American Abroad

Did the media fail Akmal Shaikh?

Two cousins of a British man executed by Chinese authorities have accused the UK government and media of failing to come to his aid. Akmal Shaikh received a lethal injection on Tuesday, sparking outrage and disgust across Britain after it was revealed that the North Londoner suffered from bipolar disorder. But the letter sent by Shaikh’s relatives to the Guardian uncovers a startlingly inconvenient truth: little was done to help Shaikh until his final hours.

Amina and Ridwan Shaikh believe their cousin could have been saved were it not for the tepid response from the UK government in the lead-up to his death. They also say that the media ignored Akhmal’s case until it was too late.

They told the Guardian: “We were shocked that apart from Sky News, his case received only sporadic media attention during his two years in prison. Only when news was released of his imminent execution did it get the coverage it deserved. Wouldn’t more media attention at an earlier stage have applied more pressure to the Chinese authorities? Wasn’t this lack of coverage an injustice in itself?”

The incident draws on a number of questions about the role of the media. Should the press function as an international pressure cooker? Was it the media’s job to publicise Shaikh’s case from the moment of his arrest? And would this have forced the hand of the British government?

In April 2009 at the London G20 protests, it was chiefly the work of one investigative journalist, Paul Lewis, who brought to light the inconsistencies surrounding the controversial death of Ian Tomlinson at the hands of the Metropolitan police. Were it not for the pressure applied by the Guardian in the case of Tomlinson, it is unlikely that the full extent of the police crackdown would have ever reached the public. But despite these efforts, there is also little evidence to suggest that much will be done differently in protests to come.

It is difficult to measure with any certainty the power wielded by the press to evoke policy change, and whether this is in fact the media’s responsibility at all. As ‘neutral’ observers journalists are not activists. Agenda-driven journalism poses the threat of skewing the reality presented to the public. And networks that are brazenly ideological (ahem…Fox news) soon lose their credibility.

But this argument has little bearing on whether or not the information should be distributed. The arrest of Shaikh was certainly a matter of public interest in Britain, and postponing coverage until a few days before his execution arguably reflects a failure on the part of the UK media to fulfil its obligation to the public.

There is nothing to suggest that the media would have changed the course of events; as with the arrest of Charter 08 activist Liu Xiaobo it is becoming clearer by the day that an economically confident China has no need to bow down to western pressure . But this is not the point. There is no reward system in the thankless task of journalism, there is only responsibility. And failure to act on it carries with it far more worrying implications than the failure to achieve results by doing so.

Copenhagen crushed as China looks forward to coal this Christmas

For months the world was waiting in anxious anticipation for the deal in Copenhagen to change the course of history on climate change. In the post-mortem, disappointment over the failed agreement (an accord that George Monbiot suggests would have pledged more had it been left blank) has infected even the most optimistic observers. The losers in this game are many, and just as victory brings a sense of solidarity among the players, defeat brings with it a quickfire descent into finger-pointing. The question on everyone’s lips is who should shoulder the blame for the disaster at Copenhagen?

Developing nations blame developed ones. The industrialized west blames the developing east. Leftist commentators blame Obama. Obama blames conservative Republicans in the senate (behind closed doors of course). And Venezuela blames, well, everyone accept the ALBA countries and its political allies. But according to a Guardian eyewitness, apparently we need look no further. It was China all along!

Guardian reporter Mark Lynas reveals:
“The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.”

Lynas argues that China was bent on blocking the negotiations for weeks, and used the results of the closed-door conference to make it look as if industrialized nations had failed the world for the umpteenth time. He explains: “I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying “no”, over and over again.”

So why would China play the villain when it potentially has as much to lose as everyone else, and has already made clear its commitment to solar energy expansion? According to Lynas the answer is simple: China is looking forward to quite a few more lumps of coal this Christmas.

China’s growth is primarily dependent on cheap coal, which accounts for more than 70 percent of China’s energy consumption. According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, coal energy produced in China will double over the next 20 years. Wind, hydro, solar and nuclear energy are growing quickly, but they will account for less than a third of the country’s total capacity by 2020. China’s coal economy continues to rise at an alarming pace, and with it, its geopolitical supremacy grows exponentially.

But this is by no means the full picture. The US still holds the prize for the greatest amount of carbon emissions, and though Obama may have banged his head against a table when it came to the final round at Copenhagen, he did not come to the meeting to pack the punches. Obama’s healthcare bill has been Whitehouse priority no. 1 from the beginning. Global warming has long been put on the backburner of America’s concerns in the midst of recessionary problems at home. Moreover, as one commentator aptly put it, “the West could have outplayed China by putting technology transfer on the table as a gift but instead they played a beggar-my-neighbour game.” Copenhagen was little more than a back step toward realpolitik in the vein of Henry Kissinger’s glory days. Few nations were willing to put their necks on the line without a significant return.

Lynas’s testimony is a fascinating read, but as we move on from the lessons learned at Copenhagen, there are many who would say it misses the point. China is not the only player in this zero-sum game, and until all the cards are put on the table, there is little hope for a concerted effort to save the planet  in our lifetime.

And the media wakes up…

In a previous post, I criticised the British media for failing to report on former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni’s cancelled trip to London after it emerged that she may face arrest for war crimes committed during the Gaza war last winter.

Slowely but surely, the UK media has woken up. You can view the Guardian’s coverage here.

Livni’s London trip cancelled: a victory for international justice?

Few would have noticed the absence of former Israeli foreign minister and opposition Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni from a conference in London this Sunday-the visit, or lack thereof, failed to reach the mainstream British media.

Of course many editors might retort that Livni’s UK trip simply wasn’t newsworthy. Would the Israeli press care if David Cameron turned up at a meeting in Jerusalem? Or even less significant, that he failed to turn up. Not likely. That is perhaps, unless he cancelled his travel plans for fear of arrest.

Livni was scheduled to speak at a Jewish National Fund (JNF) conference on Israel’s Future in the Negev. She was also due to meet with Prime Minister Gordon Brown for private talks. But her visit was kept quiet. The JNC did not even tell its own members the location of the venue for the conference until a few days beforehand, and there was hardly a murmur about her alleged meeting with Gordon Brown.

Livni’s office told the Ynet today that, “the invitation to the annual JNF conference was turned down by us two weeks ago because the schedule meetings with the government figures in London could not take place close to the conference and would have necessitated a longer-than-planned absence from Israel.”

But looking at the events leading up to the conference, this excuse seems less than palpable. On 29 September Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak’s attendance at a Labour meeting sparked a media storm when lawyers representing 16 Palestinians attempted to arrest Barak for war crimes committed during the Israeli offensive on Gaza last winter.

The case failed on the grounds that Barak enjoyed diplomatic impunity and would not be able to fulfil his function at the conference if charged. But suffice to say, it was pretty embarrassing for the Defence minister, the Israeli government, and the British government who invited him. And it just may have convinced Israeli officials that persecution in foreign courts was a very real threat.

The Guardian reported in October that according to a UK lawyer working on the expansion of the application of international justice:

“Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister during the Gaza war, would probably face arrest on war crimes charges if he visited Britain…Neither Olmert nor Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister during the Cast Lead offensive, and a member of Israel’s war cabinet, would enjoy immunity from prosecution for alleged breaches of the Geneva conventions.”

Since the UN-backed Goldstone Report accused Israel and Hamas fighters of war crimes, the case for international justice has been strengthened. The report was rejected by the Israeli government, but its recommendations for Israel (and Hamas fighters) to be tried at the International Criminal Court have been taken seriously in the UK and other European nations.

Officers of the Israel Defense Force who took part in the Gaza operation were advised earlier this year to consult legal experts at the foreign ministry before visiting certain countries.

Livni’s trip was leaked to pro-Palestinian activist groups shortly before the conference was due to take place, and rumor spread that UK lawyers were seeking an arrest warrant for her. Suddenly, the JNF site which had previously posted a list of speakers at the event, removed the page on both its facebook account and website. No explanation was given for its removal and there was no reason provided for Livni’s cancellation.

The application of international jurisdiction in the case of war crimes still has a long way to go before it becomes a formidable deterrent to erring world leaders. But if Livni did indeed cancel her travel plans for fear of arrest, it is a clear victory for international justice.

You can view my report on this for Press TV here.

Iraq Inquiry has all the court room drama of a book club

Testimony provided by the man behind the infamous dossier that falsely accused Iraq of having weapons of mass destruction should surely be gripping material. But an hour and forty five minutes after Sir John Scarlett testified at the Iraq Inquiry, I am left feeling as if I have just sat through a book club meeting.

Scarlett, the former head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service MI6 spent the better part of the hearing describing the functions of the British Intelligence machine in all its bureaucratic glory. The audience, most falling in and out of consciousness at this point, were finally jolted awake in the last half hour when the seemingly light-hearted interchange between panel and witness finally meandered upon an issue of public concern: the ‘dodgy dossier’.

Scarlet admitted that the dossier lacked foolproof accuracy, but he steadfastly stood by his statement that British Intelligence never came under political pressure to beef up its findings.

He told the Inquiry: “Did we come under [political] pressure? No. Additional intelligence led to the firming up of what were already quite firm judgements. The instructions of the JIC [Joint Intelligence Committee] to the drafting group, which was overseeing this, was to reflect explicitly on the recently arrived at intelligence that was in the dossier.”

When lightly questioned about former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s forward to the report, which claimed that British Intelligence had “established beyond doubt” that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, Scarlett told the Inquiry that the forward was “quite separate from the text of the dossier itself”.

Of course, he read it. He even “made a few changes” before approving it. But despite this clear move to shift the blame elsewhere, the inquiry failed to pack any punches. Most sipped their water, nodding slowly.

Eventually Scarlet conceded that Blair’s contribution was “overtly political”. He came short of admitting that the forward misled the public on the validity of the report. But then again, why should he voluntarily contribute this information without the prodding and pushing of the Inquiry committee?

Quite simply, Scarlet was let off the hook. No heavy sweating or shouting matches to see here. No matter that they are discussing issues of huge international significance and possibly the most controversial war in British history- there is no semblance of a court room drama amongst this small jovial meeting of academics and top civil servants.

Commentators have branded the Inquiry a whitewash, and judging by the sleep-inducing performance of the committee, the criticism is not far off the mark. None of the Inquiry members have legal backgrounds, nor the expertise (and perhaps will) to probe into the legality of the war and hold the officials behind it accountable.

The Government appears to have found a winning strategy to brush over this glitch in British democracy: bore us to tears until we have no stamina left to discuss anything except the latest New York Times bestseller.