Abdul Hakim Belhaj says MI6 helped CIA arrest him and send him to Libya for torture A Libyan rebel leader who was rendered to Tripoli with the assistance of MI6 said on Monday that he had told British intelligence officers he was being tortured but they did nothing to help him. In a claim that will increase the pressure for further disclosure about the UK’s role in torture and rendition since 9/11, Abdul Hakim Belhaj said a team of British interrogators used hand signals to indicate they understood what he was telling them. “I couldn’t believe they could let this go on,” he said. “What has happened deserves a full inquiry.” Belhaj was detained by the CIA in Thailand in 2004 following an MI6 tipoff, allegedly tortured, then flown to Tripoli, where he says he suffered years of abuse in one of Muammar Gaddafi’s prisons. It emerged on Monday that MI6 had been able to tell the CIA of his whereabouts after his associates informed British diplomats in Malaysia that he wished to claim asylum in the UK. Belhaj was then allowed to board a flight for London and abducted when the plane called at Bangkok. There were signs that the discovery of a cache of secret MI6 and CIA documents at an abandoned government office building in Tripoli was triggering panic in some parts of Whitehall. The papers detail the UK’s role not only in the rendition of Belhaj, but in that of a second man, known as Abu Munthir. This operation appears to have been planned by British and Libyan intelligence officers without any CIA involvement. David Cameron said the disclosures would be investigated by the Gibson inquiry, set up last year to examine the UK’s role in torture and rendition. It was unclear whether MI6 or MI5 had disclosed anything to the inquiry before the new documents came to light. Inquiry staff first indicated they knew nothing about the Libyan operations, and were seeking information from the government “as soon as possible”. Later they said they had “received material relating to these issues”, but declined to be more specific. Similarly, the Conservative MP Richard Ottaway, a former member of the intelligence and security committee, a Westminster body supposed to provide oversight of MI5 and MI6, indicated the committee knew nothing about the UK-Libya operations before giving the agencies a clean bill of health in a 2007 report on rendition; he then said he could say nothing about the matter. Belhaj on Monday revealed more details of the lead-up to his rendition on 6 March 2004, which he says came amid his attempts to reach the UK, of which the government had become aware. He said he had first tried to travel to London from Kuala Lumpur via Beijing in late February that year. However, he was refused permission to board in Beijing, despite carrying a French passport, which does not require a pre-issued UK visa. He was returned to Kuala Lumpur where he was detained by Malaysian immigration officials. It is understood that an associate of Belhaj then visited the British embassy in Kuala Lumpur advising officials there of his intention to seek political asylum in the UK. Shortly afterwards he was freed from the detention centre and allowed to buy a ticket to London via Bangkok. By then he had disposed of his French passport, issued to a Jamal Kaderi, and was travelling on a Moroccan passport, issued in the name of Abdul al-Nabi. Holders of Moroccan passports require a pre-issued visa to enter the UK, but Belhaj said he did not apply for a visa and was allowed to board without one – a highly unusual practice. The revelation raises fresh questions about the extent of the government’s role in Belhaj’s rendition. Documents discovered last Friday reveal that a senior MI6 officer, Mark Allen, had written to Libyan spy chief Moussa Koussa congratulating him on receiving Belhaj and acknowledging that “the intelligence was British”. “I would not board until they assured me that I could travel to the UK,” Belhaj said. “They did that and I got on the plane.” Belhaj was captured by CIA officers, in co-operation with Thai authorities, inside Bangkok airport. He says he was tortured at a site in the airport grounds and then sent to Libya, where Gaddafi had long seen him as one of the biggest threats to his tyrannical four-decade rule. “The British were the second team to visit me,” he said. “They came about a month after I was returned to Libya and they were very well briefed about LIFG [Libyan Islamic Fighting Group] members in the UK. They knew everything, even their code names. They wanted to know more details about the LIFG and also about the general environment elsewhere, al-Qaida, that sort of thing. There was a woman who was leading the team, a big man and a third person who was translating. They only came one time.” Belhaj said intelligence officers from other European countries, including France, Germany and Italy, also travelled to Tripoli to speak to him inside the infamous Abu Selim prison in the south of the capital. Before each visit he was told by Libyan officers – and sometimes by Koussa – to “tell the British and others that the people they are asking about are al-Qaida”. “The Libyans told me that if I told them that I would be treated better.” He said Koussa, who fled the Gaddafi regime in March with MI6 help, would often taunt him in prison, with threats that he would die there. On one occasion Koussa ordered guards to put a shade over half of Belhaj’s cell window, to reduce what little sunlight he was getting. Files seen by the Guardian on Sunday inside the now ransacked offices of the external security service reveal that Libyan spies remained in close co-operation with the CIA and MI6 as late as November last year. The files reveal the Americans, in particular, were regularly requesting information about the identities of Libyan cellphone users. One document showed that the CIA had responded to a Libyan request about the user of a satellite phone by giving GPS references for every call made. CIA rendition MI6 Libya Torture Middle East Africa Arab and Middle East unrest CIA Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk
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The justice secretary, writing in the Guardian , says there is an urgent need to stop reoffending among a ‘feral underclass’ The justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, has blamed the riots that swept across England last month on a “broken penal system” that has failed to rehabilitate a group of hardcore offenders he describes as the “criminal classes”. Revealing for the first time that almost 75% of those aged over 18 charged with offences committed during the riots had prior convictions, Clarke said the civil unrest had laid bare an urgent need for penal reform to stop reoffending among “a feral underclass, cut off from the mainstream in everything but its materialism”. Writing in the Guardian, Clarke dismisses criticism of the severity of sentences handed down to rioters and said judges had been “getting it about right”. However, he adds that punishment alone was “not enough”. “It’s not yet been widely recognised, but the hardcore of the rioters were in fact known criminals. Close to three quarters of those aged 18 or over charged with riot offences already had a prior conviction. That is the legacy of a broken penal system – one whose record in preventing reoffending has been straightforwardly dreadful.” He says: “In my view, the riots can be seen in part as an outburst of outrageous behaviour by the criminal classes – individuals and families familiar with the justice system, who haven’t been changed by their past punishments.” Clarke uses his intervention to call for the coalition government to adopt a “renewed mission” in response to the riots that addressed an “appalling social deficit”. His comments will reignite the debate on the causes of the disturbances, which the prime minister, David Cameron, has said “were not about poverty”. The first attempt at an empirical study of the causes and consequences of the riots was announced by the Guardian and the London School of Economics on Monday. The study – Reading the Riots – will involve researchers interviewing hundreds of people involved in the disturbances. The research, supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Open Society Foundations, will also include interviews with residents, police and the judiciary, and an advanced analysis of more than 2.5m riot-related Twitter messages. The project is based on a groundbreaking survey conducted in the aftermath of the Detroit riots in 1967 by the Detroit Free Press newspaper and Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. The professor who led the Detroit study, Phil Meyer, is advising on the research into the disturbances in England. The LSE’s involvement will be led by Professor Tim Newburn, head of the university’s social policy department. There is little agreement in Westminster about the causes of the worst civil unrest in England in a generation. The government has resisted calls for a public inquiry. A “victims’ panel” announced by the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, will take evidence from residents in areas where there was rioting and report preliminary findings in November. The four-person panel will be chaired by Darra Singh, chief executive of JobCentre Plus. A parliamentary hearing into the riots will on Tuesday hear evidence from the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and the acting commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Tim Godwin. The home secretary, Theresa May, will speak to the home affairs select committee about the unrest on Thursday. “There is an urgent need for some rigorous social research which will look, without prejudice, at the causes and the consequences of the recent riots,” Newburn said. “Crucially, it is vital that we speak with those involved in the disturbances and those affected by them to try to understand any lessons for public policy.” Executives at Twitter’s headquarters in California authorised the collation of 2.5m tweets, pooled from hashtags relating to the riots and their aftermath, so they could form part of the study. A spokesman for the company said: “Twitter provided publicly available information that is accessible to researchers and others.” The project will also interrogate a second database, compiled by the Guardian, containing 1,100 defendants who have appeared in court charged with riot-related offences. The data, covering more than 70% of the defendants processed through English courts for offences linked to the disorder, indicates that sentencing by crown court judges has replicated the punitive response of magistrates in response to the riots. An initial analysis of the crown court cases suggests the three most severe sentences relating to the riots were handed to individuals who did not directly participate in the disorder, but were convicted of inciting riots via Facebook. They include Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan and Jordan Blackshaw, who received four years for inciting riots in their home towns of Warrington and Northwich. None of the messages posted by either individual led to a riot and both men are appealing against their sentences, which were condemned by some quarters. However, Clarke warns against criticism of the judiciary. “The judiciary in this country is independent and we should trust judges and magistrates to base decisions on individual circumstances,” he writes. “Injustices can occur in any system: but that’s precisely why we enjoy the services of the court of appeal.” The tone of the justice secretary’s article – his first public response to the disorder – contrasts with that of the prime minister, who has taken a more hardline approach and denied that the riots were connected to poverty. David Cameron has described the riots as “criminality pure and simple” and blamed the “the slow-motion moral collapse that has taken place in parts of our country these past few generations”. Clarke writes: “The general recipe for a productive member of society is no secret. It has not changed since I was inner-cities minister 25 years ago. It’s about having a job, a strong family, a decent education and beneath it all, an attitude that shares in the values of mainstream society. What is different now is that a growing minority of people in our nation lack all of those things and indeed, have substituted an inflated sense of expectations for a commitment to hard graft.” UK riots Crime Kenneth Clarke UK criminal justice Paul Lewis Matthew Taylor James Ball guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The justice secretary, writing in the Guardian , says there is an urgent need to stop reoffending among a ‘feral underclass’ The justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, has blamed the riots that swept across England last month on a “broken penal system” that has failed to rehabilitate a group of hardcore offenders he describes as the “criminal classes”. Revealing for the first time that almost 75% of those aged over 18 charged with offences committed during the riots had prior convictions, Clarke said the civil unrest had laid bare an urgent need for penal reform to stop reoffending among “a feral underclass, cut off from the mainstream in everything but its materialism”. Writing in the Guardian, Clarke dismisses criticism of the severity of sentences handed down to rioters and said judges had been “getting it about right”. However, he adds that punishment alone was “not enough”. “It’s not yet been widely recognised, but the hardcore of the rioters were in fact known criminals. Close to three quarters of those aged 18 or over charged with riot offences already had a prior conviction. That is the legacy of a broken penal system – one whose record in preventing reoffending has been straightforwardly dreadful.” He says: “In my view, the riots can be seen in part as an outburst of outrageous behaviour by the criminal classes – individuals and families familiar with the justice system, who haven’t been changed by their past punishments.” Clarke uses his intervention to call for the coalition government to adopt a “renewed mission” in response to the riots that addressed an “appalling social deficit”. His comments will reignite the debate on the causes of the disturbances, which the prime minister, David Cameron, has said “were not about poverty”. The first attempt at an empirical study of the causes and consequences of the riots was announced by the Guardian and the London School of Economics on Monday. The study – Reading the Riots – will involve researchers interviewing hundreds of people involved in the disturbances. The research, supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Open Society Foundations, will also include interviews with residents, police and the judiciary, and an advanced analysis of more than 2.5m riot-related Twitter messages. The project is based on a groundbreaking survey conducted in the aftermath of the Detroit riots in 1967 by the Detroit Free Press newspaper and Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. The professor who led the Detroit study, Phil Meyer, is advising on the research into the disturbances in England. The LSE’s involvement will be led by Professor Tim Newburn, head of the university’s social policy department. There is little agreement in Westminster about the causes of the worst civil unrest in England in a generation. The government has resisted calls for a public inquiry. A “victims’ panel” announced by the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, will take evidence from residents in areas where there was rioting and report preliminary findings in November. The four-person panel will be chaired by Darra Singh, chief executive of JobCentre Plus. A parliamentary hearing into the riots will on Tuesday hear evidence from the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and the acting commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Tim Godwin. The home secretary, Theresa May, will speak to the home affairs select committee about the unrest on Thursday. “There is an urgent need for some rigorous social research which will look, without prejudice, at the causes and the consequences of the recent riots,” Newburn said. “Crucially, it is vital that we speak with those involved in the disturbances and those affected by them to try to understand any lessons for public policy.” Executives at Twitter’s headquarters in California authorised the collation of 2.5m tweets, pooled from hashtags relating to the riots and their aftermath, so they could form part of the study. A spokesman for the company said: “Twitter provided publicly available information that is accessible to researchers and others.” The project will also interrogate a second database, compiled by the Guardian, containing 1,100 defendants who have appeared in court charged with riot-related offences. The data, covering more than 70% of the defendants processed through English courts for offences linked to the disorder, indicates that sentencing by crown court judges has replicated the punitive response of magistrates in response to the riots. An initial analysis of the crown court cases suggests the three most severe sentences relating to the riots were handed to individuals who did not directly participate in the disorder, but were convicted of inciting riots via Facebook. They include Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan and Jordan Blackshaw, who received four years for inciting riots in their home towns of Warrington and Northwich. None of the messages posted by either individual led to a riot and both men are appealing against their sentences, which were condemned by some quarters. However, Clarke warns against criticism of the judiciary. “The judiciary in this country is independent and we should trust judges and magistrates to base decisions on individual circumstances,” he writes. “Injustices can occur in any system: but that’s precisely why we enjoy the services of the court of appeal.” The tone of the justice secretary’s article – his first public response to the disorder – contrasts with that of the prime minister, who has taken a more hardline approach and denied that the riots were connected to poverty. David Cameron has described the riots as “criminality pure and simple” and blamed the “the slow-motion moral collapse that has taken place in parts of our country these past few generations”. Clarke writes: “The general recipe for a productive member of society is no secret. It has not changed since I was inner-cities minister 25 years ago. It’s about having a job, a strong family, a decent education and beneath it all, an attitude that shares in the values of mainstream society. What is different now is that a growing minority of people in our nation lack all of those things and indeed, have substituted an inflated sense of expectations for a commitment to hard graft.” UK riots Crime Kenneth Clarke UK criminal justice Paul Lewis Matthew Taylor James Ball guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Obama criticised for continuing civil rights ‘violations’ introduced by Bush
September 5, 2011 No Comment
Campaigners say US president became weak-kneed over closure of Guantánamo bay and that spying restrictions are gone The Obama administration has disappointed civil rights campaigners who had expected him to reverse most of the post-9/11 restrictions introduced by the Bush administration. On becoming president in January 2009, Obama promised to close Guantánamo Bay within a year. He did order an end to waterboarding but Guantánamo remains open and almost all the rest of the Bush era anti-terrorism apparatus, from the Patriot Act through to increased surveillance is still in place. Measures once considered only for emergency use are being consolidated. “I did not like it when the violations of rights were temporary but now, because of Obama going along with the changes, they are becoming a permanent fixture of our legal landscape,” said Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which has been battling since the civil rights campaigns of the 1960s. Ratner, who was among the first, small group of lawyers to fight on behalf of the Guantánamo detainees, said Obama had the chance to close Guantánamo but became weak-kneed about it. “Indefinite detention, restrictions on habeas corpus, rendition, all these continue under Obama. We still have military commissions under Obama.” He added: “All the restrictions on government surveillance and spying that we fought for and won in the 1970s, are gone. We are back to square one. There are no restrictions on the FBI. None. They are targeting Muslims in particular. One’s religion has become a key criteria for surveillance.” Michelle Richardson, a lawyer specialising in national security at the American Civil Liberties Union, echoed some of Ratner’s points. “We definitely think there has been quite a significant shift and there is much more government snooping. It started with the Patriot Act, which made it easier to spy on people who aren’t suspected of doing anything wrong.” There were fewer than 1,000 people being wiretapped before 9/11 for intelligence purposes and “now we don’t know how many”, she added. Richardson said the public is split between those who think the government is over-reacting and those who think the measures are justified. “The government has done a good job of keeping people in a state of emergency,” she said, adding that it was too soon to say whether the balance will change. The scales might tip if people begin to be denied benefits or jobs because they are on terrorist lists, she said. But Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow in public law at the Brookings Institution, is less convinced that America is any less free today than it was before 9/11. Wittes said: “I am not convinced we are less free. If you talk to someone walking on the street – other than in Washington, where we feel more of the brunt because we are more of a target – I would be surprised if they felt less free.” He suggested three categories of freedom. The first affects large numbers of people; the only post-9/11 example of such is airport security; this, Wittes said, is not a constraint on freedom as it allows people to fly. The second category is people who are non-Americans and has zero affect on Americans walking round the streets. Guantánamo is in this category. The third category is surveillance. “There is no doubt there has been an increase in wiretapping. It is a substantial increase, not dramatic. It is not awesome. Most of it is public. The wild card in this is the National Security Agency warrantless wiretapping and we do not know the volume of this.” What about waterboarding? “I agree that countries that engage in torture are less free than those who do it. If you accept it was torture, the question is still more complicated,” Wittes said. It is still a country that in a moment of crisis involved a small number of dangerous people and then stopped. Is that country less free? I think that is extravagant. I am more sympathetic to the CIA than most people.” The bottom line, for Wittes, is that waterboarding has stopped. Obama administration United States US politics Guantánamo Bay FBI September 11 2001 Human rights Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk
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The prime minister is expected to use a speech on crime to announce plans to televise the sentencing of offenders Judges’ sentencing of offenders is to be televised under plans to be unveiled by the prime minister shortly, the Guardian has learned. David Cameron is expected to make his announcement in a long-awaited crime speech, expediting the agenda even though a Ministry of Justice consultation with the judiciary into the matter has not yet begun. It is not yet known how many courts will be televised. As part of his push for transparency in public services, Cameron will give the go-ahead to the televising of judicial verdicts but it is thought this will critically not include the process of the trial leading up to the verdict, protecting witnesses from exposure to publicity. The shift towards the televising of court proceedings has always been hampered by the spectre of OJ Simpson’s trial in the US which degenerated into prime-time entertainment. Television companies have been pressing for greater access to the highlights of court cases and a consultation on the shift was undertaken by the previous Labour government but was eventually discarded. Now the present government has revived the plans, believing a judicial pronouncement should become more of a moment of public reckoning. Officials believe transparency would aid public understanding of the court process and the idea has gained momentum in the aftermath of the riots. Number 10 has decided to strengthen its law and order agenda in the wake of the riots, but televising verdicts is something Cameron has been minded to do for some time. The decision to go ahead comes at the end of a consultation with judges on the issue. In May, the Ministry of Justice revealed that officials would be canvassing the opinion of judges on the matter. A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “We are considering proposals put forward by broadcasters to allow limited recording and transmission from courts in specific circumstances. “However, before any firm proposals are developed, the lord chancellor will wish to consult on the principle of broadcasting from court with the senior judiciary.” There is a fair wind for the proposal with the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, suggesting in May when the consultation was announced that he would lend the move his support. He called for greater openness and transparency in the justice system. Then Starmer told a Society of Editors meeting: “In principle I would support a proposal that judgments, judges’ closing remarks and judicial sentencing in criminal cases could be televised. “There may be a case for going further, although I would obviously not want to promote anything that adversely affected the ability of victims or witnesses to give their best evidence to the court. “Therefore there would need to be appropriate safeguards, particularly in cases involving vulnerable individuals, and any requests to televise any part of the court process should be subject to the judge’s individual discretion.” When the country’s most senior court – the supreme court in Westminster – was opened in September 2009 it was fitted with cameras. As things stand it is the only court where footage is routinely available for broadcasters on request and has been televised live. It allows visitors to watch appeals and judgments on televisions around the building without sitting in the courtrooms, but it is seen to be a different case since supreme court hearings do not involve witnesses being cross-examined or juries. Cameras have been allowed in some Scottish courts under tight restrictions since 1992. The appeal of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi against his conviction for the Lockerbie bombing was televised in 2002. Writing in the Guardian in December, the head of Sky News, John Ryley, suggested the trials of six MPs who were accused of misusing their parliamentary expenses were prime examples of public interest trials that would have benefited from being televised. Labour launched a limited trial in the court of appeal in 2004. UK criminal justice David Cameron Television Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
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Mark Allen, deputy governor of HMP Brixton, accused of assault, excessive restraint and attempting to influence witnesses A prison governor has been suspended over allegations he assaulted an inmate and tried to persuade staff to lie about the incident. Mark Allen, deputy governor of Brixton prison in south London, has been removed from his post following an incident in which a prisoner is understood to have been injured while being restrained. The Guardian has learned that the allegations against Allen include assault, excessive use of restraint and trying to influence witnesses. The Ministry of Justice has appointed Carol Draper, former governor of Parkhurst prison, to carry out an investigation into the incident, which is believed to have taken place last week. Earlier this year Brixton, which has a capacity of 500, was the subject of a critical report by Nick Hardwick, the chief inspector of prisons. The inspectorate said the jail was 250 prisoners over normal capacity, with many sharing small cells described as “dirty and in a poor state of repair … [and many] spending 21 hours a day locked up.” The prison is currently believed to be holding almost 800 prisoners as a result of arrests arising from the London riots. Last month the total number of people in prison in England and Wales passed 86,000 for the first time. Prison Service chiefs have expressed alarm internally over potential unrest and violence in overcrowded jails in England and Wales owing to extra pressures resulting from the riots. There have been concerns that prisoners detained in connection with the disturbances last month may be targeted by others and staff have been asked to be vigilant. Allen is understood to have been promoted from a smaller jail to take the post of deputy governor at Brixton, a position seen as a stepping stone to governorship. Previous governors at Brixton, one of the oldest jails in the system, include Amy Rees, who received a Civil Service leadership award for her work at the jail and Paul McDowell, currently chief executive at the crime reduction charity Nacro. A Prison Service spokesman confirmed a senior manager at Brixton prison had been suspended following allegations concerning the treatment of a prisoner. “An investigation has been commissioned and is being carried out by a governor from headquarters,” he said. In his report on Brixton, Hardwick singled out the jail’s inpatient mental health care unit for particular criticism, describing it as a “disturbing sight”, with many young men who had been sectioned waiting up to six months for a place at a secure mental hospital. Many of the cells were dirty, with ripped linoleum floors and dirty toilets without seats, the report said. The inspection team spoke of a prisoner who was was unable to care for himself in even the most basic way. Hardwick said: “It was a disgraceful way to hold someone who was little more than a boy and extremely sick.” Carol Draper, who will investigate the allegations against Allen, has governed a number of jails. She was widely regarded as having turned Parkhurst around after a scathing inspection report of the Isle of Wight jail in 2002. Prisons and probation UK criminal justice Eric Allison guardian.co.uk
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Basildon council says it plans to evict Travellers on 19 September and urges them to make homelessness applications The Travellers living at at Dale Farm in Essex have been given a fortnight to leave before Basildon council starts forcible evictions in the week beginning 19 September – when electricity supplies will also be cut. Around 400 people living on the illegal part of the site, on land they own but have no planning permission for on a former scrapyard at Crays Hill in Essex, were notified by the council that the date has been set, and advised to make homelessness applications urgently. The date has been set after the Travellers lost their last legal challenge in the decade-long row , despite a United Nations committee calling on the government to suspend the eviction. The Travellers’ cause has been taken up by celebrities including the actor Vanessa Redgrave, and young activists have moved on to the site determined to help them resist eviction. Kathleen McCarthy, one of those facing losing her home, said there would be “a brutal eviction”, despite the statement from Basildon council that they would not cut off the water when the electricity was cut. “We can go the shop and buy gallons of water, but we can’t go and buy electricity, and we need the electricity because there’s people on breathing machines that need this. They can’t live without the electricity,” she told the BBC. The council urged anyone who needed electricity for “specific health and welfare reasons” to make contact, and also to contact Essex county council over schools. Tony Ball, leader of the Conservative council, said in a statement that the evictions were a last resort. “It is with reluctance that we have been forced to take direct action to clear the site. We have sought a negotiated settlement and exhausted the legal system for almost 10 years. In that time the Travellers have refused to budge, leaving us with no alternative to the action we are now about to take.” He denied the council was discriminating against them, insisting the Travellers were being treated exactly like any other local resident who built on or developed greenbelt land without permission. Dale Farm Roma, Gypsies and Travellers Homelessness Communities Housing Maev Kennedy guardian.co.uk
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Basildon council says it plans to evict Travellers on 19 September and urges them to make homelessness applications The Travellers living at at Dale Farm in Essex have been given a fortnight to leave before Basildon council starts forcible evictions in the week beginning 19 September – when electricity supplies will also be cut. Around 400 people living on the illegal part of the site, on land they own but have no planning permission for on a former scrapyard at Crays Hill in Essex, were notified by the council that the date has been set, and advised to make homelessness applications urgently. The date has been set after the Travellers lost their last legal challenge in the decade-long row , despite a United Nations committee calling on the government to suspend the eviction. The Travellers’ cause has been taken up by celebrities including the actor Vanessa Redgrave, and young activists have moved on to the site determined to help them resist eviction. Kathleen McCarthy, one of those facing losing her home, said there would be “a brutal eviction”, despite the statement from Basildon council that they would not cut off the water when the electricity was cut. “We can go the shop and buy gallons of water, but we can’t go and buy electricity, and we need the electricity because there’s people on breathing machines that need this. They can’t live without the electricity,” she told the BBC. The council urged anyone who needed electricity for “specific health and welfare reasons” to make contact, and also to contact Essex county council over schools. Tony Ball, leader of the Conservative council, said in a statement that the evictions were a last resort. “It is with reluctance that we have been forced to take direct action to clear the site. We have sought a negotiated settlement and exhausted the legal system for almost 10 years. In that time the Travellers have refused to budge, leaving us with no alternative to the action we are now about to take.” He denied the council was discriminating against them, insisting the Travellers were being treated exactly like any other local resident who built on or developed greenbelt land without permission. Dale Farm Roma, Gypsies and Travellers Homelessness Communities Housing Maev Kennedy guardian.co.uk
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Basildon council says it plans to evict Travellers on 19 September and urges them to make homelessness applications The Travellers living at at Dale Farm in Essex have been given a fortnight to leave before Basildon council starts forcible evictions in the week beginning 19 September – when electricity supplies will also be cut. Around 400 people living on the illegal part of the site, on land they own but have no planning permission for on a former scrapyard at Crays Hill in Essex, were notified by the council that the date has been set, and advised to make homelessness applications urgently. The date has been set after the Travellers lost their last legal challenge in the decade-long row , despite a United Nations committee calling on the government to suspend the eviction. The Travellers’ cause has been taken up by celebrities including the actor Vanessa Redgrave, and young activists have moved on to the site determined to help them resist eviction. Kathleen McCarthy, one of those facing losing her home, said there would be “a brutal eviction”, despite the statement from Basildon council that they would not cut off the water when the electricity was cut. “We can go the shop and buy gallons of water, but we can’t go and buy electricity, and we need the electricity because there’s people on breathing machines that need this. They can’t live without the electricity,” she told the BBC. The council urged anyone who needed electricity for “specific health and welfare reasons” to make contact, and also to contact Essex county council over schools. Tony Ball, leader of the Conservative council, said in a statement that the evictions were a last resort. “It is with reluctance that we have been forced to take direct action to clear the site. We have sought a negotiated settlement and exhausted the legal system for almost 10 years. In that time the Travellers have refused to budge, leaving us with no alternative to the action we are now about to take.” He denied the council was discriminating against them, insisting the Travellers were being treated exactly like any other local resident who built on or developed greenbelt land without permission. Dale Farm Roma, Gypsies and Travellers Homelessness Communities Housing Maev Kennedy guardian.co.uk
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The Little Britain star, who has already conquered the Channel, is aiming to swim the river’s 140-mile length for Sport Relief David Walliams has set off on his most gruelling task yet – swimming the length of the Thames . The Little Britain star, who raised £1m when he swam the Channel in 2006 , is aiming to swim 140 miles from Gloucestershire to London over eight days to raise money for Sport Relief . “I must be a masochist,” Walliams said at the riverbank at Lechlade, where hundreds of wellwishers saw him take his first plunge into the freezing water. “I wanted to do something else and I’d just turned 40 and I thought I haven’t got much time left because my body is falling apart. “I thought I’d better get on and do something because one day it’s going to be too late.” Thinking of the children who would be helped by the charity provided his inspiration, he added. He cited a 12-year-old Kenyan boy called Philip who attended a centre which provided him with food, shelter, healthcare and an education, and who wanted to be a pilot. “He’s living in the most desperate circumstances yet he still has great aspirations. I think about him and not wanting to let him down.” Other thoughts would also help to keep him going. “I think about happy things. I think about what I’m going to eat when I get out,” he said. It is unlikely to be the most pleasant of swims in a river that, as TS Eliot pointed out, “sweats/Oil and tar” . If Walliams successfully avoids the busy river traffic and tourist vessels he will still have to face the perils lurking in the muddy waters, including – among other delights – E coli , salmonella and hepatitis. Not to mention the 39m cubic metres of raw sewage that finds its way into the Thames every year. Walliams – who has also swum the Strait of Gibraltar, and cycled from John O’Groats to Land’s End last year – pointed out that this swim would be 120 miles longer than the Channel crossing. “That’s the scary thing,” he said. “It’s all right to be full of bravado today but this is day one of what will probably be eight days of swimming. “So that’s what really scares me – the mental challenge of days five, six and seven.” The river water will be bitingly cold, which can cause cramp and involuntary breathing spasms known as a “gasp reflexes”. Walliams – who is expected to burn 4,400 calories a day swimming 17.5 miles – will also have to battle against the notoriously turbulent Thames, known for its unpredictable currents, dangerous undertows and unidentified floating objects. Despite all those hazards, Walliams said his greatest fear was meeting the river’s territorial birdlife. “When I got here last night there were about 30 swans and I have been attacked by swans in training, so I am actually quite nervous about them,” he said. “When you’re in the water and they’re coming towards you, fluffing their wings and hissing, it’s quite scary.” He hoped that people would come out along the length of the river to show their support. An online GPS tracker, linked to the #Thamesswim Twitter hashtag, will show where he is. “The nice thing about this, as opposed to the Channel, is that people can come out and see you,” he said. Walliams – whose swim will be filmed for a documentary to be broadcast before the Sport Relief weekend in March next year – would not be drawn on what challenges the future may hold. “The day after I swam the Channel, people said: ‘What are you doing next? Do you want to go up Everest?’” he said. But once he has conquered the Thames, he will be tempted to “hang up my trunks”, he said. “There’s swimming the Atlantic but that’s too hard. I looked into it and it’s 3,000 miles and will take about six months – by which time people will have completely forgotten about you.” David Walliams Charities Swimming Rivers Fitness Alexandra Topping guardian.co.uk
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