{"id":51797,"date":"2012-08-21T11:03:59","date_gmt":"2012-08-21T11:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=51797"},"modified":"2012-08-24T14:53:38","modified_gmt":"2012-08-24T14:53:38","slug":"i-blew-the-whistle-on-torture-of-the-cia-and-mi6-i-was-in-consequence-immediately-charged-with-extortion-for-sexual-purposes-a-former-british-ambassador","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/i-blew-the-whistle-on-torture-of-the-cia-and-mi6-i-was-in-consequence-immediately-charged-with-extortion-for-sexual-purposes-a-former-british-ambassador\/","title":{"rendered":"I Blew The Whistle On Torture Of The CIA And MI6, I Was In Consequence Immediately Charged With Extortion For Sexual Purposes – A Former British Ambassador"},"content":{"rendered":"

Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and a whistleblower, delivered a speech in support of WikiLeaks<\/a><\/span> editor-in-chief Julian Assange<\/span> <\/a>just before Assange gave his speech from the balcony of the Ecuador embassy in London,\u00a0Kevin Gosztola\u00a0writes for The Dissenter.<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dlt_IiQvjNo&feature=player_embedded<\/p>\n

Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and a whistleblower, delivered a speech in support of WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange just before Assange gave his speech from the balcony of the Ecuador embassy in London<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should not foreget what this is about,\u201d he began. \u201cThis is about the persecution of an individual who has made life much more simple and more productive for whistleblowers in the Information Age and in an age where, as Western governments become increasingly authoritarian and civil liberties are diminished, we need whistleblowers now more than ever to protect the rights of others.\u201d<\/p>\n

He highlighted how WikiLeaks had not only shined a light on the illegal war in Iraq but also revealed \u201cindividual war crimes carried out withing that war.\u201d They\u2019d shown how governments had colluded on the rendition and torture of individuals. To Murray, there was a parallel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI blew the whistle on torture and extraordinary rendition and the collusion of the CIA and MI6. I was in consequence immediately charged with extortion for sexual purposes and blackmailing people into sex in exchange for British visas.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it took him one and a half years to clear his name of those charges because \u201cthey routinely charge and try to beat up whistleblowers and that is what is happening to Julian Assange just as it happened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He mentioned the case of Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who blew the whistle on the fact that \u201cshe had seen documents signed personally\u201d by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld authorizing torture at Abu Ghraib. The \u201cvery next day\u201d she was charged with shoplifting.<\/p>\n

Whistleblowers or dissidents are always \u201cimmediately\u00a0charged with offensives which don\u2019t relate to whistleblowing at all.\u201d Why is this? Because in the United States, in the United Kingdom and now, apparently, in Sweden, \u201cjust as it seems to always happen in authoritarian and totalitarian countries, dissidents are not charged with political offenses. They are fitted up with criminal offenses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow likely is it that when I was engaged in a bitter struggle, an internal struggle with my own government that were trying to sack me over the torture and I was trying to prevent the use of torture, did I then think, oh, that\u2019s a good idea. I\u2019ll go and bed someone tomorrow while I am in the middle of this. Was Julian Assange, while conducting the campaign of WikiLeaks, so distracted that he decided to get into incidental and coincidental criminal activity?\u201d He also asked if Rumsfeld would be exposed as a man who authorized torture by Karpinski only to have her the very next day \u201cpop out\u201d and engage in \u201cshoplifting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly our disgustingly, complacent and spoon-fed mainstream media would accept such a narrative for one single moment. It is obviously to nonsense to anybody with half a brain,\u201d he added.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, to the British Foreign Office\u2019s threat against the Ecuador embassy by the UK, he said it was but another example of the \u201ctotal abandonment of the very concept of international law by the neoconservative juntas that are currently ruling the former Western democracies.\u201d He recounted his experience as a British diplomat and suggested if police were sent into the Ecuadorean embassy to get Assange they would be subject to Ecuadorean law for committing crimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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