blessed britons

In 1948, 500 Palestinian towns and villages were abandoned, evacuated or destroyed. More than 70,000 Palestinian houses were demolished. In the Jaffa area, 96% of the villages were totally destroyed. As Jewish forces proceeded with the ethnic cleansing of territories both within and outside the UN-allotted borders of the Jewish state, a British army of 70,000 refused to intervene, despite being charged under the mandate with the protection of the civilian population.

— Mike Marqusee

mad world

you have this business where TV won't show what we see, for reasons of so-called 'bad taste.' I remember once being on the phone to a TV editor in London when Al Jazeera were asked to feed some tape of children killed and wounded by British shell fire in Basra, and the guy started saying, 'there's no point feeding us this, we can't show this.'

"The first excuse was, 'people will be having their tea, so we can't put it on,' then it was, 'this is sort of pornography, we don't show this.' And ... the last thing was, 'we have to show respect for the dead.' So we don't show any respect for them when they are alive, we blow them to bits, and then we show respect for them.

— Robert Fisk

Interview with Arab Media Watch

kenya

british detention camps

Submitted by antarchi on June 4, 2007 - 16:31.

at the peak of the emergency, the British held more than 70,000 Kikuyu supporters of Mau Mau in detention camps. The vast majority of these detainees were held without trial, simply on the order of the administration, on the basis of accusation or mere suspicion... In the midst of the war, draconian anti-terrorist laws were introduced suspending the human rights of suspects, imposing collective punishments, facilitating detention without trial, permitting the seizure of property of convicts, and vastly extending the death penalty...