Paul Hill

Paul Hill says his claim has not yet been settled

On Christmas morning in 1776, upon crossing the Delaware River and securing victory in the Battle of Trenton, George Washington sat astride his horse and issued instructions to his lieutenants. "Treat surrendering prisoners with humanity,'' he told them. "Let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British army.''

It is ironic that these words uttered by an American general would lay the ground rules for the humane treatment of prisoners worldwide.

Washington knew from the cold reality of a vicious war that the moral high ground is not won by access to depravity and revenge against those in captivity, but in the knowledge that retaining the moral high ground would ultimately result in victory and, as such, inspire mankind. Washington stood among the carnage in the darkest hours on the cusp of a nation's freedom and willed his reason to overcome his fear.

On Sept. 11, 2001, after being informed that the nation was under attack, President George W. Bush pursed his lips, overwhelmed by the information he had just received. Unlike George Washington, it would appear fear carried the day. For in the days, months, and years following that infamous morning, the president and his administration would undo every hard-won value and principle bestowed on the nation by the first president and the founding fathers.

The Bush administration would extinguish the beacon lit by these great statesmen. It would be responsible (though make every attempt to circumvent the law) for willful acts of ill treatment and torture. That ill treatment would find its way from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib, where individuals bereft of any legal safeguards would languish in limbo beyond the reach of any international laws in direct contrast to the nation's core beliefs.

Terrorism robbed this nation of its power of reason overtaken by fear - just as it did the British government in 1974 when I became the first person arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act - an emergency provisions bill passed by the British Parliament in response to a series of obscene IRA bombings on Britain. For seven days, I was held incommunicado, sleep deprived, food deprived, and interrogated for periods of up to 20 hours a day. I was brutally abused by police officers. My family was threatened with death. I was threatened with firearms, mock-execution style, an action that under today's US Army Field Manual constitutes torture.

I was charged with seven counts of murder and was sentenced in October 1975 to life in prison, with the judge stipulating that "life must mean life,'' and that his only regret was that the death penalty - which had just been abolished - was not an option. I remained in prison for 15 years until 1989, when I was taken, with my three co-accused, to the Old Bailey in London and told we were being let go.

Lord Lane, who presided over our release, informed us that the Surrey police officers and Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist police seriously misled the court, "in fact they must have lied in their doctoring and manufacturing of evidence,'' he told us.

In the following 18 months, more than 16 Irish citizens would be released as a result of the actions of the police acting on the orders of the Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1974. These people had spent periods between eight and 17 years in prison. All have since received direct apologies from the British government.

These examples of British actions in response to terrorism appear to have been ignored by the American administration. Torture reveals nothing. In the words of the former secretary of the Navy James Webb, "Tainted evidence comes from torture. Many people will tell their interrogators what they want to hear, accurate or not.''

I was that person. We told our interrogators exactly what they wanted to hear, "accurate or not,'' in order to stop our suffering.

As we remember those who died in the 9/11 attacks, it should be a fitting memorial to them that we refuse to let their deaths be used politically as an excuse for torture.

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Northern Ireland: Guildford Four members demand settlement
BBC

Paul Hill says his claim has not yet been settled

Two of the so-called Guildford Four say they are still waiting for justice ten years after being cleared of the 1974 English pub bombing which killed five people.

Gerry Conlon and Paul Hill, both from Northern Ireland say they have not received the final settlement of their claims for compensation.

BBC NI's Wendy Austin interviews Gerry Conlon and MP John McDonnell about the campaign for compensation

The Guildford Four were freed by the Court of Appeal along with Carole Richardson and Patrick Armstrong, after each serving 15 years in prison.

Gerry Conlon said that he had been compensated in part by the Home Office, but that the £500,000 final settlement they were proposing to offer him would amount to less than £90 for every day he spent in prison.

"What price do you put on someone who spent the best years of his life in prison, watched his family disintegrate and watched his father die in prison," he said.

'Dreadful experience'

"There are very few people walking around today who have gone through the dreadful experience that we went through: years of solitary confinement.

"We were sent into a prison which was totally hostile towards us, we were being attacked by prison officers and cons, people urinated in our food, people put glass in our food and then when we came out onto the street there was no care from the government.

Gerry Conlon: Apology more
important than compensation

Gerry Conlon: Apology more important than compensation

"We are all walking around badly scarred by this experience."

A Home Office spokesman said that Gerry Conlon's claim "has been settled apart from a tiny amount which relates to some travelling expenses".

The spokesman said they are waiting for Paul Hill's solicitor to file a final claim and that the amount could not be calculated until the submission was made.

Call for transparent system

However, Mr Conlon added that he and Mr Hill are calling for an official apology from the government as much as for compensation.

They also want the compensation process for victims of miscarriages of justice to be made public.

Gerry Conlon said: "There are still certain people in Ireland and England who judge me as being guilty.

"When we came out within a very short period of time the judiciary started a whispering campaign and the papers picked it up.

"I think they were trying to clear their own conscience about what they knew they had done wrong and that's why an apology is most important. And certainly an apology for the way my father died."

MP backs campaign

Labour MP John McDonnell, who was involved in the campaign for the release of the Guildford Four is supporting their call for changes to the compensation system.

He said: "I have a suspicion that following the release of the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six and others that the system tried to clam up to protect itself.

"We can't find out even at this stage how these assessments are made because you can't enter into discussion.

"It is not an open and transparent and therefore fair system.

"These are people who in many instances have been pressurised into settling for sums of money when they are in no fit conditions to make those agreements.

"There is no support for them when they come out of prison, so we are asking now for the Home Secretary to review the whole system."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/478929.stm

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Source: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/09/10/when_we_allow_fear_to_overcome_reason/
Via: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/10-6