Yesterday, at the Parliamentary Committee of the Council of Europe, Kristin Hrafnsson made an appeal that should have gone straight to the hearts of all the journalists in the UK, as well as any citizens who have managed to hang onto their moral compass, or any memory of the basic requirements of democracy and human rights.
What Hrafnsson was asking for was a worldwide outcry and condemnation in response to the unprecedented death toll of journalists in Gaza and other places where the rules of war have, in recent years, been thrown in the waste bin of history.
He said this as a part of the presentation at Julian Assange’s first public meeting since his release from Belmarsh high security prison in the UK. During his statement to the Assembly, Assange reminded us that AI is being used to create mass assassinations. He pointed out that there used to be a difference between assassination and warfare but this appears to no longer be so. He thinks it likely that the majority of targets in Gaza are bombed as a result of AI.
This should bother us in the UK particularly because we know that UK forces and hardware, including numerous surveillance flights out of Cyprus, have been used to gather information in Gaza since Israel set out on its campaign of mass murder. That is likely to be data about telephone and internet use that builds the information sets that allow Israeli drones to follow and to kill journalists, their families, and anyone who has the misfortune to be standing near them. (We can’t be sure because when quizzed about UK forces surveillance activity in Gaza, MPs tend to say “oh, that’s a secret.” But it’s hard to see what else they might be doing there at this time.)
Where’s the outcry and condemnation?
You will not be surprised when I tell you that my search around things like the BBC and the newspaper stands in my local shops this morning came up with a marked absence of any such outcry. Yet again, my activist friends, it would appear to be down to us to do this.
I expect many people will start by wanting to know what the Council of Europe is, whether we’re still in it, who Hrafnsson is and why we should care. Here are the answers:
The Council of Europe
The UK was a founder member of the Council of Europe. It is not the EU – it is not what we left under the hand of erstwhile Prime Minister Boris Johnson. It is an organisation that was set up soon after the last World War, with a mission to promote human rights, and to keep all the governments of Europe informed on risks and failures that presented a danger to the freedoms and safety that we would like to see as normal standards for all of us.
Kristin Hrafnsson
Hrafnsson is an investigative journalist from Iceland, known mainly for his work with Wikileaks. When there was a question from the floor at the Assembly about journalists, he said there have been horrible stories about targeted killings, that it was bad in Iraq (you probably remember the most famous Wikileaks release of all time, the footage of US pilots going after and shooting down a group of journalists and those who attempted to rescue them) but, said Hrafnsson, now it is even worse.
He said, “it is a horror story it is hard to give out advice for … the only thing we can call out at least is for an outcry and condemnation. This should be going on because we need this information.”
(That is, the information journalists are risking their lives to produce). He went on to explain that there is no way to make journalists in Gaza safe, that they are being followed by drones setting up assassination targets, and the only defence we can offer them is outcry and condemnation.
Why should we care?
Well, my advice there would be please listen to Assange’s statement to the Committee, in which he explains how the conduct of the US and the UK during the years of his persecution have compromised the safety of journalists in particular, but all of us in general, and what we need to do to restore our safety and our rights to speech and information. (It is approximately the first 20 minutes of the video below).
Or read about British/US military aid to Israel in the independent media
Or read Matt Kennard’s new book, Racket – about half an hour into this discussion about the book, Kennard talks about what he calls the US occupation of the UK…
So – outcry and condemnation
I can’t see how else we can drag this matter onto the agendas of our reluctant representatives and leaders, can you? First, I’m going to write to my MP, to see if she’s aware of the UK’s part in the death of those journalists, and ask what she’s doing about it then I’ll send a version of this blog to my local paper, then I’ll have a think about what else I might do.
Can I ask you, dear reader, to do whatever you can to contribute? Right now? If nothing else, please nip over to your email box, and drop a line to your MP, asking about our complicity in the killing of journalists. Please feel free to use any info from this blog that might help you compose your message.
Addendum: Huge thanks to Jewish Voice for Labour who came to the rescue when this post was repeatedly taken down from social media.
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Dear Reader,
Times are hard, and so the articles on this site are freely available but if you are able to support my work by making a donation, I am very grateful.
Cheers,
Kay
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Kay Green 