“Out of the seven times I’ve been held up at gun point, I’ve only been hurt once. That’s because I wasn’t speaking the right language. After the first time, I knew how to handle it. ‘Look, I’m a defence lawyer. Shoot a fucking prosecutor – you may need me later,’ I said, and the other six times they let me off. Once they even gave me my wallet back.”

I don’t know what I was expecting from human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, but this certainly wasn’t it. He was going to talk about the death penalty, but casually let drop (two minutes before the debate) that he would instead be discussing “what’s pissed me off this week.” He threatened to heckle Union President Jon Laurence if he introduced him with the usual “serious stuff,” and got Hannah Perry (Cambridge Amnesty Chair) singing ‘Come Little Rabbit’.

This may sound ridiculous, but there was a purpose to it all. The gun story illustrated that language matters. “What’s pissed me off” was a whole range of human rights issues, while ‘Come Little Rabbit’ was the song mentally ill Akmal Shaikh thought would be a worldwide number one hit. He was executed in China on December 29th 2009. All of this was characteristic of Clive’s speech – humorous, warm-hearted, but ultimately with a crucial point to be made.

The most surprising thing that Clive demonstrated was the sheer stupidity of the CIA in the ‘war on terror’. In one case they put a Saudi fourteen-year-old in Guantanamo, based on a misinterpretation of the Arabic word for tomatoes. (It is the same as the Yemeni-Arabic word for money, so they became convinced he was a budding al-Qaeda financier). Nor did they bother to retrieve his birth certificate, telling Clive that he just ‘looked young’ for their supposed 26.

Another fearsome terror suspect was Amanatullah Ali, a Shia rice merchant and father of five, kidnapped (euphemistically described as rendition) by the British and sent to Bagram in 2004, while on a pilgrimage during the holy month of Muharram. The UK Government later claimed he had been involved in Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, incidentally a Sunni militant group. Ali, who has never seen his youngest child, remains at Bagram, the base Clive describes as “Guantanamo’s evil twin.” Guantanamo has 195 prisoners; Bagram has over 700, none of whom has ever seen a lawyer.

Clive acknowledges that not all terror suspects will be innocent. However, of the 42 cases Reprieve has got to court, 83% have been acquitted of all charges. That’s a lot of innocent people locked away – and in some cases tortured – for no reason. Disturbingly, the UK Government is hugely complicit in illegal rendition, covering up their actions on the grounds of ‘security’ because they will embarrass them. The highlight for me was when Juan De Francisco (dead nice bloke, Union Ents Officer next term) asked the ‘ticking time-bomb’ question. You know the one, where a hypothetical terrorist has the answer to the whereabouts of a hypothetical bomb. And you, the hypothetical investigator, have the choice of torturing said terrorist, in order to save hundreds of lives. Article three of the UNDHR (no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment) vs. the lives of a community, if you will.

For this reason many people say torture is okay. Water boarding in Guantanamo is okay. Putting a razor blade to someone’s genitals is okay, as happened to Binyam Mohamed, one of Clive’s clients. But whilst I was faffing about trying to find an abstract rebuttal about the importance of maintaining human rights in all circumstances, Clive had a much better answer, namely that this situation has never occurred, and nor will it ever. At some point, the Bush administration, and many governments aside, decided that it was okay to abuse human rights, the excuse being that it will make us safer. But realistically, when has torture ever, and I mean ever, resulted in discovering that ticking bomb? Email Clive (see the Reprieve website) if you think of a case; he’d be delighted to hear from you.

As for the hypocrisy of invading Iraq to protect human rights, whilst trampling on those at home (28 days, anyone?), as Clive said, “hypocrisy is the yeast of terrorism.” A CIA agent once told Clive he was sure that “for every person taken to Guantanamo, at least ten terrorists are created on the outside.” I don’t know about you but I’m certainly left asking, what the hell was the point of it all? Through compromising on civil liberties and adopting aggressive foreign policy tactics, we simply make the situation more dangerous. The idea that abusing human rights will bring us closer to safety is “the myth that justifies the nightmare.” All I can say is that for those entrammelled in the ‘legal’ system, still incarcerated in Guantanamo, or its “evil twin,” Bagram; there is at least one man fighting their corner.

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