Some of the Abu Ghraib abuse shown on TV networks worldwide
Latest developments in the War on Terror have included new anti-terror laws, riots and the release of shocking images of abuse by coalition troops. Sky News and BBC News 24 both broke with the story of prisoner abuse early Wednesday afternoon. The new images that “they didn’t want you to see” were earlier aired on an Australian TV station. SBS showed the image as part of a documentary about the abuse of Abu-Ghraib prisoners by US troops. Some of the un-shown images are said to show homicide and sexual acts. Channel 4 News described the pictures as being “disturbing” and “depraved”. Many were described as too extreme to show. The release of the pictures under America’s Freedom of Information Act will further outrage top officials at the White House who have attempted to stop the photos getting into the public arena. The timing is also of great concern. Earlier in the week the British paper News of the World showed video evidence of abuse by British troops. Indeed, some Arab TV stations linked both the Abu Ghraib ‘torture’ and the beating of teenagers in Basra by British soldiers. Charles Grainer and Lynndie England have already been sentenced in the US for their part in Abu Ghraib abuse previously investigated. But these new picture will only further enflame tensions throughout the Middle-East. One Civil Rights attorney described the evidence of abuse was only “skimming the surface”.
And as protests over the cartoons of Mohammed continue this will surely add fuel to the fire. Over 70,000 protested in Pakistan on Wednesday, the third such protest in recent days which has seen at least 3 deaths.
New Anti-Terror Laws were today passed in the UK parliament. The laws were “absolutely vital” to stopping the ‘glorification of terrorism’. The word ‘glorification’ sent “a massive signal” to the “likes of Abu Hamza”, Tony Blair told the House of Commons. But the glorification of terrorism may run into problems in the courts. As to what the precise meaning of glorification might mean. Some MPs have expressed a fear that those who celebrated the likes of Robin Hood, Wat Tyler or Che Guevara, might themselves find themselves on the wrong side of the law. But in an interview shown on Sky News at 17:25 GMT, the Prime Minister defended the change in the law. “It’s not just those who perpetrate terrorism [who present a danger] but also those that encourage such acts…or set out to entice or recruit other people”, Tony Blair said.
He insisted the War on Terror was a new threat which Britain and the rest of the world faced and that something needed to be done. “The law will allow us to take more action against such people…we have free speech in this country but don’t abuse it. We must send a clear signal to those that incite terrorism or glorify it”, he said. “This global terrorism threat is new, it’s different”. Referring to protests seen in London following the publication of cartoons of Mohammed he said, “I don’t think there is any doubt that most people in the country think it its abhorrent for people to hold up placards as we saw recently.” Some of the placards had called for those who insulted Islam be killed. One child had been photographed wearing an “I love al-Qaeda” woolly hat, another dressed as a ‘suicide bomber’.
Meanwhile in Iraq, at least 10 have died in continued violence including 3 children killed in a roadside bomb in Baghdad [BBC]. And as the Saddam Hussein trial was adjourned after only 2 days of testimony, it has emerged that Saddam Hussein and a number of his co-defendants have embarked on a hunger strike [BBC].
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