Global Action on Torture - 26th June 2014 (Telford Town Centre)

Venue: Telford Town Centre (between the Meeting Point Hourse and Wilkinson's

Time: 10am to 12pm

The Amnesty International Telford Group will be collecting signatures for a petition to David Cameron, asking him to complete the investigation of UK involvement in torture which he began by setting up the Gibson enquiry.

The Gibson enquiry

In opposition, David Cameron committed himself to find out out whether or not the UK had been involved in torture. (This isn’t a party political issue. The events he was concerned with relate to Labour in power, and ministers most implicated in concealing the facts of torturte were Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Miliband). In power, he set up the Gibson enquiry to investigate the issue.

Its terms of reference were restricted, and there was scepticism among human rights groups as to whether it would discover anything worthwhile. Amnesty were one of a number of groups who publicly boycotted the enquiry.

In January 2012 the government announced that it was abandoning the enquiry, on the grounds that its investigations were having to wait for the outcome of police enquiries. Gibson nonetheless worked to publish the conclusions to his enquiry so far. On Dec 20, 2013, the Guardian reported “MI6 was involved in the rendition of tortured detainees, inquiry finds.”

Gibson came to much clearer and more damning conclusions than anyone expected, and published an appendix of 27 questions which the government needed to answer. Full details can be found at www.detaineeinquiry.org.uk/category/report/

The aim of our action is to publicise this state of affairs, and to put pressure on the government to complete the enquiry it has begun.