World Press Freedom Day – 3 May
To mark World Press Freedom Day 2009, Index on Censorship asked a panel of experts what needs to be done to protect the press in the year ahead
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Binyam Mohamed: Foreign Office attempts to file ‘secret evidence’
Index on Censorship has learned that government lawyers are attempting to submit secret evidence on the treatment of former Guantanamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed, as the Foreign Office continues to attempt to prevent the release of potentially damning information about his detention.
In a letter to the judges presiding over the case, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones, the Treasury Solicitor has claimed that a Public Interest Immunity certificate could be necessary for any further evidence submitted by the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. This would allow the Foreign Office to supply evidence to the court in secret, on a basis not open to challenge or scrutiny.
The government is fighting an application by international media organisations, including Index on Censorship, to obtain the release of seven paragraphs that were redacted from an earlier judgment concerning Mohamed’s treatment at the hands of US officials. The Foreign Office had claimed that any release would endanger future intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US, a claim Mohamed’s lawyer, Dinah Rose QC, has described as ‘seriously misleading’.
Cuba: changes? What changes?
The Obama regime may be reaching out to Raúl Castro, but it is unlikely any real reform will emerge for ordinary Cubans, writes
Ena Lucía Portela
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‘Banned’ poet becomes first female laureate
Carol Ann Duffy, whose poem ‘Education for Leisure’ was withdrawn from schoolbooks over fears it encouraged violence, has been appointed the UK’s first female poet laureate.
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