Immigrant Gulag: Jahongir Sidikov

Another person our government is trying to deport even though he faces torture and possible execution, in this case in Uzbekistan, is Jahongir Sidikov. Craig Murray’s post has more details but what stood out to me was the involvement of intelligence services, our government’s acceptance of information obtained through torture and how together various government departments seem to be acting to deliver a victim to the Uzbek security services, as if we are bounty hunters or kidnappers, which is pretty well much what this is.

I telephoned the British Embassy in Tashkent and the Ambassador, Iain Kelly, refused to speak to me. So both a yes man and a coward, then. In 2003 Iain Kelly was deputy to Matthew Kydd, Head of “Whitehall Liasion Department”, the link between the FCO and MI6. Kelly’s boss Kydd told me that it had been decided between Richard Dearlove and Jack Straw as a matter of policy that we should use intelligence from torture in the context of the War on Terror, specifically from Uzbekistan, and that this intelligence was “operationally useful”.

A big enough fuss being made over this might overcome the determination by the government to deliver Jahongir Sidikov to the regime and a fate worse than death. So blog about it, also media contacts here.

All debate about immigration aside is it ok that our government is forcing people back to regimes where they will be attacked and killed? Are anti-immigration people quite happy about this, do they secretly want this to be happening, because it is and all the energy expended on demagoguing the issue in the media could instead be put to humane use to stop the Immigration service acting like a mob enforcer that delivers hostages to their executioners. Although frankly I suspect the blind eye turned to our criminal activities is very much a product of the same rationale, an actual hatred of ‘others’ we refuse to share any humanity with. Show me some ‘tide of immigrants swamping our culture’ numpty who pays equal attention to people being forced back to hellish places and I will…erm…shrug and go- at least you’re not a complete twat-, cup half full I guess. (ht2 Bloggerheads & Obsolete).

Advertisement