Friday, December 12, 2003
Angry Herod Blunkett threatens to resign from Amnesty.
The Home Secretary was furious after the human rights organisation denounced his emergency internment powers, under which 14 men have been jailed, as a "perversion of justice"... Mr Blunkett said: "When I became a patron and supporter of Amnesty many years ago, I did so to support them in tackling death and torture, the threat of people having their lives taken away and their well-being destroyed."
The British men in Guantanamo Bay, either the US or UK versions, don't count. What's shocking is not that Blunkett is thinking of quitting Amnesty, rather that Amnesty have not chucked him out. His stance on both terrorism and immigration is completely at odds with what Amnesty claims to stand for.
Inadvertantly revealing is this quote: He said the British detainees had been legally represented and were free to leave, providing they went to another country. So, Blunkett is saying that people held in this country because they are supposedly suspected of being terrorists, are free to go if they leave the country. If they were terrorists, wouldn't that be a little bit dodgy? Isn't that like giving the Yorkshire Ripper or Harold Shipman the key to their cell doors and saying "I don't care if you do kill anyone, just so long as you do it outside the British Isles"? Surely if it was really thought they were terrorists we wouldn't be so blase about the option of letting them go off and cause mayhem out there in the world, after all Blunkett's political masters are always talking about how there's a global war on terror in which everyone must do their part. He's be guilty of giving comfort to the enemy.
The Home Secretary was furious after the human rights organisation denounced his emergency internment powers, under which 14 men have been jailed, as a "perversion of justice"... Mr Blunkett said: "When I became a patron and supporter of Amnesty many years ago, I did so to support them in tackling death and torture, the threat of people having their lives taken away and their well-being destroyed."
The British men in Guantanamo Bay, either the US or UK versions, don't count. What's shocking is not that Blunkett is thinking of quitting Amnesty, rather that Amnesty have not chucked him out. His stance on both terrorism and immigration is completely at odds with what Amnesty claims to stand for.
Inadvertantly revealing is this quote: He said the British detainees had been legally represented and were free to leave, providing they went to another country. So, Blunkett is saying that people held in this country because they are supposedly suspected of being terrorists, are free to go if they leave the country. If they were terrorists, wouldn't that be a little bit dodgy? Isn't that like giving the Yorkshire Ripper or Harold Shipman the key to their cell doors and saying "I don't care if you do kill anyone, just so long as you do it outside the British Isles"? Surely if it was really thought they were terrorists we wouldn't be so blase about the option of letting them go off and cause mayhem out there in the world, after all Blunkett's political masters are always talking about how there's a global war on terror in which everyone must do their part. He's be guilty of giving comfort to the enemy.
