Liberal Burblings

Archive for the ‘.’ Category

Alex Foster on Liberal Democrat Voice provides an interesting deconstruction of the latest exploits of a national daily newspaper to which I will refer only as ‘The Usual Suspect’. It’s worth reading, if only for a sort of classic (presumably unintended) self-parody of journo-rubbish by Liz Jones. One for Private Eye, I think. Not quite Glenda Slag; but something akin to it.

For me, it’s taken a while for news of Akmal Shaikh’s execution to sink in. It’s deeply sickening and all so pointless. The real criminals, who duped Shaikh into carrying a suitcase, are now laughing their socks off, as they count their money. So what good has killing a clearly demented and unwitting “mule” done? It will simply embolden the criminals to find more people to dupe into carrying drugs for them.

Reprieve have a full breakdown of the case. Their director Clive Stanford Smith summed it up well:

China’s refusal to even allow a proper medical evaluation is simply disgusting.

Shaikh was the first European to be executed in China in more than 50 years. The EU now has a High Representative, Baroness Ashton. Did she get involved in this at all? It would seem a prime example of precisely the sort of instance where she should wield the full weight of the EU. But I can find no evidence of any involvement by her. A Google news search for “Shaikh Ashton” comes back with zippo on the subject.

I am going out on a limb here, but I think the British government’s conduct on this issue has been fairly good. British ministers made 27 appeals to the Chinese government, Gordon Brown spoke personally to Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Premier, to appeal for clemency for Shiakh, and a Foreign Office team travelled to China before Christmas to work for clemency in the run-up to the execution.

By the way, if anyone is in any doubt of the pathetic state of mind of Shaikh, listen to his recording of “Come little rabbit” (below on You Tube) which he thought would make him a star and bring world peace. (It’s chilling to listen to it now.) OK. So that’s the same delusion as that entertained by many Miss World or X-Factor contestants, but Reprieve has accumulated plenty of evidence to point to mental illness in the man:

Akmal had a lifelong history of very strange behaviour, and Reprieve uncovered vital evidence that he suffered from an extremely serious mental condition.

A preliminary medical report by clinical psychologist Dr Peter Schaapveld suggests that the odd decisions leading up to Akmal’s offence were most likely influenced by some form of delusional psychosis.

On Twitter yesterday morning, @CaronMLindsay asked:

 I wonder why there wasn’t more outrage in press about Akmal Shaikh..

Here answer, I think, came from the Bureau of Sabotage:

One wonders what the reaction of the tabloids and how half-hearted the efforts of HMG to save his life would have been had his name been something like “Alan Smith”;

- Which brings me back to “The Usual Suspect”. Yesterday they had LeoMcKinstry praising China’s “ruthlessness in tackling drug pushers” and supporting the execution of Akmal Shaikh. “Ruthlessness” in “tackling drug pushers”? You idiot, McKinstry! The “drug pushers” in this case are still alive and still coining it in! Alongside that, take a recent “Usual Suspect” article quoted by Alex Foster which praises China for rapidly completing the construction of a new train network. The trains travel at at 245 mph! - they breathlessly informed us. Wow! Never mind the fact that 72% of the world’s executions take place in China. That’s a mere frippery.