Julie-ann Davies | ukwatch.net

Campaigners Win Official Secrets Case Concession

Tim Holmes — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:11:13 +0000

The media has dragged a small concession from the jaws of censorship. A coalition of British media organisations has won a limited victory in an appeal against restrictions imposed on reporting the Official Secrets Act trial of David Keogh and Leo O’Connor.

Keogh and O’Connor were jailed in May for breaching the Official Secrets Act (OSA). The Old Bailey heard that Keogh, a Cabinet Office civil servant passed a memo containing minutes of an April 2004 meeting between George Bush and Tony Blair to O’Connor, a political researcher.

O’Connor, who opposed the Iraq war, placed a copy of the document into papers belonging to his boss Anthony Clarke, the Labour MP for Northampton South. The court heard O’Connor and Keogh wanted the document’s contents to become public. But, when Clarke found the memo he contacted the police.

Downing Street was made aware of the leak, but in November 2005 the Daily Mirror ran a story on the alleged contents of the memo. It said the document contained details of a conversation between Bush and Blair in which Bush discussed bombing Al Jazeera’s Qatari headquarters but was dissuaded by Blair.

The White House quickly dismissed the Mirror’s allegations. An official said: “We are not going to dignify something so outlandish with a response.” However, within 24 hours of the Mirror’s publication, newspaper editors were contacted and threatened with prosecution if they published the document. Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, told editors “publication of a document that has been unlawfully disclosed by a Crown servant could be in breach of Section 5 of the Official Secrets Act”.

During the trial Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Tony Blair’s foreign policy adviser, said that conversations between political leaders must remain confidential – even if their content was immoral or illegal. He added that publication of the document’s contents could “seriously damage relations with friendly governments”.

Prosecutor David Perry QC told the jury the OSA does not exist to prevent Governmental embarrassment but to protect the interests of the State. He said: “We are not talking about what may be embarrassing or an act of disloyalty. Even in the age of mass communication, something remains sacred.”

The interests of the State and the interests of “friendly governments” were openly taken into account during the Keogh and O’Connor trial. But it is argued that far less consideration was given to the public’s right to know. During the trial discussions related to the contents of the document were held in secret. The media and public were excluded, only the jury could hear that evidence. Publication was prohibited.

The strictures on reporting the trial were tightened when the trial judge, Mr Justice Aikens used the Contempt of Court Act to impose a further injunction preventing the media from discussing the trial and speculation about the contents of the memo in the same article. Nor were the media allowed to publish this information in two separate articles placed on the same page.

Additionally, the media was prohibited from publishing a comment made by Keogh when quizzed about the memo in open court. This placed the media in the Kafkaesque position of not being able to repeat material they had previously published and that remained available on their websites.

Seventeen British media organisations launched a joint appeal against Justice Aikens’ injunction. They were partially successful. On 30 July the Court of Appeal ruled the media could once again report allegations about the memo’s contents. However, they were warned that suggesting these allegations accurately represented the evidence given in secret could be in contempt of court. The media are still not permitted to publish Keogh’s comment. But they can say Keogh is reported to have said the contents of the document were “abhorrent” and “illegal” and that he felt the document revealed Bush to be a “madman”.

The document is reported to pertain to the time around April 2004 which was a particularly sensitive period in the Iraq war. There are numerous reports of British unease and concerns surrounding the attack on Fallujah and the use of white phosphorus at this time. This is not just an issue of media freedom. When the media is gagged the public is simultaneously blindfolded. For genuine democracy to exist an electorate needs to be able to hold their Government to account. The Iraq war has been masked by a confection of official spin and disinformation, now we are being prevented from hearing the truth behind the fiction and discovering what Blair and Bush really said behind closed doors.

Official Secrets Act and Censorship

eddie — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 12:46:31 +0000

Keogh and O’Connor were jailed in May for breaching the OSA. The high court heard that Keogh, a cabinet office civil servant, passed a memo containing minutes of an April 2004 meeting between George Bush and Tony Blair to O’Connor, a political researcher.

O’Connor, who opposed the Iraq war, placed a copy of the document into papers belonging to his boss Anthony Clarke, the Labour MP for Northampton South.

The court heard that O’Connor and Keogh wanted the document’s contents to become public. But when Clarke found the memo he contacted the police.

Downing Street was made aware of the leak, but in November 2005 the Daily Mirror ran a story on the alleged contents of the memo.

It said the document contained details of a conversation between Bush and Blair in which Bush discussed bombing Al Jazeera’s Qatari headquarters, but was dissuaded by Blair.

The White House quickly dismissed the Mirror’s allegations. An official said, “We are not going to dignify something so outlandish with a response.”

However, within 24 hours of the Mirror’s publication, newspaper editors were contacted and threatened with prosecution if they published the document.

Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, told editors “publication of a document that has been unlawfully disclosed by a crown servant could be in breach of Section 5 of the Official Secrets Act”.

He added that publication of the document’s contents could “seriously damage relations with friendly governments”.

Prosecutor David Perry QC told the jury the OSA does not exist to prevent governmental embarrassment but to protect the interests of the state.

He said, “We are not talking about what may be embarrassing or an act of disloyalty. Even in the age of mass communication, something remains sacred.”

The interests of the state and the interests of “friendly governments” were openly taken into account during the Keogh and O’Connor trial. But it is argued that far less consideration was given to the public’s right to know.

During the trial, discussions relating to the contents of the document were held in secret. The media and public were excluded – only the jury could hear that evidence. Publication was prohibited.

The strictures on reporting the trial were tightened when the trial judge, Mr Justice Aikens, used the Contempt of Court Act to impose a further injunction.

This prevented the media from discussing the trial and speculation about the contents of the memo in the same article.

Nor were the media allowed to publish this information in two separate articles placed on the same page.

Additionally, the media was prohibited from publishing a comment made by Keogh when quizzed about the memo in open court.

This placed the media in the Kafkaesque position of not being able to repeat material they had previously published and that remained available on their websites.

Seventeen British media organisations launched a joint appeal against Justice Aikens’ injunction.

They were partially successful. On 30 July the court of appeal ruled the media could once again report allegations about the memo’s contents.

However, they were warned that suggesting these allegations accurately represented the evidence given in secret could be in contempt of court.

The media are still not permitted to publish Keogh’s comment.

But they can say Keogh is reported to have said the contents of the document were “abhorrent” and “illegal” and that he felt the document revealed Bush to be a “madman”.

April 2004, the period the document is reported to pertain to, was a particularly sensitive period in the Iraq war. There are numerous reports of British unease and concerns surrounding the attack on Fallujah and the use of white phosphorus at this time.

This is not just an issue of media freedom. When the media is gagged the public is often blindfolded.

For a genuine democracy to exist the electorate needs to be able to hold their government to account.

The Iraq war has been masked by a confection of official spin and disinformation.

Now we are being prevented from hearing the truth behind the fiction and discovering what Blair and Bush really said behind closed doors.

Julie-ann Davies is the editor of Free Press, the newsletter of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom. For more information go to » RAI aired Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre. The programme claimed the Americans had used a substance similar to Napalm and white phosphorus shells against civilians. The footage was unflinching and included harrowing images of women and children who had been burned alive.

The United States denied the allegations. On November 15 the American Ambassador in London, Robert Tuttle, wrote to The Independent claiming: US forces participating in operation Iraqi Freedom continue to use appropriate, lawful and legitimate weapons against legitimate targets. US forces do not use Napalm or phosphorus as weapons.

The time-honoured technique of smearing the messenger was deployed. Pentagon spokesman Todd Vician emphatically denied the use of chemical weapons in Iraq and said People seeking to discredit the US find it useful to invent the false accusation that the US is using weapons of this sort

However, the US military was forced into a spectacular climb-down when presented with evidence from one of its own publications. An article published in the March 2005 issue of Field Artillery gave a detailed account of white phosphorus being used directly against insurgents in Fallujah. This directly contradicted the statements made by the US military that white phosphorus was only been used as a flare to illuminate the battlefield.

American officials still insist that the use of white phosphorus is not forbidden by any treaty they are signatories to. But its use against insurgents in Fallujah is illegal according to a 1990 US Army handbook that says: It is against the law of land warfare to employ white phosphorus against personnel targets.

The story, which had lain dormant for over a year was reignited by the RAI documentary which blazed across the internet. On November 16 Lieutenant-Colonel Venable finally admitted to the BBC that white phosphorus was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants. However, this is not the first time the US has been forced to defend its use of incendiary or chemical weapons in Iraq.

On March 22, 2003 CNN carried reports that American forces had used Napalm at Safwan Hill, close to the Iraqi border. Initially, the US denied these claims but later admitted to their use of Mark 77 firebombs.

Facing an outcry the US took refuge in the semantics of cowardice. Napalm and the firebombs are virtually identical. The only difference is that petrol, which is used in Napalm, has been replaced with jet fuel in the Mark 77s. The effects remain equally horrific.

It is obvious the US government misinformed the media and misled the public about its conduct in Iraq. It is undeniable this made it difficult for journalists to uncover the truth. But this is only part of the problem. The mainstream media appears, in this case, to be extremely reluctant to deviate from, or even question, the official, governmental line.

Early in 2005 a medical team sent to Fallujah by the Iraqi interim government held a press conference to publicise their findings. They confirmed that burning chemicals were used by American forces during the attack. That conference was attended by over 20 major national and international news organisations but none of these reported on the event.

On 20 November 2005, in an article in the Sunday Telegraph, Toby Harnden revealed he witnessed US forces using white phosphorus to target insurgents in Fallujah. Yet his original report of the event reads somewhat differently. Written on November 9, 2004 the piece All-out assault on Fallujah says: White phosphorus shells lit up the sky as armour drove through the breach and sent flaming material on to suspect insurgent haunts.

The use of white phosphorus to illuminate battle-zones or to generate smoke-screen to cover troop movements is uncontroversial. It is only when it is used against human targets, as revealed in Harndens second article, that the legality of its use becomes questionable. Harndens initial account of the event, written while embedded with US forces, was unlikely to upset the military.

The real scandal behind this story is that it has taken so long for the mainstream media to cover it. We were told it was necessary to go to war with Iraq because Saddam Hussein possessed chemical and biological weapons that he could use against us. Saddam was, rightly, portrayed as monstrous for gassing the Kurds in Halabja, a fact that was widely reported. Yet Americas use of Napalm-like weapons that can burn to the bone has, so far, received significantly less coverage.

Weapons can make no distinction between civilians and combatants they treat all their victims with equal cruelty. However, the international mainstream media seems, in this case at least, to believe that some victims are more worthy of their attention than others.