Binyan Mohamed – that well know “British resident” – must be so thankful for the BBC. Today Al Beeb leads the news cycle with Mr Mohamed’s scurrilous allegations that he would not have faced torture or extraordinary rendition but for British involvement in his case.Modestly, Binyam would also like to see former PM Blair and former US President George Bush put on trial for their crimes. You can understand why he so engages BBC sympathy, can’t you? Anyone surprised that our favourite Ethiopian illegal immigrant chose the BBC to give his first major interview? I wonder how much he was paid for it? Isn’t it disgraceful to see Jihadists getting all this oxygen of publicity care of our license taxes?
we live in interesting times.
archduke | 14.03.09 – 1:08 am | #
We do indeed. I’ve a feeling that things are going to get a whole lot more interesting in the next six months. I think ‘Mad Max 2’
style interesting!
DAVID VANCE – Can we have ‘Binyam’ (why are we talking about this fucker in firstname terms?) photo removed, please?!
It really annoys me when I open this site!
that choudary character is promising more islamo-nutjob protests at returning soldiers parades.
oh boy – nick griffin just found his favourite recruiting poster boy.
Gigits | 14.03.09 – 1:21 am
agreed.. just having his mug on the site and nothing else isnt good.
either reomve the pic – or stick pics in the other posts to lessen the impact.
i think you should do what EU Ref does – have a pic for every post
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com
I want to smash his bearded face in!
I think we should have a picture of him giving a pig a blow job.
now comic relief is on about normalising mental illness.
“we are just like anybody else”
NO YOU FUCKING ARENT…
comic relief seem to think that mental illness is some sort of taboo.
my head is now going into mental illness just thinking about that.
they really are destructive fuckers arent they? pure Gramscian Marxist bollocks in plain view.
The BBC are like a disgusting disease that needs to be stamped out.
When we gonna start?
archduke | 14.03.09 – 1:33 am | #
For god’s sake don’t watch it!
No matter how tempting it may be to see Lanny Henry attempt to revive his career – it’s just not worth it!
You will be contaminated with a shit load of lefty, hand wringing nonsense!
The ghastly Aibhai-Brown just fished the extracts from her autobiog today – concluding (after much whinging about the gilded life she has had here after being booted out of Uganda) – that London is a city to which no-one belongs.
Typical.
How about the Londoners ? isn’t it THEIR city ? Or rather – wasn’t it ?
I have to say that the first thing I do when I see a long thread like this is put “Martin” into the Firefox search box and click through his posts while laughing out loud. Don’t mince words, do you old chap? Oh heavens, I said “mince,” I’m turning into a Beeboid!
Gus Haynes A long time ago (0152)
You beleive that the war’s were illegal. So what? we all do.
The BBC is welcome to tell Binyans story, but they must do it in a balanced manner. They’re welcome to highlight his complaints about torture, but the BBC must put it in context with with the alleged criminal background of the complainant.
The fact that they have ommitted to tell the public (their audience and the people who fund it), the full facts of the story, and the full context, means that; Either thhe BBC is guilty of gross negligence in relation to it’s charter or it’s simply, by virtue of ommiting the full facts, telling you a lie?
I want the BBC to give me the facts, not its opinion I will decide who to believe after that. Do that and nothing else, I’ll pay.
The BBC is in effect lying on Binyan. Only a fool would deny that.
Unrelated but not sure if you saw this
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/03/pious-hypocrite-muslim-choudary-would-be-stoned-to-death-if-he-had-his-way-.html
Oh heavens, I said “mince,” I’m turning into a Beeboid!
Jason | 14.03.09 – 2:55 am | #
It’s OK. I said “cock” earlier but I think I got away with it.
‘The Sun’
“Outrage at BBC torture claims”
[Extract]:
“The BBC sparked outrage yesterday over an interview with a terror suspect who claimed Britain played a part in torturing him.
Binyam Mohamed said seven years in detention had left him feeling ‘dead’.
“The Ethiopian — flown back to Britain by private jet last month after being freed without charge from Guantanamo Bay — claimed MI5 agents played a part in his torture before he confessed to being an al-Qaeda fighter.
“But the BBC failed to demand proof of his claims, despite US allegations that he has a history of lying.
“And Mohamed, 30 — who is seeking compensation and wants to stay in Britain — was not challenged over why he went to Pakistan on a fake passport before visiting Afghanistan.
“PM Gordon Brown was dismayed by the broadcast on Radio 4’s ‘Today’ Programme.
“His spokesman said: ‘It’s for the BBC to justify the approach it takes to an interview.’
“Tory MP David Davies said Mohamed’s story was ‘hard to swallow’ and he was amazed the BBC did not test his claims.
“He added: ‘I’m astonished the BBC was happy to give him time to slag off the country he wants to live in but aren’t interested to inquire what he was doing in Afghanistan..'”
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2319739.ece?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News
‘Tony Sharp blogspot’
“BBC – Binyam’s boring cant”
[Extract]:
“Am I alone in getting tired of the BBC’s saturation coverage of the unsubstantiated claims of former Guantanamo terror suspect Binyam Mohamed? It seems every fresh assertion from this man, no matter how wild, receives untold minutes of air time that revisits time and again the BBC’s current hobby horse of allegations of torture by the Americans.
“Binyam Mohamed says he wants to see George W Bush and Tony Blair put on trial because of what he says happened to him in custody. Perhaps Mohamed should contemplate the responsibility he bears for having been taken into custody in the first place. After all, it is hardly normal behaviour at a time of dramatically heightened security just months after 9/11, to pitch up at a Pakistani airport having wandered around Taliban dominated Afghanistan – because he had been told it “was where the real Islam was” – before presenting without explanation a false passport despite having been granted residency in the UK allowing him to enter legally.
“Nothing suspicious there then. But of course people are less likely to feel negatively about Mohamed’s experience while in US custody if his extremely suspicious behaviour is picked over in any detail. Given the circumstances, why are journalists content to ask a single question about Mohamed’s behaviour, accept his one line answer at face value and not seek to dig much deeper to uncover the real story that is self evidently waiting to be revealed? It stretches credibility beyond breaking point and the public is ill served by the determined attempt to make Mohamed look as innocent as a cuddly little bunny rabbit, particularly when allegations as serious as those levelled against Mohamed are ignored or glossed over.
“In giving Mohamed a platform to make his claims unchallenged it seems to have escaped the BBC’s attention that this man has been locked up for nearly seven years – so how could he know with any certainty what was going on behind the scenes? His interrogators and custodians are hardly going to tell him. So why is he being allowed to advance claims unsupported by any evidence?”
http://tonysharp.blogspot.com/2009/03/bbc-binyams-boring-cant.html
My advice to the BNP – not that it’s needed – is to make a whole load of leaflets with Binyam on them. He will be an effective recruiting sergeant for the one party which is sworn to end the BBC.
On the BNP, the question has to be with what will happen if the leftist establishment achieves its aims (and the BBC is its propaganda unit) and what will happen if the BNP gets to impose its manifesto as stated on its website. If the former, then there will be no more of a UK recognisable to me or any of my age group (mid-40’s). If the BNP prevails, then there will still be a UK: it may not be exactly what you’d want but it will still be there, and be ours. That is the bottom line.
In contrast, one of the flithy little Marxist toerags that whines on From Our Own Correspondents was busy testing suggestions that Iraq is starting to calm down.
The BBC given up any attempt to keep a grip on reality as facts are mangled and twisted to fit the beeboids pre ordained political world view.
George R.
“because he(Binyam Mohamed) had been told it “was where the real Islam was”.
Obviously bollocks,real Muslims go to Mecca,just as Catholics go to Rome.The latter don’t go to Spain to see the Inquisition.Only a biased beeboid liberal would accept tripe like that as a reason for being behind enemy lines.
WHAT IS HE DOING IN THIS COUNTRY?
WHY IS THIS THE ONE QUESTION THE BBC WILL NOT ASK ON BEHALF OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE?
The BBC just cannot forgive Bush and Blair for having liberated Iraq from tyranny and (unless President Obama screws up – very likely) defeating Al Qa’eda in Iraq.
Agenda driven news just couldn’t be more blatant when you look at the ample grounds for scepticism about Binyam’s claims and the total absence of it in questioning him. The BBC is the enemy of British democracy.
Surely if Binyan Mohammed is only a resident, as distinct from a citizen, he has a 5 year or 10 year residency. I cannot imagine residency being permanent. If it is temporary only then surely there should be no trouble sending his ass back to where he came from! My only thought, as a former law enforcement officer, is that maybe the British intelligence want him to stay in England so they can keep eyes on him. Better the devil you know etc
Happy to be corrected though!
The Labour (popularist socialist government) is keen to pander to Muslim population and minority clienet groups in return for votes.
Therefore all sorts of bad guys rock up in Britian and the “human rights” industy swings into action to stop then being sent back to when they come from. (Tony Blair’s money grubbing wife styles herself as a “human rights lawyer”)
Strangely the human rights of those murdered, maimed and brutalised by the Islamic fundamentalists are never considered.
Easy way to remember how to spell fundamentalist: fund a mentalist.
Garden Trash: But did you not see the really camp beeboid that interviewed this Muslim tosser? The guy EVEN had a pink shirt on.
I really do think male beeboids just get aroused around unwashed bushy bearded Muslim men.
Perhaps they have some sort of domination fetish at the BBC? Perhaps they all wank over Frank the plank Gardner as he got slotted by towel heads and they just dream of being toughed up?
I can’t think of any sane reason for their support.
At one stage on Thursday on the BBC Radio 2 news they were actually calling him a ‘British Citizen’!
This went on for about six or seven news bulletins and then they went back to ‘British resident’.
Martin,
I won’t have a television in the house,or outhouse for that matter.
Was the interviewer ex Cambridge? There is a certain type of Arabist,if you get my drift.
I wonder, coming from an American perspective, is the UK media’s love for this guy coming from a guilt perspective, or a fearful one (in light of Muslim sensibilities and riots)? Or is it just that people want to use him because it allows them to remind everybody of Bush and Guantanamo? I’m curious, I just thought he’d be outta the news cycle by now.
Keith (Texas) | 14.03.09 – 9:05 pm |
Keith, You are right on both counts – much public debate in the UK is dominated by the urban liberal elite (maybe a little like the East Coast liberals at the NYT/WAPO?) the difference here is that we are all expected to carry the post-colonial guilt gene and live a state of perpetual self-flagellation.
As for Bush and Gitmo, the UK intelligensia will always assume a attitude of moral and intellectual superiority where the US is concerned.
Even when the US does the “Right Thing” (elects Obama), the condescension towards the US still remains. The current love-in for Obama will last no longer than that for Tony Blair.
keith (texas) @6.52 pm
we have something in the UK called the human rights act which was imported into the uk from the european union in 1998 by our socialist government.
article 3 prohibits torture.
article 8 gives a right to family life
jihadis in the Uk either argue art 3 -e.g ” please don;t send me back to saudi/ pakistan/ egypt/ algeria / jordan as i am jihadi”
or alterntively they marry and have kids in the uk – this means they can then argue that they can;t be expelled as the baby jihadis will not have a daddy to bring them up right.
our laws are then interpreted by unelected judges who view the jihadi’s cases as an academic exercise only and fail to realise they have made Londonistan the only place to be seen for ex pat jihadis from across the world.
a quick guide to the united kingdom of dhimmitude !
Keith
Biyan was out of the news cycle. But the BBC deliberately brought him in – they have an obsessive opposition to Bush and Gitmo and the war on terror. The people of Britain want this guy gone, or at least want him forgotten. The BBC has an agenda directly opposite to the wishes of the people who are forced to pay for it.
Well I bought the Guardian today.
(Actually I purchase it most days)
and this letter caught my eye over how the left,right and the bBC keep on shouting out torture,torture, torture when it comes to Allah’s little helper Binyam.
Timothy Garton Ash is a respected voice on human rights issues and many other matters, but his article on Binyam Mohamed (If Britain became complicit in torture, we must discover who is to blame, 12 March) contained a number of allegations which are simply not true, in the same way that the UN special rapporteur on human rights and countering terrorism made allegations in your pages which are untrue (UN report condemns Britain over torture, 10 March).
It is factually wrong to say that we tried to conceal potentially exculpatory material from Mr Mohamed’s defence counsel.
Far from withholding documents, it was the British government which pressed for and secured the release of these documents by the US to his defence counsel in October 2008. This was the result of strenuous efforts on our part, as the high court said. We also disclosed considerable UK intelligence material in the court proceedings in this country, which was discussed at length in the court’s publicly available judgments from last August onwards. We have also made that material available to parliament’s intelligence and security committee, the body with the constitutional responsibility for the oversight of the work of the intelligence and security agencies.
The point in issue in the recent judgment of the high court was not that, but whether the courts in one country should order the public disclosure of another country’s intelligence material without that country’s permission. We argued that they should not, given the fundamental principle that intelligence documents are shared on the basis of confidentiality, and should only be disclosed by the originators of the information.
The US position was always consistent and clear in respect of the damage of disclosure. We spent a year and a half pressing for Mr Mohamed’s release from Guantánamo Bay and he was, as a result of that effort, the first Guantánamo detainee to be released by the new US administration.
When allegations were made by Mr Mohamed about his mistreatment at the hands of others, we asked the US to examine those allegations. And far from covering up UK involvement in this case, the home secretary referred the question of possible criminal wrongdoing to the attorney general for her consideration as an independent minister of justice.
This was absolutely the right course of action and, as the court acknowledged, is the proper legal process. These are serious issues which deserve to be discussed seriously. But let us do so on the basis of the facts.
David Miliband MP
Foreign secretary
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/14/david-miliband-binyam-mohamed
To be fair. I wouldn’t trust Miliband with the steam off of my sh-te. Yet here he speaks facts. Facts Al Beeb should air next time it wheels Binyam
out in which to berate the British.
Today Al Beeb leads the news cycle with Mr Mohamed’s scurrilous allegations that he would not have faced torture or extraordinary rendition but for British involvement in his case.
This man came to Britain and got sanctuary here. In heartfelt gratitude to his soft-hearted host, he immediately leaves the country for Afghanistan on a forged British passport. Amazing. Whatever happened or did not happen from then on, he brought it on himself. No one forced him to leave a safe Britain for Afghanitstan. He is solely responsible for his idiocy(if that is what it was and not some other unsaid reason).
The government needs to take action here, or there will more scams of this sort, and one of these end up really hurting us or our allies.
As I posted earlier on the BBC
While I don’t agree with torture or the wars that our government have got us caught up in, I do not believe Binyan Mohamed should be allowed to stay in the UK.
This man was not arrested or imprisoned by the UK, has no claim to live in the UK, so why is he considered a British problem?
He left this country of his own freewill to travel to countries that have close links to terrorism. He took that risk and should accept responsibility for his actions.
Now let me put up this scenario.
Let us suppose that he was indeed tortured by some non-Western security service. These people are not gentle, and Binyan gave them everything they wanted – names of alQaeda contacts, places, the lot, and in exchange for his cooperation, he is offered asylum in Britain – this time for real. The authorities, while deciding how to arrange all this so that it looks real, he is placed in Gitmo.
So here is the bright idea. The only way to get him here legally is for him to claim torture with complicity of MI5. This way, he is advised, he puts Britain in some kind of obligation, forcing us to let him stay in Britain, as well as, get compensation for his suffering. The compensation though is for him spilling the beans.
Since he also claims he does not know anything about alQaeda, took no weapons training etc, this also puts him in the clear with some our esteemed citizens, who may decide to dispense justice in the RoP way, if he had betrayed the “cause”.
The comments on the BBC website are almost 100% bitterly hostile to Binyam Mohammed as a liar, fraudster and likely terrorist, who should be deported forthwith to his native Ethiopia. The contempt for Islam ‘justice’ and sharia in these coments is something I’ve never seen on this website before, either.
I have not found a single comment supportive of him. The BBC, in championing this character, is unbelievably out of step with the British public.
libertus
I cant find the link to the BBC comments on this affair. Can you please put the link up. Thanks.
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=6203&sortBy=2&edition=1&ttl=20090314233904#paginator
This story makes me curious about the way that Brits and Americans have grown increasingly hostile in recent years to the idea of torture. I’m certain Mohammed was tortured – and so he should be. He was found in Afghanistan, and he had met with Al-Qaida members. When captured he was not going to give up information easily was he? Therefore torture was the only option available. Yeah maybe in a utopian world there would be no need to torture and abuse our fellow men, but that perfect world ain’t this one.
The media, along with governments these days, talk about how bad torture is but sometimes there is no alternative. For Christ’s sake, its not like the CIA and MI5 are just grabbing seniors off a street corner and torturing them! They are torturing terrorists, or potential terrorists, and what alternative is there? The terrorists do not play by rules, or codes of ethics – so why should we? Its all very well being high and mighty, taking the high road about human rights. But terrorists don’t respect human rights, so why should we respect human rights in our dealings with them?
I’m sure I’m not saying a thing you guys haven’t written down here before, it’s good to read some smart comments from some switched on guys for a change.I just think there needs to be a bit more perspective in the media coverage.
“I’m certain Mohammed was tortured – and so he should be. He was found in Afghanistan, and he had met with Al-Qaida members.”
But what if Binyam Mohamed had not been tortured and had been,in fact,recruited by MI6 and sent to Afghanistan to penetrate al Qaeda and the Taleban.What if he was caught by the Pakistanis when he was coming back to debrief? Subsequently getting handed over to the Americans for whom he agreed to be a spy in Guantanamo?
What if all this is a ploy to Keep Binyam Mohamed alive?
There were stranger stories in the Cold War.
Hey Mick, yeah I guess I see the comparison with the liberal elite here in the USA. Personally, I hate use of the word ‘liberal’ – these guys distort the true meaning of it. Liberal should mean open to new thinking and innovative ideas – I grew up understanding ‘liberal’ as an essential ingredient of survival of the fittest capitalism. Liberal thinking, in its original sense, should be about finding new ways to better ourselves,new ways to solve problems. Todays ‘liberals’ are nothing of the sort. They are as self righteous and arrogant as those they campaign against.
Somewhere in the last 2o years political ideology in the United States got all messed up, and ‘conservatives’ ceased to be about fiscal responsibility and small government. Bush wasn’t a conservative as I grew up knowing conservativism, if he had been he would have let the states get on with laws and stop trying to increase the size of our useless federal bureaucracy. Now Ronald Reagan, he knew what ‘conservative’ really meant.
I guess it’s the same there. A lot of Americans thought Prime Minister Blair was a conservative because he got on so well with President Bush. Ideology and principles replaced by populism and the all-knowing state. Sad to see it change sometimes.
Sorry that was kinda long, I’ll shut up for a while.
Keith (Texas) | 15.03.09 – 1:27 am |
Keith – the Americans were taken in by Blair – while he was mincing around the “world stage”, he left the UK in the hands of the most illibrel people this country has ever seen. If there is one person who took the “great” out of Great Britain he has to be high on the list. His New Labour Party are the worst government in British History and the BBC are their media wing.
Jon
Thanks
Jon I agree. I fear the reverse is happening now; Brits are being taken in by Obama. Believe it or not, I have nothing against his personality, he does have an air of confidence about him that is the most reassuring in a President we’ve had since Reagan. Also, I think he will turn out to be a lot less left wing than his supporters hope. However, all the British coverage of him that I have seen goes on and on about his race. I don’t care what race our President is, I just want the best guy doing the job you know? That’s how most Americans feel. In the run up to the election, the implication became that if McCain won it was down to the white voters being racist! When most white voters were voting for the candidate, not the skin color. I saw some BBC footage around the time of the 08 election and they were so hung up about talking about his race, it was like they had forgotten everything else.
Keith (Texas) | 15.03.09 – 1:59 am |
Thats all the BBc cared about – they are the most patronising lot – they cannot see past a persons colour.
I guess that shows the irony of political correctness doesn’t it!
“But what if Binyam Mohamed had not been tortured and had been,in fact,recruited by MI6 and sent to Afghanistan to penetrate al Qaeda and the Taleban.What if he was caught by the Pakistanis when he was coming back to debrief? Subsequently getting handed over to the Americans for whom he agreed to be a spy in Guantanamo?
What if all this is a ploy to Keep Binyam Mohamed alive?
There were stranger stories in the Cold War.
Garden Trash | 15.03.09 – 1:25 am”
Conspiracist evidenceless rubbish.
Its the alien lizards really yeah?
What if all this is a ploy to Keep Binyam Mohamed alive?
There were stranger stories in the Cold War.
Garden Trash | 15.03.09 – 1:25 am
There is no evidence for it. If Britain wanted to protect him they could have given him a new name and documents, quietly brought him back without fanfare and press conferences and settled him in another part of the country or if that wasn’t secure enough, settled him in Canada or New Zealand.