 Today, we are joined by Zuhal Khan-Kaziltu, who will be supporting the prosecution as a legal researcher. Yesterday, we heard the prosecution's opening statement. We were made to understand the legislative context of this case, and we heard a brief history of the United Kingdom's involvement in Afghanistan, beginning with the Great Game, the original Cold War between the Russians and the British and ending with the 2001 invasion. We heard historical testimony from Manira Hashemi and Gowali Pasolai. We also looked into the political reasoning behind the 2001 invasion and heard testimony from an anonymous British ambassador. We now session four. How would the prosecution like to proceed? Good morning. In previous trial sessions, we established that the 2001 invasion was not in accordance with international law and that the excessive use of force amounts to war crimes. In the last trial session, we interrogated the political reasonings behind the invasion. The anonymous ambassador made numerous references to strategy and plans, which were not followed for political reasons, showing that the UK government of the devastation that their acts caused, thus making them responsible. We would now like to further investigate the reasons for the invasion by looking at the treatment and use of women by the coalition forces. We would like to call Arzun Al-Bahar to the stand, but as she is abroad, the interview has been pre-recorded. Good afternoon, Arzun. I just want to say thank you so much for joining us today. I just want to say thank you so much for joining us today and agreeing to take part in this tribunal and charging the British state to develop crimes of aggression. Arzun, would you like to swear or affirm? I would like to affirm. Can you please read the oath on the piece of paper in front of you? I do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I demand social political expertise for the court. My name is Arzun Al-Bahar. I'm from Bourbock University in international relations and global. I have agreed to participate because the voice of people who have truly suffered in the war and the war of terror as described by the US and Britain is not heard by the international community. So I have become that voice. I would like to interview up with them, a question about how women are treated by the Taliban and their experience in Afghanistan and the activism from the UK and over back in Afghanistan. At the moment I run the hashtag Taliban have not changed and with that I mean they haven't changed. They came to Afghanistan in the 90s and the treatment of women and all human beings no matter of their gender were very, very violent and inhuman. Unfortunately our sports stadium in Kabul has witnessed women being shot in the head girls killed, men hands and limbs cut off and their actions are still the same and even worse. They have killed a lot of young people who work in correlation with international communities especially with American and British forces. They have killed a lot of women, they have done suicide bombings and a lot of other unforgivable crimes in Afghanistan in the last two weeks. You mentioned that the Taliban have come back and the violence seems in your opinion to be even worse. Why do you think that is? Unfortunately the war on terror I described was not really the war on terror equal for everybody. It was the war on terror that is just a made up terminology used by the British and Americans to come and invade Afghanistan because they love Afghanistan, it's because Afghanistan is a strategic place in Asia and it's also surrounded by countries that America and Britain has got problems with it like China and Russia and Iran. So the war on terror was just that kind of terminology that they used to come invade Afghanistan and make it another colony of them in modern colonization. It's about a world that is full of minerals, full of uranium, full of cheap labours and also a country that they can use it later on to kill and massacre and then leave it when they wish. That's what they have done. They came and invited and they left without letting us know that they are leaving. The international coalition in particular the UK in your opinion affected the women's rights in Afghanistan. For example, the Afghan woman was you emotional symbol for the people in Britain to justify the war that British forces were going to go to Afghanistan to save the Afghan women. That's a very good question and I've got a counter question. How come that Great Britain did not save the woman that they went for when the Taliban came and they only have brought those people who have worked just for Britain and most of them were male? I think that that is another deception of using women, using children as bait to get what they want to do and then don't care about them where they are now. So the British and Americans came, they said democracy. Women can go and do whatever they want. A lot of women became journalists. I know a lot of women who have worked for televisions and radios funded by Britain and America and they are left behind. Women were given that kind of prospect that you can go and become someone but they were not supported when they became, they were left behind now to be killed by the hands of the Taliban. Clarifying for the court, do you have evidence that proves the hypocrisy of the British state claiming that they went to Afghanistan to save women and to improve the rights and living conditions of women? I just want to know what the Great Britain can give me the evidence. How many widows and orphans have they helped? I want that evidence. It's not just me giving the evidence to the court. I want the court to ask for this evidence. If they can get that evidence from that source, which is the highest, my evidence in competition with that one is already showing what's going on in there. My evidence maybe is half a sentence. Their evidence will complete the sentence. Because of any documented war crimes committed by the coalition forces in Afghanistan, for example, even in certain regions as well, like in Helmand or in the north of Afghanistan, I believe your origins are? Of course. I mean like war crimes are as small as firing a bullet in a civilian as big as killing and bombarding the whole village. So war crime is a war crime even if you kill one person and not try to defend who did not have a weapon or going and bombarding a village who were celebrating a wedding just because they were working with the corrupt people or the corrupt governments in Afghanistan who give wrong reports, who give wrong information and made the British people go and bombard the village in Helmand, in Kandahar, killing the whole tribe of people attending a wedding or killing people, young people, civilians who were just trying to cross the road and go because they were used again as a first kill for new soldiers. So that is, I don't need to document anything. The human rights watch, they can give you all the evidence and unfortunately at that time, if you had to take your mobile phone out to take a picture to document it, you will be shot dead by the British troops. Really? Yes, of course. Who wants evidence? They have done a lot of things that are undocumented and you will never ever know because there is no witness left. And again it goes back that probably if British people knew it otherwise they would not have done it if the British troops, they would have done it otherwise unless they had got the wrong information. And again the wrong information goes to those people who are working with British people who are people from Afghanistan, the corrupt people in particularly the Pashtuns who were very very close allies, they give the British people the wrong information that the British people are by that I mean the troops. I mean like unfortunately all the people of Afghanistan are not terrorists but the Taliban are and they only represent one percent of the population. The same thing when I say the British of course. When they got the wrong information by those corrupt people who wanted the people that they saw as enemies who did not belong to their own tribes killed they came and they give wrong information to the British troops saying these people are Taliban. And the British troops did not even give enough time to find out whether that is the truth or not. They did not investigate it properly. They went to kill first and then they found out that they were not Taliban at all. To be clear to the court, coming back to your example that you gave just now of the mobile phone and the British soldiers have you got a specific example that you've heard or that you know of directly of British soldiers censoring Afghan citizens for example or natives filming specific war crimes? Yes of course I've got people who were killed when the British troops were passing from the road and nobody's allowed to pass their cars or pass from that road because the British or the Americans were passing from that road and at that time a young man was passing the road and the British and the Americans just hit the man they did not stop for the guy. Where was that in Afghanistan? In Afghanistan, in Shamali, in Parwan province it was in Kabul city itself and it was in northern city of Polakhomri it was in Mazara Sharif it was in the Hellman in Kandahar and hundreds of other cases like this. In order to be clear to the court I think you've made it very clear already Do you think that the UK's invasion of Afghanistan that commenced on 7th of October 2001 brought freedom and democracy to the Afghan people? I would like to make this very clear that the definition of freedom and democracy varies between the first world and the third world Freedom in the UK means you have the right to do whatever you want to do even if you can swear on Boris Johnson nobody cares. In Afghanistan that's not freedom you want to say something you will be killed the next day so define freedom we think freedom in our language means to breathe to know that there is nobody telling you what to do and what not to do and by nobody we mean we don't want to be controlled by outer people just because they are giving us some food or because they are giving us the internet or they are giving us the communication stuff it doesn't mean that we should be controlled if you're controlled by someone because your leaders are corrupt and that someone is actually not here to help you is giving you the bread but taking your uranium away that's not freedom that is called theft freedom in Afghanistan nowadays how it has been introduced because Afghanistan was suppressed by Taliban and when the Americans and the British came it was like yay we have come here we got rid of Taliban but who are the Taliban how they were created by whom? and within the last 20 years of the occupation did the reality of the ground for women in Afghanistan improved? what's so much money pouring in it's not just that the invasion as you have properly described changes the money that changed the lives of people is the international support for Afghanistan that changed not their invasion invasion never changes anything for good invasion already means that a free country is now under control and they can do whatever they do like killing people killing those that they know that's going to be raising their voice killing those that they know that can be beneficial for the political situation of Afghanistan people who really truly loved Afghanistan they were terminated because of the invasion by the people who had invaded Afghanistan and they used again those corrupt people who are of Afghan nationals who killed those people the people that they were patriotic people invasion do not like patriotic people they get rid of them in a way or another so the money that poured to rebuilding of Afghanistan and a lot of support that many people give for human rights for education of women and children for education of men, young men and to give them opportunities to stand up on their feet to continue rebuilding Afghanistan that has helped on the other hand a lot of things were taken out of Afghanistan our minerals and unfortunately the agriculture of Afghanistan was destroyed because there was something else in the mind of invaders which is called drugs, opium the farmers were given thousands and millions of dollars to grow poppies for whom? I'm not a drug addict I don't want poppies to be grown in my land but I'm growing poppies for who? Who is the buyer? I think I've already mentioned it in so many ways to invade the country in the name of freedom and democracy I mean, oh, you've got no infrastructure we're going to build you little bridges and we're going to be putting a new asphalt on your roads we will be building a little clinic over there and a little school over there and a little playground for the children to play over there to enter the country oh, we're going to be building you universities like American University or British Council people can go and learn English and so on and oh, we're going to be supporting you now that we are here, you're safe the Taliban are gone, al-Qaeda is gone we have killed Assam bin Laden you have killed Assam bin Laden but you have brought Karzai who calls Assam bin Laden and the Taliban his brothers who's a suited and booted with a tie but with a fascist, terrorist and heart-liner mind Afghanistan is only for Afghans Tajiks go to Tajikistan Uzbeks go to Uzbekistan Turkmens go to Turkmenistan Azaras, oh, you have to go to Goristan that means the graveyard because there is no country called Azaristan and that is what also was nourished and nurtured by the invaders Afghans, in my view view an Afghan is a hound Afghan hound that is what I know as the terminology of Afghan and that's a very, very disrespectful name that the British people have put on the name of the people of Afghanistan that's why I'm not even calling Afghans I'm calling them the people of Afghanistan it's a disgrace to call the people of Afghanistan Afghans Are you referring to the British presence maybe 200 years ago with the colonial presence in Afghanistan and leading up to when the Durand line was drawn dividing communities The divide and rule has always been there it's one of the biggest and the best policies ever done by the British divide and rule but can you rule the Afghans and the other side of Pakistan and this side, the Pashtuns, can you rule them? It was already planned Britain and America they have got a 50 or 100 year policy written beforehand this is not something that happened like that for us, for us, the people of Afghanistan it was like this because we didn't know what's going on and that's why we are still in a lot of pain traumatized we don't know what's going on losing family members every day systematic killing of men from ethnic minorities systematic killing of women who are in press and media beating up ordinary people showing lashes and guns and things to the children but the British and American policy writers have already planned this this is planting a plant 20 years ago and reaping the fruits today so this is not something that the Taliban are coming let's run away for our lives that's a very beautiful East Enders drama starts from somewhere, furnishes something else but the whole script has been written they already knew everything they already knew everything they already knew how many people they are going to kill if they kill more, better again it goes back to that theory of depopulation you're not stupid we know what's going on in Afghanistan if you kill one man you have killed the whole generation if you kill one man from one ethnic minority you have killed the whole generation of that ethnic minority what do you mean by that exactly? just I belong to the district of Andarab which is at the moment a part of the resistance force and it's a district in a province called Baglan and just from that district 6,000 young men have died serving the country from the time that the invaders came to Afghanistan 6,000 young men from the age of 17 to the age of 60 all educated or had the potential to get education all were all the work enforcement they could have become very good citizens in Afghanistan they could have served the country all of them were sent to the battlefield with very or small either they were experts that were killed tactically, systematically and knowing that this person has to die otherwise it will become a threat for us if we want to do the operations so crimes for endless endless this court is not enough it has to go to the Deha courts of human rights the whole generation of Hazaras all those suicide bombings within the Shia communities all those systematic killings of young Tajik men standing for that big movements to stand up and saying stop the corruption equality for all and because more than 60% of the population of Afghanistan are young people, where are they now they have run away, most of them died trying to cross the border between Iran and Turkey most of them died in the sea reaching Turkey to Greece thousands of them are at the moment in prisons in Bulgaria Poland Serbia so many women raped sex slavery pedophilia it's not just a bullet coming to your head I want to scream and shout and cry and go and get the callers of those invaders and I'm not ashamed of living in Great Britain because I'm paying taxes I'm looking after this community myself I'm looking after the society with my money so I've got the right to talk if they are thinking about oh let this, why are you talking here I'm not on benefits in this country I'm paying taxes that gives me the right to talk and that's why I think that's what they have done to my country even as Anben Laden hasn't done or the Taliban please define the war on terror and why is it different now that the terrorists are in Afghanistan and there is no war happening related to that question is the life of a British person more than the life of someone from Afghanistan just because they have got two different passports one has got a blue one and one has got a red one one was born in London other one was born in Kabul are you really going to recognize this newly terrorist form government of Taliban negotiate with them if yes then what why did you go there in the first place to do the war on terrorism or the war on terror if otherwise why we will definitely ask for compensation for the lost lives don't think we are not going to stand up for the lost lives we are very weak at the moment because we are mourning the deaths of our family members but we haven't forgotten and we will not forgive no further questions how would the prosecution like to continue we would like to call Sahar to the stand please due to unforeseen circumstances Sahar cannot attend in person she has provided us with a written statement we would like to thank Samarantisi an actor for stepping in last minute to read Sahar's words solemnly sincerely and truly affirm that the evidence I shall give as Sahar shall be truthful to Sahar's given testimony and shall be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth please take a seat could you please state your name for the court I am Sahar Parnyan and I'd like to start by asking why you agreed to join us in court today I would like to share my experience as an Afghan girl who survived living in Afghanistan after USA took over the country during the time I was living in Afghanistan there was not many young generations working in media especially girls and women Taliban everywhere however you can't even recognise because they were like normal people Sahar in Afghanistan do you originally come from my father is from Ghazni but I was born and raised as a refugee in Iran whenever I read about the situation of Afghan refugees in Iran it reopens old wounds of trauma fear and humiliation that I experienced as an Afghan refugee in Iran please explain to the court a little more what it means to be Hazara in Afghanistan being Hazara in Afghanistan means that you are not priority because you are Hazara and must be stay in second class citizen in your homeland because of discrimination and how long have you been in the UK for for almost 10 years when did you arrive in the UK it was made of December 2012 and why did you choose to come to the UK in particular I always wanted to come to the UK for living because of freedom and women's right and what did you do in Afghanistan what was your job or occupation I was an actress and sport woman by the time I was doing different things such as marketing modelling and a karate coach and why did you leave Afghanistan I had no choose to stay safely in Kabul no one helped me when I needed even though the few of Hazare who had a bit of power in government didn't react to this matter either which is a big shame on them during the time I was acting in the most famous TV series in Tolo TV there wasn't many Hazare girl who was working in media such as series and movie the Taliban doesn't like a girl like me in new Afghanistan which means that the community and most Afghans has the Talib mentality unfortunately I have lost two of my Hazare colleagues who had to started working in media and TV about few months they have been murdered by unknown people in short they have been targeted because maybe they were Hazare or even because they started acting in cinema and TV please could you tell us why the Taliban wanted to kill you since 2008 when we arrived in my fatherland Ghazni shortly after I got a job as a camera operator for wedding and then I was working with Ghazni national TV sadly we didn't know much about our culture and the best avoiding for Talib mentality which you can see from normal resident in Ghazni we've received a letter from Taliban to warning me and my younger brother to stop working then we left Ghazni to Kabul in 2009 once again I started my career as a camera operator in Ariana TV and then I've got the opportunity to impress myself to get into the TV as an actor or presenter then it was successful and I got the job as an actress when I was a camera operator I used to travel to countryside which was more dangerous for a girl and who haven't got the proper hijab and been working in street and front warning me to stop working in television or even to be active and work outside of my home I should not talk about women's rights and etc it didn't stop me to work harder it makes me stronger than before suddenly two of my beautiful friends have been killed the day after this sad news I received many calls from friends from EU and around the world that they heard that I was targeted to be killed and then I've received a phone call at 2am in the morning telling me that I wasn't listened to the request that I've asked for he said that you've seen of my two friends has been killed this is good example for who's not listened and make yourself ready that the next person will be killed it's you what year did you start to get death threats from the Taliban it was in middle of 2008 not too sure when was exactly I had to work on national TV in Ghazni and I also was working as a camera operator in Afghanistan did you ever see any proof that Britain was helping in empowering Afghani women unfortunately not I have to be honest I've never seen Britain was helping and empower Afghan women in Afghanistan during the time I was living in Kabul I was acting on the role of the secretar of the president of Afghanistan and I was the only woman was working in this kind of environment I was acting in the most known and famous series the ministry in Tolo TV this series was supported by Britain to showing the reality of governments and and reaction focusing on neighborhoods countries such as Iran and Pakistan and you last visited Afghanistan in 2020 is that correct yes and what was your visit like it was extremely incredible after nine years to my motherland my country where I am belonging and beloved to it was like a dream become true when I was walking around in Kabul and seeing how Afghans can be creative in developing in any kind of things what made you hopeful that you could move back and start a new life exactly there were many successful business women and investors many young generations many other coming from USA EU for working in Kabul they've inspired me to go back for living as part of the bad memories I have from there but I always be loved to Afghanistan do you still have family in Afghanistan whole my family is in Kabul could you tell the court how your family is in the current situation I couldn't be more grateful that I'm living in this country however my only concern is my brother that his life and the rest of my family is in danger because he was working with us Air Force on an engineering project his recently job was a police officer he was always in trouble because his sister was working in television he was bullying from other and warning her to tell me to stop my job their current situation is in hiding but we don't know yet what's going to be happen next once the Taliban start searching the houses is the British government helping your family secure a safe passage to the UK sadly I have to say that the government is very slow in processing this kind of urgent application it's absolutely understandable that they are super busier than usual as part of this is Covid the system was already slow during this time my solicitor and I has been in contact with our MP Sarah Olney I am hoping that she will be supporting us with government not too sure if to be honest why do you think that the British government cannot help you and your family when they helped you originally as a successful Afghan woman I have asked for help and I'm hoping that they understand which people is the most in danger the people who are vulnerable is there anything else you'd like to share with the court in Iran Afghan refugees face two levels of racism systematic racism supported by law and community racism the first one imposes additional fees and taxes on Afghan refugees without allowing their access to public services however community racism is more dangerous in Afghanistan as Hazara I was victim to systematic racism supported by law and community racism and community racism was about the same lastly the world must not recognize Taliban they are not trustable and they are not the representative of the new generation of Afghanistan thank you Sahar no further questions thank you Samar you may leave the stand the prosecution would like to continue there is an undoubtedly complex relationship with women and their position in society in Afghanistan the Taliban have committed serious human rights in their violence towards women and while part of Britain stated intention was to help the situation of the women they have clearly failed in this adding to all their other failures we would now like to quote Secretary General Kofi Annan March 2005 since 9-11 the United Kingdom has adopted a multitude of anti-terrorism legislations to combat the war on terror these legislations still support the ideology of the war on terror even where it has been in clear violations of international law we will now call Asim Qureshi to the stand senior researcher of CAGE who has published numerous reports and books of lawful detention, rendition and torture in the name of the war on terror I do solemnly sincerely and truly swear that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you very much Tixie thank you Mr. Kureshi do we have a legal background? I have a law degree and my master specialised in international law for many years now I've worked with legal defence teams who have been affected by the global war on terror how long have you searched the war on terror could you tell us what your research focus is on? so I've been researching the war on terror since about 2003 a lot of my research involves travelling around the world meeting people who have been impacted by different policies in different ways whether it's in Africa South-East Asia across the whole world really unfortunately and my PhD focussed on the ways in which individuals have been impacted by these policies Mr. Kureshi could you tell us what's the link between the British invasion of Afghanistan and war on terror within the UK so I think we need to understand that the global war on terror is built off a back of a discourse and a rhetoric that relates to Muslims in particular so this predates the war on terror by a very long way it's rooted in what many scholars call Orientalism and so these discourses what they allowed for is to produce the spectre of this barbaric other and when we see the invasion in Afghanistan what happens is that because the security threat is raised over there because the British are in conflict with Afghans but also Afghan Muslims a security lens is then placed on Muslims who are living in the UK who may have some sympathies and many sympathies with seeing their fellow co-religionists or in the case of Afghans nationalists being abused, slaughtered and many different ways that the coalition forces were doing so what happened is that of course because this threat level is raised they were targeted through both policy and legislation by the UK government effectively creating a suspect community or suspect communities could you please tell us about the current anti-terrorist legislation in the UK that adopted since 2001 sure I mean we had the terrorist act 2000 which sets the definition of terrorism in a very broad way that was pretty much adopted just before 9-11 took place and it's significant because there are some key provisions in there that very much set the table for the global war on terror especially in terms of the domestic situation in the UK in 2001 we had the anti-terrorism security act which allowed for internment where a group of Arab men who were part nationals of the UK were interned without charge or trial and they were held in Belmarsh they were eventually released but they were placed under a region called control orders and then some were later put forward for deportation so there was a whole raft of problems that took place because of the 2001 act in 2006 there was another terrorism act which widened the scope again particular had some provisions around speaking out again being involved in trying to change which was interesting because the UK government was involved in that itself but didn't like it when for example resistance movements were trying to change their own countries by 2011 we had the terrorism prevention and investigation measures act which is another form of control effectively that was the main provision effectively controlled but just pretty much had some softening of some aspects of the previous regime the last really significant legislation the counter-terrorism security act of 2015 which places a program called Prevent at a statutory level is what the government security acts call pre-criminal policy extensively it exists to stop somebody from becoming a terrorist in the future however that sounds and we have a of legislations that haven't been built on top of one another that have constructed a system of structural racism that predominantly targets Muslims but has targeted other communities as well in terms of their daily lives you have created also UK terrorism could you please explain it to us sure I'll try my best unfortunately it's a little bit small up there but effectively what we have is on this side what happens to suspects when they're abroad and on this side what happens while they're in the UK and I guess what we're trying to do with this matrix was how at every single point within a system of suspicion the UK government takes your right away from you based on pathologizing for me the key aspect this is really up here when we're talking about profiling of a suspect where does this take place it can take place over here where the person is abroad so what happens to them while they're abroad while they're in the UK either going about their daily lives or being stopped at a port now being stopped at a port is significant because I was talking about the terrorism act 2000 before it has a very specific provision in it called schedule 7 now to explain to you better about why this particular provision is so egregious if for example I go out into the street right now and kill somebody shoot them in the head whatever I have more rights in that situation of having killed somebody in broad daylight with witnesses and everything than I do when I've been stopped under schedule 7 if I'm schedule 7 especially when the act was first brought in and was used at that time you could be held for up to 9 hours without a lawyer being present but the key part of it is that to refuse to answer a question meant that you had committed an act of terrorism so you are obliged under the law to answer questions refusal to do so meant that you would be prosecuted as many people were for committing acts of terrorism now what is the purpose of schedule 7 schedule 7 really exists because they claim it's about investigating whether or not somebody travelling in or out of the country has been involved in the commission, the preparation or the instigation of an act of terrorism ok so that's what they're saying that we're stopping you for this reason of course predominantly they're stopping Muslims under this legislation and so you get in the room with and I've been in the room multiple times with border agents they kind of try to build some kind of rapport with you and then they ask you questions like how many times a day do you pray how pious do you consider yourself what are your views on the war in Iraq what are your views on the war in Afghanistan and for the person who hasn't lived and breathed the structural racism, the war on terror for them this is a very frightening experience because they don't understand what's going on they don't understand why they're being asked about their personal views which they may not even have very sophisticated views on about things that are going around thousands of miles away when the act is saying we're just trying to investigate whether or not you're involved in an actual act of terrorism so what is this used for it's used as a profiling exercise it's used in order to build a snapshot of you as a person a racialized understanding of who Muslims are in the first place and how they present a threat to society so if as a border agent you think that support for the Palestinian struggle is a marker of having a terrorist mindset then when border agents ask that that's effectively what they're saying that we think that this makes you a potential terrorist or a potential threat just ask the famous actor who writes very eloquently about his experience after the Berlin Film Festival where his movie Road to Guantanamo won the silver award he comes back to the UK he's assorted by border agents but he's also asked about his political opinions so even being the good Muslim the one who's an actor the one who isn't involved in activism that some of us were involved with that doesn't protect you because their understanding of what creates a threat is so inextricably linked to their own bad actions abroad and the way in which they have located themselves in terms of wider struggles and so I think you know this is really important the reason why I start with this in terms of the matrix is because you have to understand at no point is it possible for you to escape its logic right if you are detained abroad like the person that I speak about in the chapter I write in a book called what is Islamophobias which is where I present this matrix if you're caught abroad like a 16 year old boy Mahdi Hashih was a Somali boy who was naturalized citizen of the UK he was 16 years old when he went to Egypt in Egypt who lived there for a while you're constantly under suspicion by the authorities no matter what you have done I was just there studying he was there studying as well but obviously at different times and he's just a kid but because he's a Somali kid from the UK the Egyptian authorities deemed him a security risk because that racialized logic doesn't just exist in the west it gets exported so other governments around the world were encouraged to view these people as being potential threats as well all instigated by the US and the UK that logic travels so this young kid he's beaten he's tortured he's held an incommunicado detention by the Egyptian authorities and when he finally gets consular access he's been told by the consular official not what can we do to help alleviate your difficulty in the situation as a national of the UK but if you're a member of Al Qaeda you shouldn't tell the Egyptian authorities you should own up to it so they do the exact opposite I encountered this hundreds of times with detainees that I've represented over the years that the consular officials were playing the role of interrogator they were playing the role of MI5 well they could have been MI5 themselves we don't actually know because they never made it very clear so Mahdi he goes through the system and when he gets back to the UK instead of being welcome back and saying okay this kid has been through severe torture and he needs medical assistance he's put through a schedule 7 stop he's put through an interrogation about his beliefs, his ideas about why he got arrested by the Egyptians so he's forced to repeat his trauma all over again some of you if you google his name you'll find that after that period Mahdi was put through some severe harassment alongside his friends who lived in the Kentish town area with him there was a cold group of Somali boys they were amazing lads because they were very much involved in the community they were helping people stay off drugs they were helping kids who were getting involved in various forms of violence but instead of seeing these people as just wonderful human beings they were pathologized by the state of their community and so MI5 instead of saying we should leave these guys alone they thought okay let's see how we can manipulate the situation so Mahdi was constantly harassed and his friends were constantly harassed to the extent that Mahdi then decides to lead the country forever he goes to Somalia where he is detained by al-Shabaab now instead of seeing his detention as being something that was a gain that was a difficult experience for him the British authorities removed his citizenship claiming that somehow he was affiliated to them he is detained by the Americans and eventually put on a rendition flight to America where he went on trial for being a member of al-Shabaab which was all nonsense and anybody who knew him knew this was a complete nonsense case but you can see how once you enter into the matrix so he was abroad when this happened so the suspicion starts here in Egypt and he goes around and he comes all the way back around to the UK profiling and then the suspicion carries on until he ends up going back through the system again Mahdi is just one case we know of people who are being killed by drone strikes by the British after they've had their citizenship removed there are so many different examples and we've put hundreds of cases through the system and unfortunately once you are under that glare it's almost impossible to remove yourself from it sorry I know I went through quite a lot of detail on that one but please carry on how successful has indefinite insurance been for the government? well I mean the 2001 act in turn I think was a complete failure none of these men were ever charged with any crime even those who were eventually deported out of the country and faced trial elsewhere were acquitted some of them unfortunately who were deported were tortured despite having been given assurances that they wouldn't be so they went through a great deal of harm in those circumstances with some of them of course they remained in the UK and they were put on control orders where their lives were made a complete misery and they were placed on deportation orders then after that in the case of the Libyans there was a whole group of Libyans who were placed under these deportation orders while the UK government had a great relationship with Colonel Gaddafi as Tony Blair did and they were trying to say these Libyans they are either they need to be deported back to Libya they were considered to be this national security threat then David Cameron's government comes in and all of a sudden everything changes Gaddafi is now an enemy the Libyans are now released from these deportation orders but because things have changed in Libya they choose to go back to Libya themselves and they end up being in the case of one of them the personal bodyguard for people like Hillary Clinton and David Cameron so it was also political in the first place these deportation orders while they were existing were only because at that time Tony Blair had decided with Gaddafi that we want to bring Libya into this matrix of the war in terror we want them to be a supporter of our policies in the war in terror and so we will label any dissident against Gaddafi as Al Qaeda whereas actually the truth was very very far from that these were dissidents but they just got labeled depending on what the political expediency was at any given time how does indefinite instrument impact a person and how the British agents treat these dissidents so I interviewed a lot of people who had been interned in different ways whether it was the actual intern or under control orders or under what was known as bail orders while they're facing deportation so they still had restrictions and the one thing that they all said to a person to me is the hardest part of these programs and these policies is not knowing the evidence against you this is all done under secret evidence you are not permitted to know that evidence neither is your lawyer when you go to the special immigration appeals commission to to fight your case you enter into the court the especially in those days the judge would say to you the government is going to present its evidence in secret neither you nor your lawyer are permitted to see that evidence and so you have to leave the room so anybody who is not connected to the government has to leave the room while the government is giving evidence against you it's the most bizarre situation you can ever find yourself now that's been extended to so many different areas so for example if your assets are frozen it includes that if your children are taken away from you and family proceedings it applies there as well now where you won't know the evidence against you and these are arbitrary decisions so it's not like you've been put on trial for having allegedly committed an act of terrorism you get a letter in the post that says we believe that you are an Islamist extremist right or we believe that you are not conducive to the public good this is the actual terminology they use they don't give any evidence for that the home secretary simply signs a piece of paper and you get the letter through your post that could be as I said for your children being taken away or your citizenship being removed or your passport being taken away arbitrary sanctions that they can give you then have to challenge that in either the High Court or the Special Immigration Appeals Commission and you do that in secret you do that behind closed doors so you have to effectively think about everything that you've ever done in your life any person that you've ever met and try and give that as a defense to the court hoping that something that you say might explain to the court you know against the evidence that's being presented in secret you know it's it's completely bizarre and it's completely unconscionable but of course what people don't see is the impact that this has on families the families don't know anything about what's going on but if you're in a control or a bay lord in particular your life is turned upside down because you're not allowed to have visitors if somebody comes to visit you they have to be home office approved you cannot often have access to the internet so for people who are who are school age with kids who are school age they you know everything is on the internet now so much of the homework that needs to be done is on the internet so much research that they used to is on the internet but they're not allowed any of it it affects the lives in kind of manifold ways and so unfortunately the impact is deep it's devastating and you know unfortunately leads to a lot of resentment the wider impact is that the community unfortunately feels fair for what happened to one family so that family then gets ostracized because people they want to protect their own children and they feel like well if we associate with this person then we will be labeled in a similar way so unfortunately the ramifications of these policies are very very deep and and severe is there a difference in the way detainees are treated within the UK compared to in British detention centres abroad I mean abroad definitely there's no standard of care of course in the UK system you know there have been a lot of studies on the abuse of prisoners and the way in which especially people of colour are treated within prisons but you know abroad there's no oversight whatsoever and the government often says well we have a memorandum of understanding with Egypt or with Algeria or with all of these countries that the person won't be abused but when you understand like the basic standard of care and prison conditions is so far below anything that is accepted I mean the UK is so far below Europe forget about just what we have over here but over there it's even worse so the problem wherever you are in the system I think we have such a terrible view towards detention full stop in the UK but of course abroad unfortunately it's in so many ways worse but I think just to maybe expand on your question I think we have a problem in particular with the way in which we understand sentencing in these types of cases so if we take a case like Oxana Begum for example who was charged with having possession of a terrorism publication because her brother was charged with a terrorism offence she was reading the material in order to help the lawyers prepare for his defence the judge accepted that he said that the only reason you had it was to prepare for your brother's case that she had no terrorism intentions that she had no desire to be a terrorist that she wasn't a very good path in her life but despite that I'm still going to imprison you for a year because I can't be 100% sure about you despite acknowledging the fact that there was nothing about her then you compare that now to a case very recently of somebody with a far right who had very very specific intentions of creating bombs who was told what that if he reads Pride and Prejudice and some other English classics that he will not be given any custodial sentence this is the reality of the way in which people in the far right are treated in terms of having actual designs and desires to commit acts of violence as opposed to Muslims who don't even have that desire but are racialized within the system so there is this culture within UK Detentions where there is this extra penalty that you receive for being a person of colour and particular Alongside a legal response to terrorism there are other policies such as Contest and Tony Blair's 12 points plan could you tell us about this space? Contest is the UK Government's overarching strategy for counter-terrorism in the UK so this is prevent, pursue, protect and prepare and I think for our purposes the two most important are the aspects of pursue and prevent so pursue we understand what that is the UK authorities trying to go out there and effectively catch the terrorists for want of a better term but prevent is it's a very bizarre one we spoke about it earlier it operates in what they term themselves the pre-criminal space so what they want to do is they want to stop somebody from becoming a terrorist in the future now this requires by its very nature a pathologising and I know that's a medical term but what we're saying when we use the word pathology is that what they're doing is that they're linking superficial aspects of who of what they think the threat is and linking it to the idea of that threat so whether it's the name sounds or the colour of my skin or what I believe in they have to use these certain markers in order to determine whether or not somebody might be a threat in the future hence why Palestine activism for example so regularly features as part of their threat matrix which is why their invasions abroad feature on their threat matrix because they understand as MIFI recognise themselves as the war in Iraq that if we invade Iraq this will raise the risk level in the UK and so prevent is about placing the emphasis of change on the individual because what the authorities don't want to say is that well actually we know that unconscionable foreign and domestic policy harms these communities because they don't want to change the system they say well what we need to do is to have the behaviour of the people who feel disenfranchised by the system if we can subjugate them and repress them to the extent that they have no political ambitions then effectively we don't have to worry about what the state is doing any longer the state can just carry on doing what it needs to rather than recognising that having unconscionable domestic and foreign policies produces that disenfranchisement in the first place so that's really what prevent is about in the programme this is really brought in after the attacks on 7th July of 2005 he brought in some extra provisions about say for example the glorification of terrorism that if somebody glorifies it in some way then they would prosecute it of course this is again highly racialised you have examples of young Muslim men leaving very very wordy comments on Facebook by being prosecuted for it and receiving custodial sentences but then you have for example people on the far right who will be far more explicit about the kind of violence that they want to do but being given reprimands or given community service so again this whole idea of what glorification is and what terrorism is even it's completely different to one another and we'll talk about this maybe a little bit later if we have time but there is a distinction that's made between racism and far right behaviour so what the UK government has tried to do as much as possible is isolate a very very very extreme element of the far right from everyday racism rather than connecting it to as a part of an ideology of white supremacy they're very very specific about that but when it comes to Muslims the idea of ideology is given as broad a categorisation as possible so that the idea of threat from within our communities is nebulous whereas within the far right it's very very kind of acute and specific it's very important to understand in terms of how ideas around the way in which the criminal justice legislation works is then instrumentalised he also tried to bring in 90 days pre-charged attention which is ironic because when Tony Blair was in the Shadow Cabinet many eons ago he actually spoke against 7 days pre-charged attention in an Irish context as videos him saying how unconscionable it was to have 7 days pre-charged attention he brings that up to 14 and then tried to bring it up to 90 90 days and you know it's a bit disconcerting that when 90 days didn't exist didn't go through and 28 days did that unfortunately a lot of our liberal allies they weren't they were happy about this but what a lot of people don't understand is that 28 days pre-charged attention devastates your life completely you have no more community at the other side of it it's just plastered all over the media you will have no job on the other side of it like even if nothing comes with that 28 days pre-charged attention your life is effectively over and so when we talk about the impact of Tony Blair's policies this is a particularly egregious one you know he part of the 12 point plan was that he wanted to close spaces of worship over extremism again very nebulous this term it doesn't necessarily mean anything you know what he did was that he instrumentalized that moment in order to really push for a very liberal form of racism through tightening of our borders so using 7-7 as a way of trying to say we need tighter borders feeding into a very kind of right-wing narrative about border security about who's in the UK about otherizing people of color in particular so yeah there's a lot of problems with Tony Blair Tony Blair's 12 point plan does this contribute to adoring and Islamophobia sure so I think we've been speaking about this a lot as we've been going along prevent other you know kind of legal mechanisms they don't I think it's important to understand they don't exist in a vacuum when we say to a doctor a nurse, a teacher a dentist, an optometrist a nursery teacher that you are under a statutory duty as under the counter terrorism act 2015 to report an individual who is on a pathway to radicalization that's what the act requires right that all of these people who are in the public sector space but also in the private sector as well now that they're under a legal duty to report somebody what we're saying is that and what the government says is that based off of a two hour presentation that somebody from either the police or the home office gives they're supposed to report on these people now in an environment where the two most popular newspapers in the UK, the Daily Mail and the Sun that we have commentators like Nick Ferrari and many others who espouse whatever views that they want on minority communities, on refugees on Muslims, that there is an entire environment, an edifice of racism that exists in this country where we are constantly dog whistled and dog whistled from the very very top of where David Boris Johnson can call you know whatever names that he wants to black people and can call women who wear the niqab letterboxes in that environment when somebody uses a common sense approach within the dominant society they're not coming at it outside of the general racism that already exists the general Islamophobia that already exists in society, they're bringing that with them into the classroom they're bringing that with them into the work space and they're using those markers by which to understand whether or not the child in front of them is a potential threat, so the child comes into school in Mufti Day with his proud t-shirt that says Abu Bakr Sadiq Number One who is a very famous, one of the most famous figures from Islamic history and the teacher is too dumb to recognize that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS has nothing to do with this guy reports that child that has a cumulative effect not just for the child, but for the parents for the community for everyone or the time that we know the prevent officials came to the house of a child and their parents and got the child to recite verses of the Quran and then proceeded to tell the parents and the child how they thought as non-Muslims these verses of the Quran were potential signs of extremism when you have that environment taking place which is fed by a liberal discourse of racism that exists in every single level of our society then you see exactly what's taking place and again just to give the example of the far right because people say Islamist extremists are the flip side of far right extremism we have to take into account the environments as Muslim communities, we have two degrees of separation from one another we know our communities very well I would say that there isn't a single mosque in the UK there's a guy on the pulpit saying kill non-Muslims destroy the western world and whatever we know our communities very very well this is not happening they don't have that platform in our community spaces but we do have all of our mainstream media including I would say the Guardian giving space to the voices of racists every single day in terms of ubiquity or discourse within the Muslim community we educate our youth about the rights and wrongs of what's going on in the world saying that these things are the flip side of one another is not true at all one is ubiquitous in its harm that it causes and that is the discourse of white supremacy and far right terrorism and the other is one of course which is based a lot on disenfranchisement because it's not a narrative that young people get within our main institutions from our main Muslim organizations from our main mosques it's not happening because we know our community is very well so I think that yes definitely the whole environment has contributed massively to other ring and you know the increase of Islamophobia that we see nothing further thank you for your time Mr Krish thank you Mr Krish before we open this up to the panel I would just like to say as we start a little late we might run over past 12 o'clock if you do need to leave please do quietly thank you do the panel have any questions yes thank you and thank you very much Mr Asim Qureshi for your expert testimony there were just two questions I would like to ask you just to get a bit more detail one and to help us understand this case more generally the first question is just to touch on what you spoke about with this potential memorandum of understandings that the UK government might have with other international governments on a basic standard of care for prisoners abroad and given your expertise would you say that when it comes to prisoners who are abroad that the basic standard of care would potentially involve some human prisoners who have been interned in those prisons yes absolutely you know again the standard of care for prisoners just across the world is awful anyway you know I think the fact that we have such long periods of solitary confinement in America and the UK in particular is already a problem but you know the use of these techniques and these tactics in say countries like Pakistan across the Middle East in Afghanistan it's just such a normal practice that when we say we have assurances that somebody won't be tortured abroad it's a very very narrow reading of what torture is under the cat convention their mere existence within one of these prisons I would say is tantamount to torture, cruel and humane and degrading treatment which would then be a violation of the cat convention so I think because they have such a narrow reading of what human rights violations are they're able to get these memorandum understanding through but ultimately you know just I think there is a human rights violation taking place every single day in the prisons and many of the countries that they're making these memorandums with thank you very much and then a second question which relates to part of your testimony and a particular sentence struck with me is that somebody can get a letter in the post not knowing where that letter comes from which of course given your examples you indicate it's a very arbitrary process so with this and I'd just like to ask you to elaborate a little bit further this literally means that a school teacher can report on a child or somebody, one of your colleagues can report on you understanding of that so that could start a process by which this takes place so for example with a child custody issue or child protection issue it might start in a school where a teacher may make an assessment of a child and say I believe this child is on a pathway to radicalization because something that they might have said or done that might get escalated to the local prevent official who then might escalate it further until it gets to the home secretary now the home secretary at that point might make a decision that this child needs to be taken out of the care of their parents based on whatever assessments they make and there are a number of cases like this already and I think one of the really interesting ones is a case where the child was taken away from the parents but was so harmed by that experience that the judge within a few months ordered the parents to take the child back because he said that we've damaged this child beyond almost beyond repair in terms of what we put them through in this process in other cases children were taken away because Al Jazeera was being played in the background in another case a child was watching Game of Thrones and so it was raised as a child protection issue within Prevent Schema I mean some people might talk about good taste or bad taste but Prevent is a whole different thing and so this is a huge problem that we find with the system that because it's so arbitrary because it's based on the assumptions that we're asking everyday people to make to subvert the role that they're supposed to play the pastoral role that they're supposed to play somebody could enter into the system and because of the assumptions that are made about our cultures about who we are, about the way that we are with one another that can escalate with very very devastating consequences and so when they come for you and they take your children away it really is just a letter that's signed by the Home Secretary that says we believe that there is that your child has been subject to extremist ideas and so this is a child protection issue we're making this child a ward of the court as the legal terminology states Thank you very much Yeah In your experience Mr. Koreshi have you ever encountered British intelligence agents being involved in torture or aware of the torture of detainees? Yeah, absolutely, I mean we've documented this quite heavily in a number of reports that we've produced over the years mostly from the testimony of former detainees I remember one situation we were in in 2008 Ethiopia had only recently invaded Somalia we were representing four British nationals who were being held in a Kenyan prison so a whole massive group of about 80 people who were foreign nationals they fled from Somalia when the fighting had started seeking their embassies in Kenya so they went through this horrible experience of crossing jungles and being fired at by Ethiopian troops and American being supervised by American soldiers before they finally got to Kenya when they got to Kenya they were being held by the Kenyan Anti-Terrorism Police Unit which is a very problematic unit that's been involved in a number of extradition killings so the guys that we were representing one of them, he was smart enough to say to his guard that look hey, I've got friends in London who will Western Union you money if you allow me to use your mobile phone so we were we managed to get in touch with these guys while they were still inside the prison and they were describing how every single day MI5 was taking them for interrogation and how they were being held in these very very torturous conditions because the guard was allowing us to speak to them and of course we're also on the phone to the embassy at the same time and the embassy is saying look we have no we have nothing that is telling us that there's even that these men are even in Kenya and that they're being detained so you've got one arm of the British state which is saying that look we have no idea why these guys are in Kenya we can't find them they're not in any prison we've asked the authorities and of course another arm which is taking them to very nice hotels and interrogating them and then putting them back in the torturous conditions that they were every single day in the end what they did is that they did the one thing that they're not allowed to do which is that they took them from a country that was safe in Kenya and they put them on a rendition flight and they went ahead and did it so yes we have many examples and I think you're going to hear from Mars and Begg later who will of course be able to give you much more detail about his personal experiences with MI5 but there are hundreds of other cases where MI5 have been involved in such things thank you very much if my colleagues have no further questions then nothing further great thank you I'd like to open it back up to the panel any more questions yes thank you so I have one final question the right to revoke citizenship of British nationals how much basis of this and how common is this been throughout your years of working so we've got details that there are now around just over a hundred cases of individuals who have had their citizenship revoked as far as I understand the only non-Muslim in that group is Anna Chapman who was accused of being a spy for Russia who's gone back to Russians got a very successful life I think as a TV celebrity now the rest of them they've been sent back to countries like Pakistan where I met a number of them or Egypt or they've been in other countries when they've received notification that their citizenship were being removed you know one of the things that I might suggest about some of these citizenship revocations is that they used quite cynically and the reason for that is because of the price that the British government paid with the Guantanamo Bay detainees the ones who were British nationals and British residents because the government was under a duty of care to represent these people and the British government and the UK government and the UK government and the UK government and the UK government and the UK government were interrogating them abroad and when they were allowed to be taken to Guantanamo the government had to pay large amounts of compensation to these men because of the UK government's involvement in their harm what I believe is that the British government could publicly state that we had no obligations towards these men when they were killed in a drone strike because they were no longer British nationals so I believe that there is a very cynical reason why these deprivations or revocations are deployed in certain circumstances and I think that's something that should be interrogated much more carefully Thank you very much Thank you Thank you Thank you for your testimony Dr Kareishi I would just like to ask in relation to what perhaps some of the gendered aspects of the war in Terra have been when we're talking about domestic policies and practices we heard from the testimony prior to yours about how the forms of justification the ways in which women are used as a justification for actions aboard and so I'd be more interested to hear your views on Sure, I mean it's not my particular area of expertise but I would definitely recommend scholars such as Sahara Qamqor she's got an amazing book called The Political Psychology of the Vale which really details this topic in particular Dr Qamqor speaks about really is how kind of human rights issues to do with women in particular were instrumentalized particularly in the context of operation enduring freedom, the invasion of Afghanistan how of course women's rights in Afghanistan especially in the rural areas often when we speak about Afghanistan it's a very Kabul-centric narrative that's what people generally tend to focus on the life of Kabul looks like on a daily basis but in rural settings nothing changed pre-Taliban, during the Taliban post-Taliban and with the Taliban again rural right life has not changed one of Ayota and so these conversations are often performative in their value it's about having a narrative that justifies invasion, it's something that gives cover to to policymaking that is all for that best, it doesn't bring any material change for the life of everyday Afghans, so I think that there are obviously problems in relation to that you know kind of more generally in the war on terror we've seen that at various points women's rights issues are instrumentalized in order to kind of almost play this good Muslim, bad Muslim dichotomy right so there's good Muslim women and there's bad Muslim men and fortunately we have ever increasing kind of activism within our communities especially by Muslim women who are now calling this out by kind of exposing the ways in which this is instrumentalized in order to like harm us all effectively but yeah I think there are a lot of problems in relation to the way in which that discourse has been utilized especially by far right groups you know you've got books like the liberal roots of far right extremism that shows how mainstream governments will use that discourse about women's rights in order to push a far right agenda we've seen this used very effectively in France, in the Netherlands here in the UK as well so it's across really the European context that saving Muslim women from Muslim men is a key dynamic of the way in which cover is given to problematic war on terror policies any more questions thank you Mr. Koreshi you may go back to your seat Mr. Koreshi has shown that the government has contributed to Islamophobia within the UK contrary to its own equality act from 2010 he also gave examples of the torture the tenees have suffered under British control torture is prohibited under article 5 of the universal declaration of women rights and we will prove that the UK has committed torture on multiple occasions throughout the war on terror thank you thank you very much that concludes trial session 4 we will now recess and return at 1pm for trial session 5 which will focus on torture we will hear testimony from Mozambique and anonymized witness Noor thank you very much