Boris Johnson told: “It’s time to deliver justice for Britain’s nuclear test veterans”
Campaigners have asked the Prime Minister to use his last week in office to fulfil his promise to the victims of Cold War radiation experiments
Mirror. Susie Boniface, Reporter. 28 Aug 2022
Politicians and celebrities have joined forces with survivors of Britain’s nuclear tests to ask the Prime Minister to deliver justice in his last week in Downing Street.
They have written Boris Johnson an open letter, urging him to decide whether to “turn his back on our national heroes” or honour them before the 70th anniversary next month of the UK’s first atomic bomb.
The PM met families affected by the Cold War radiation experiments in June, but with only days left in Downing Street has yet to make any announcement about the medal they asked him for.
Both his potential successors have said they support it – but no decision has been made, with officials on leave and all eyes on the leadership campaign.
Mirror editor Alison Phillips said: “It is imperative this medal is delivered quickly, because these veterans are over 80 and have complex health problems. The window is closing for this PM to make a real difference to their need for recognition.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who met the veterans a year earlier than the PM and promised them his support, said: “It’s appalling that Britain’s nuclear test veterans and their families shave not yet had justice after years of maltreatment, and I’m saddened that their long campaign is exceeding the life of so many of them.
“The PM has a very clear choice now: deliver on his promise to give real recognition ahead of the October 3 Plutonium Jubilee, or turn his back on our national heroes.”
He added: “The country owes a huge debt of honour to these veterans. The PM must act to deliver the appreciation, respect and justice they deserve, and Labour will continue to support their campaign every step of the way.”
The medal committee has been given fresh evidence to help its decision. Government insiders have told the Mirror that they have been trying to “force” a medal through, but have met a brick wall of officialdom, made worse by Tory turmoil.
“All it takes is for Boris to give this his attention,” said one. “If he just asked the Queen it could be done in a week.”
The letter has been signed by dozens of MPs, peers, famous faces, and everyone who was at the meeting with the PM. They include Operation Grapple veteran John Morris, 85, who saw four nuclear explosions and told Johnson: “It’s the ideal moment, Prime Minister, for you to look me in the eye and tell me, ‘you deserve a medal’. Or say, ‘sod off’.”
Nuclear descendants Steve Purse, Alan Owen, Laura Jackson, and Laura Morris have signed, along with Tory grandee Sir John Hayes and Labour’s Rebecca Long-Bailey, who secured the meeting between them.
Backing them are broadcaster Kirstie Allsopp, and comedians Al Murray, Rory Bremner and Mark Steel. Call The Midwife star Stephen McGann, and its scriptwriter, Heidi Thomas, also supported the call after a nuclear veteran featured in two series of their show.
McGann earlier likened the scandal to Hillsborough, and called on the PM to cut through the “Pooterish nonsense” that meant they were denied a medal.
Other supporters include shadow defence secretary John Healey, shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry, and SNP leader Ian Blackford, along with 47 other MPs from Labour, the SNP and Conservative Party, and the metro mayors Andy Burnham, Dan Jarvis and Steve Rotheram.
The veterans are also backed by Tory, Labour, and cross-bench peers Ruth Davidson, Shami Chakrabarti, John Hendy, Prem Sikka, Christine Blower, Pauline Bryan and Sayeeda Warsi.
Here is the letter in full…
* You can add your own name by clicking HERE
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-justice-nuclear-veterans-27854059
‘Peacemaker’ of death: This Ukrainian website threatens hundreds of thousands with extrajudicial killings — some are Americans
And every time someone unlucky enough to have had his or her home address or other personal data revealed turns up dead, the site is updated: the name of the deceased now appears in bright flickering letters reminiscent of a Las Vegas casino, and the person’s photo is crossed out with the callous inscription: ‘liquidated’.
Rt.com, By Olga Sukharevskaya, ex-Ukrainian diplomat, 28 Aug 22,
Mirotvorets, which compiles lists of ‘enemies of Ukraine’, has been operating with impunity for eight years
For the last eight years, a group of publicly unknown activists in Ukraine have been compiling lists of ‘enemies of the people’ with impunity. Hundreds of thousands have been declared criminals without trial.
Among them are not only Russian citizens, but also Ukrainian opposition figures and bloggers, European politicians, and US citizens. At the very least, being added to this list is a stigma that makes life difficult in Ukraine, but it can also serve as justification for imprisonment or, in some cases, even being killed. This is exactly what happened last weekend to Daria Dugina, daughter of world-famous Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, who’s name also can be found on that list.
RT explains what is behind the Mirotvorets, or ‘Peacemaker’, website, whose creators seek to bring ‘peace’ to their country with the help of extrajudicial killings, and why the Ukrainian authorities have done nothing about this despite condemnation from the international community.
What is Mirotvorets?
The main page of the Ukrainian Mirotvorets website proclaims that the outlet represents a ‘Center for Research of Signs of Crimes against the National Security of Ukraine, Peace, Humanity, and the International Law’. It claims to have been created by a group of academics, journalists, and other specialists. However, their names are known to no one, and the outfit itself has never even been officially registered in Ukraine.
Nevertheless, this organization has been in operation for nine years, since August 2014. And although it positions itself as “independent, non-state media,” government officials still had a hand in its creation. In fact, the website emerged at the initiative of Anton Gerashchenko, a former adviser to the Ukrainian minister of internal affairs.
Mirotvorets’ activities boil down to publishing personal information on people who the site’s administrators consider a threat, in one way or another, to Ukrainian statehood.
The site’s owners urge the country’s law enforcement agencies to take note of the personal data and activities of the people it lists. However, street radicals sometimes also take heed of Mirotvorets’ lists.
And every time someone unlucky enough to have had his or her home address or other personal data revealed turns up dead, the site is updated: the name of the deceased now appears in bright flickering letters reminiscent of a Las Vegas casino, and the person’s photo is crossed out with the callous inscription: ‘liquidated’.
For example, the current Mirotvorets’ web page design displays this way the data of the Russian journalist Darya Dugina, daughter of the philosopher Aleksandr, who was brutally killed last weekend in her own car.
Despite the accusations from the Russian FSB, Ukraine denies any involvement in that murder. On Mirotvorets, however, Dugina’s death is described with a brief, dehumanizing commentary, along with a conspiracy theory: “Liquidated by the special services of fascist russia (sic) due to interspecies disagreements.”
Who gets on the Mirotvorets lists and how?…………………………..
Mirotvorets not only accuses people of committing ‘crimes’ but also includes more abstract offenses in its lists, such as producing “anti-Ukrainian propaganda” and “participating in anti-Ukrainian propaganda events.” The list even has a section for “agents of influence of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.” However, such areas are regulated by articles 9-11 of the ‘European Convention on Human Rights’, which concern freedom of expression, conscience, religion, thought, assembly, and association. The Mirotvorets center’s administrators are essentially seeking to deprive people whose opinions and beliefs do not suit them of their right to expression.
In addition, in the site’s ‘On Interaction and Cooperation with the Center’ section, there is a sample form for reporting personal information on ‘criminals’ and their relatives, which includes fields for addresses, phone numbers, photos, links to social network profiles, and their ‘crime’ (i.e., categorization as ‘militant’ or ‘terrorist’), all without trial or investigation.
The ‘criminals’ on public display, along with their wives, children, and parents, don’t even know they’re in ‘Purgatory’, let alone given a chance to defend themselves or cross-examine witnesses and confront their accusers.
A scandal in the noble family
As long as Mirotvorets was limiting itself to publishing information on Ukrainian citizens living in Crimea and Donbass, Ukrainian opposition politicians and journalists, and Russian residents and officials, the odious organization went unnoticed in the ‘civilized world’. But a scandal erupted in 2016, when Mirotvorets published information on employees of a host of media outlets, including the BBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera, AFP, Le Monde, the Guardian, Le Figaro, France 24, El Mundo, CBS News, CNN, Sky News, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, Cheska Televize, Radio France, Channel 9 Australia, the Associated Press, Japan TV, the Daily Mail, Die Welt, the Washington Post and New York Times, as well as representatives of Human Rights Watch and many other organizations, for “cooperating with a terrorist organization” (i.e., the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics).
US State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau noted at the time that the US was “very concerned about the hacking of a database and publication of personal information about journalists in combat areas.”
………….. In addition to journalists and human rights defenders, politicians have also made it into Mirotvorets’ database. The website published information on German Bundestag deputies who visited Crimea, a list that includes Evgeny Schmidt, Rainer Balzer, Gunar Lindeman, Harold Latch, Nick Vogel, Helmut Seifen, and Blakes Christian.
Ten US citizens, as well as French actor Samy Naceri, were relegated to ‘Purgatory’ for the same ‘offense’. According to the website, the Greek ‘enemies of Ukraine’ include former Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, cartoonist Stathis Stavropoulos, retired Air Force Lieutenant General Pavlos Hristou, and ‘Russian Athens’ editor Pavel Onoiko. While former Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras also visited Crimea, he was removed from the database after expressing support for Petro Poroshenko. Top-tier politicians are also represented in Mirotvorets’ lists. Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder can be found there, while Croatian President Zoran Milanovic and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban have also been recently added, as has authoritative American diplomat Henry Kissinger.
………….. Benjamin Moreau, deputy head of the UN’s human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, stressed that the problem is moving from a purely legal to a practical one: some banks refuse to issue loans to persons included in the Mirotvorets database.
…………………… Closing Mirotvorets
There have been repeated demands to shut down the website. In 2018, Germany joined the chorus of journalists and human rights activists protesting Gerhard Schroeder’s inclusion in the database. According to the Cabinet of Ministers, “the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany most definitely condemns Mirotvorets and demands that the Ukrainian government and authorities assist in its removal.”
…………………… The Mirotvorets site is still up and continually updated with new data to this day. https://www.rt.com/russia/560965-ukrainian-mirotvorets-website/
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 