Petition: End the Secrecy Surrounding the Use of British Drones

The Ely Amnesty International Group have been learning about the use of drones in warfare. During our last meeting, we discussed the below petition and invited members and supporters of the Ely AI group to read through the below text and add their support by following the link below:

The petition:

"Since June 2008, UK forces have carried out around 300 airstrikes in Afghanistan using armed unmanned aerial vehicles (commonly known as drones), controlled from thousands of miles away. Although there is some public information about US drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, there is almost no public information about drone strikes carried out by the UK in Afghanistan.

There are serious ethical, moral and legal questions about the growing use of armed drones which need to be properly debated. However, it is impossible to have such a debate while information is being kept secret. At the very least, it seems that public discussion is being controlled."

We call on the UK government to end the secrecy surrounding the use of British drones in Afghanistan and to release all necessary information for a proper public debate. This should include the reasons for individual drone strikes and the number of people killed.

Find out more and add your support here.