Chloe Davies (London, Reprieve): To mark the anniversary of King John signing the Magna Carta on 15 June 1215, Shirley Williams gave today's Magna Carta Lecture (opens as word document) at Royal Holloway. She warns that the British state could lose its historic commitment to liberty if it undermines detention without trial and other fundamental aspects of human rights in its anti-terror legislation. This month's Council of Europe report makes Williams' warning especially timely. The Report documents illegal acts undertaken by the CIA in its ‘war on terror' made possible, it shows, only "by the collaboration at various institutional levels of America's many partner countries". Dick Marty, the report's author, not only confirms secret US prisons in both Poland and Romania, where so-called "high-value detainees" were held extra-legally, he also says that NATO (i.e., including the UK), on October 4th 2001, agreed to measures that assisted the U.S carrying out extraordinary renditions, including blanket overflight clearances and landing rights to many U.S military flights, "related to operations against terrorism". In addition he claims that Diego Garcia, a British territory, was used for the "processing" of prisoners. Shami Chakrabarti says today's Lords ruling on the ECHR (reported below) means "there can never be a British Guantanamo" - but how much of one do we have already? And how many others have we covertly permitted?
Personally, it is when I meet people who have suffered the injustice of rendition - seized and transported from prison to prison, kept in the dark shackled for months on end and given no legal resort - that the human cost becomes vivid and real. If we are to effectively and morally fight terrorism, we cannot stoop this low.
