Mail Human Rights Fiasco ISN’T

Having embarrassed himself yesterday with a front page that once again exposed the rabid bullying, spite and monstering that are a characteristic part of his coward’s arsenal, the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre decided to switch tack and deploy another of his favourite methods of inciting hatred - Human Rights. This has been achieved by making a series of highly creative claims and ignoring inconvenient facts.

Why the f*** shouldn't I defame and smear f***ing foreigners, c***?!?!?

The routinely dishonest headline tells you all you need to know: “ANOTHER HUMAN RIGHTS FIASCO! … Iraqu ‘caught red-handed with bomb’ wins £33,000 - because our soldiers kept him in custody for too long”. And once again, the Dacre doggies pull the “YOU PAY SHOCK HORROR” excuse as they bluster “TAXPAYERS face massive compensation bills after a suspected Iraqi insurgent won a human rights case against the Ministry of Defence yesterday”. What’s what word there? Ah yes, “suspected”.

Do go on. “The High Court ruled he was held too long by British troops despite allegedly being found making a bomb”. What’s that word there? Ah yes, “allegedly”.

And it gets worse: the Mail’s talking heads are Richard Kemp, much cited by far-right groups, and Tory MP Johnny Mercer, whose quote is a dead giveaway: “Soldiers should abide by the rule of law, as does everybody who served, BUT”. No, no buts, no ifs. Even if foot soldiers are not familiar with the provisions of the Geneva Conventions and relevant human rights law, their commanding officers are.

Worse still, the judgment handed down in this case is clear and reasoned - as one might expect from a judiciary tasked with interpreting the law, rather than playing to the Daily Mail’s gallery. Abd al-Waheed was awarded £15,000 for the beating he received from the soldiers who detained him, a further £15,000 for ill-treatment, and £3,300 for being detained for a period of 33 days which could not be justified.

In other words, most of what he was awarded was for torture. That’s what beating and inhuman treatment is. As Simon Carne observed, “In a civilised society  it's illegal to torture anyone ... even terrorists”. Al-Waheed was shown not to have been involved in terrorist activity. He wasn’t handling a bomb. And the idea that “well, they’re suspects and brown and foreign so, y’know, nudge nudge, wink wink” is bang out of order.

The judgment (read it HERE) also shows that the house where al-Waheed was living at the time of his capture had “a partly assembled IED” in one of its rooms. The Mail is therefore seriously misleading its readers by claiming he was “caught red-handed” with it.

So what the Dacre doggies are claiming is partly untrue, and partly suggesting that we should accept the use of torture, including physical abuse, by our armed forces, because those being abused are brown people who happen to be Muslims.

That is un-British in the extreme. It is no more than the whipping up of the mob in yet another orchestrated act of pure spite, just because a court has interpreted the rule of law in a way which has proved unpalatable to the Mail’s deeply troubled editor.

Still, it helps to sell papers and keep the readers in line, so that’s all right, then.