{"id":7936,"date":"2018-07-27T12:23:51","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T10:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=7936"},"modified":"2018-07-27T12:25:54","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T10:25:54","slug":"the-british-government-on-the-wrong-side-once-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/7936\/","title":{"rendered":"The British government: on the wrong side once again"},"content":{"rendered":"

This<\/a> is pathetic:<\/p>\n

\n

The UK has suspended co-operation with the US over two Islamic State suspects.<\/p>\n

Ministers had said\u00a0they would share intelligence with the US that could lead to the men’s conviction, without opposing a death penalty sentence.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

The two men are currently being held by Kurdish forces and the UK believes it cannot legally extradite them to face trial here.<\/p>\n

This week it emerged that the US was preparing the ground to prosecute the men itself – and that it had asked the UK for information that would help convict them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So what’s the problem? The men aren’t in British custody, the UK isn’t looking to try them, nor are they looking to extradite them. They’re simply sharing intelligence with an ally which could help with their prosecution. Now I can understand the British have abolished the death penalty, and I understand Britain doesn’t extradite people to places where they might be executed, but since when has the UK been obliged to withhold information as part of its opposition to capital punishment? If the British government has vital information on an American mass-murderer on trial in Texas, they’re supposed to keep it to themselves because he might be executed for his crimes? What’s the precedent for this, then? Is that the approach we took with Osama bin Laden?<\/p>\n

Ah, here we go:<\/p>\n

\n

However the mother of one of the men has now launched a legal challenge to prevent such information sharing.<\/p>\n

The Home Office has halted co-operation until a judge has had a chance to consider an application for judicial review.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the mother of El Shafee Elsheikh have now prepared detailed grounds challenging Mr Javid’s decision to share information with the US without a death penalty assurance – meaning a case could be before High Court judges in days.<\/p>\n

They said the home secretary’s actions revealed “a clear and dramatic departure from the UK’s long standing international and domestic commitment to oppose the continuing exercise of the death penalty.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If there is one group of people who wield greater influence than protected classes in western countries, it is the families of those protected classes once their son or brother stands accused of murder and other heinous crimes. Every time, you can be sure the government and their chattering-class supporters will bend over backwards to accommodate them. We saw this a few days ago<\/a> when somebody named\u00a0Faisal Hussain went on a shooting rampage in Toronto killing two and wounding thirteen, and the media fell over themselves to divine moral authority from the man’s parents, who wasted no time offering up excuses for their son.<\/p>\n

Let’s not pretend this lawsuit is based on a principled opposition to the death penalty. It is a professional and coordinated exercise to let the government know that, no matter how heinous the crimes of a person may be, certain protected classes are off-limits for the usual treatment. What is most depressing is this can only work because there are enough ordinary people who, for a variety of reasons ranging from self-hatred to complete idiocy, support such stunts. What is even more depressing is this pathetic excuse for a government appears to be doing exactly what its sworn enemies are telling them to do. Contrast this with the contempt the government displays towards its own citizens, and you wonder, not for the first time, whose side they are on. If they can’t bring themselves to assist with the prosecution of notorious ISIS members because of a campaign launched by a gaggle of people who think they did nothing wrong and shouldn’t be punished, they’re not on my side, that much I do know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is pathetic: The UK has suspended co-operation with the US over two Islamic State suspects. Ministers had said\u00a0they would share intelligence with the US that could lead to the men’s conviction, without opposing a death penalty sentence. … The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,42],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7936"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7936"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7938,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7936\/revisions\/7938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}