the lack of justice from what was more correctly labelled “a whitewash” Hutton prohibited papers and photographs related to Kelly’s death from public scrutiny for 70 years, upheld by Dominic Grieve. If this stands when the documents are released it will be tantamount to the Clintons apologising for the United States’ experiments into the effects of syphilis on blacks and Guatemalans. A glib apology is hardly going to help anyone some sixty years from now when most people will have forgotten that Dr Kelly died because he told the truth that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and that there was no forty-five minute capability for Iraq to deploy long-range missiles which threatened the United Kingdom. These were prime ministerial lies.

Suspending habeas corpus has led to the imprisonment of a British subject, Babar Ahmad, for more than seven years without charge. Another former prisoner, Algerian-born Hider Hanani, was held for more than seven years without charge and on his eventual release from Long Lartin prison was effectively put under house arrest. Long Lartin, Belmarsh and Woodhill are our Guantanamos, except they are on UK soil, whereas Guantanamo Bay is not in the US, so in that respect, before Obama’s latest deplorable contravention of the Bill of Rights, we were more culpable in our disregard for habeas corpus and the rule of law. Tony Blair labelled Guantanamo Bay an ‘anomaly’ and the Attorney General, William Goldsmith, called for its closure in 2006, without either addressing our own anomalies. Our reputation worldwide is probably as low as it has ever been in the last hundred years. I would like to see that reputation restored. That is another reason why I am calling for Dominic Grieve to resign.