Saturday, November 21, 2009

"All of this has happened before..."

"...and all of it will happen again."
In October 2002, on becoming concerned that torture and extra-judicial killings were taking place in Uzbekistan, Craig Murray made a controversial speech at a human rights conference in Tashkent, in which he claimed that "Uzbekistan is not a functioning democracy" and saying of the boiling to death of two men, "all of us know that this is not an isolated incident." The speech was cleared by the Foreign Office, but not before a dispute over its content. Later, Kofi Annan confronted Uzbekistan president Islam Karimov with Murray's claims.
The result of this principled stand revealing western participation in torture and abuse?
Murray was dismissed from his position as ambassador in 2004, following his first public allegations that the British government relied on torture in Uzbekistan for intelligence.

1 comment:

Dr.Dawg said...

Ah, nostalgia. Much more on Craig Murray here.

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