Friday, February 28, 2014



This smells

Moazzem Begg is a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner. After being imprisoned without charge or trial for three years, tortured, and brutalised, he was released in 2005. Since then, he's been a human rights activist, highlighting the western policies of torture, rendition and detention without trial that he was a victim of.

Part of this work has taken him to Syria, where he has been investigating the treatment of those rendered there by the Bush and Blair governments. The British don't like this, so in retaliation they used feudal-era laws to take his passport. And now, they've arrested him for "terrorism".

This smells. And it looks an awful lot like Putinism. But then, should we really expect anything different from a government which equates journalism with terrorism?