Amnesty accuses UK of 'grave' human rights violations

The British government is today accused of involvement in a catalogue of "grave human rights violations" since the September 2001 al-Qaida attacks, in a report published by Amnesty International. In the most damning Amnesty report on the UK's human rights record for a generation, the organisation says there is "credible evidence" that the government is implicated in torture, unlawful detentions, rendition, the concealment of victims' complaints and a failure to disclose evidence of torture. Its publication comes 24 hours after an alliance of human rights groups and MPs, including Amnesty, Liberty and the New York-based Human Rights Watch, wrote a joint letter to the British media demanding an independent inquiry into the UK's role in torture and rendition. In a sign of growing turmoil within government over the issue, last Thursday it was decided to shelve publication of a rewritten interrogation policy for MI5 and MI6 officers questioning suspects overseas–something Gordon Brown promised a year ago on the grounds that he believed "it is right that parliament and the public should know what those involved in interviewing detainees can and cannot do".