Sunday, February 12, 2006
Free Speech: Craig Murray's Book Banned By Foreign Office. posted by Richard Seymour
Ah, sweet freedom of expression. Something may be rotten in the state of Denmark, but where could 'free speech' find more jealous protection than in the United Kingdom? No, seriously, where - Craig Murray may need to go there to get his book published, for he has been advised that should he attempt to do so in the UK he will be prosecuted. The FCO has informed the former ambassador to Uzbekistan in no uncertain terms that they will not tolerate the publication of his book and would use every legal means available to stop it. As he has arguably already broken the Official Secrets Act, they feel they have sufficient legal recourse to send him to jail should he attempt to publish the book containing the documents which demonstrate UK complicity with torture.Have a look at these (click to see larger images):


Of course, Murray doesn't have the advantage of residing in Tasmania, and the damaging documents that the government tried to excise from the book have already been seen. However, the documents make clear that there are more damning passages in the book (which, of course, are described as defamation, misleading, untrue etc) which the government doesn't want Mr Murray to get out into the public.
It is just as well that this government, after forcing a woman to be jailed for the mere offense of protesting the war in the wrong place at the wrong time, has not tried to babble about 'free speech' of late. In a climate where the police have been allowed to smash up the Iqra Learning Centre bookshop in Leeds and purloin antiwar material, and where 80 year old John Catt was arrested under the Terrorism Act and handcuffed on the grounds that his t-shirt and placard contained "anti-Blair info", this government is least well-placed to mouth such vocables. The obsequies of that notion in the UK have already been paraded through parliament to several harumphs and amens. (Isn't it just telling, by the way, that the only infringement on free speech that liberals and their corresponding luvvies have really been worked up about is one that was supposed to protect Muslims from abuse in the same way that other groups are already protected?). The "rules of the game are changing" was Blair's fatuous flourish after the attacks in London, and as part of the rule change he tried to invent a wonderful new crime of "condoning, glorifying or justification" of terrorism, so nebulous in its formulation as to be worthy of any police state. No - this government dare not prate of free speech. If it did, who knows what might be said and published?
Here is Craig Murray's final rejoinder to the FCO.