UK Government In Breach Of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Posted on 10 November 2008 by Dave Knight in International Articles

By Dave Knight

I recently wrote to David Miliband the UK Foreign Secretary. To date I have not received a reply. Here is the first part of the body of the letter (with a few grammatical corrections):

A Government that that does not protect it’s citizens from governments that ignore the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is guilty of the same offence.

Guantanamo is a concentration camp. I was born at the end 1944 into a world at war and as I learned of the atrocities of the Nazis and their camps I thought (hoped) such terrible things would never be repeated.

Sixty three years later concentration camps are still in operation all over the world along with the use of torture. Unbelievably the UK Government is party to the excesses of ‘friendly’ governments including the United States of America.

This disgusts me as a UK citizen and I implore you to influence the UK Government to do a significant u-turn and take Great Britain back to a path of Justice.

A good place to start Mr Miliband is considering the plight of Binyam Mohamed who is in the Guantanamo concentration camp.

Then I quoted word-for-word a text suggested by Amnesty International because I couldn’t write it better.

Binyam Mohamed, a British resident of Ethiopian origin who is currently detained in Camp 5 of Guantanamo Bay. Binyam’s lawyer has expressed serious concern that he is in at risk of complete mental and physical collapse.

Lieutenant Colonel Yvonne Bradley has stated that during her recent visit to Guantanamo Bay she found Binyam to be thin, fragile and weak. He has expressed suicidal thoughts to her and is eating little or nothing. He informed his lawyer that he was eating tiny amounts in order to avoid forced tube feeding and therefore being denied his legal visits.

Lieutenant Colonel Bradley has requested that the authorities move Binyam out of Camp 5, maximum security and into Camp Echo, she is of the view that this will lessen the very serious risk of a suicide attempt. The authorities have refused this request.

I urge you to make representations to the US authorities to transfer Binyam from Camp 5 and to continue to make representations for his release from Guantanamo Bay and his return to the UK.

Sincerely,
David Knight