CROCODILE TEARS OVER GUANTANAMO
The United States' treatment of 'Al-Qaeda prisoners' at the Guantanamo military base in Cuba is clearly a breach of ordinary norms of warfare. The prisoners taken from Afghanistan have been held manacled, blindfolded and masked, with their air supply restricted, and kept in open-air 'cages'. As well as attempting to break their will through physical punishment and disorientation, the prisoners have been subjected to ritual humiliations: beards have been shaved off in what can only be a calculated insult to their religion; they have been held kneeling before their captors; and, most shockingly, photographs of them in this condition have been published- as a public demonstration of the costs of opposing the United States.
Much has been made of the awkward categorisation of 'non-lawful combatants' designed to deny the prisoners protection under either the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war, or the United States' own criminal law. In fact, the prisoners are not held under any law.
European criticism of the US actions, though, is not motivated by a concern for the prisoners' well being, still less their rights. Rather the European leaders want to see the United States' sovereignty subordinated to international adjudication, on the same logic - albeit with a very different character - as Afghanistan has been placed under international jurisdiction. For the Europeans, the attraction of the war against terror was that it locked America into a system of international alliances that contained its independent course of action.
Understandably, the American top brass see things very differently. They won the war so that Afghans and Al-Qaeda would be subject to 'international' (read 'American') sanctions. They did not fight so that Europeans could subordinate America to 'international' (read 'European') criticism.
WHAT IS PRISON FOR?
The English Court of Appeal has quashed the conviction of Stephen Downing. He had served 27 years in jail for a murder he has always denied. His is the latest in a long line of miscarriages of justice stretching back through Stefen Kiszko (16 years served), the Bridgewater Three (17 years), Judith Ward (17 years), the Birmingham Six (16 years), to the Guildford Four (14 years). Both Downing's confession after his arrest and the forensic evidence against him are now held to be 'unreliable'.
There has been much criticism of the rule that denied Downing parole after he had served his minimum 'tariff' behind bars because he would not admit to the killing. If he had admitted guilt he would have been eligible for parole a decade ago. It does seem unjust that people who are innocent should serve longer than those who are guilty. But the comparison is absurd and the parole rule is not the problem. People who are innocent should not be in prison at all.
The problem is that the criminal courts have failed to ensure that guilty verdicts carry real conviction. In the name of cracking down on terrorism or controlling crime, lawyers and judges too often turn a blind eye to police manipulation of defendants and evidence. The present government is determined to make it easier for the courts to do just his through the Auld commission proposals to relax further the safeguards for defendants in criminal procedure and evidence.
Ironically, abolishing the rule that kept Stephen Downing in prison for an extra 10 years, while it might ameliorate the scale of the injustice to people like him in the future, can only fuel the atmosphere which produces cases like his in the first place. Not requiring murderers to admit their guilt before they are eligible for parole would be a significant symbolic and practical retreat from the idea that prison should have a corrective function. If prison is not about seeking recognition by the criminal of his wrongdoing but only about attempting to control crime, then that is one less reason for the criminal justice system to worry about whether the people imprisoned are actually guilty. -- James Heartfield Sustaining Architecture in the Anti-Machine Age is available at GBP19.99, plus GBP3.26 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'. www.audacity.org