Take the Guardian, for instance. Since Hilary Clinton’s remark on April 22 about “obliterating Iran”, the paper and its website have published over 100 items discussing Israel and nuclear power or weapons – about one every day. Yet only 8 of these mention Israel’s nuclear capacity, and only 4 appeared in the newspaper – the rest were online comment pieces, which carry far less import.

Of the newspaper articles, only one specified the size of Israel’s nuclear arsenal. The other two brief mentions in news items are here and here. The final mention came in a comment piece by Jonathan Freedland which was overwhelmingly an argument against Tehran.

In the same period, the paper published two editorials on Iranian nukes with no mention whatsoever of Israel’s nuclear weapons. One merely repeated Freedland’s handwringing of the day before, the other talked about “declaration of nuclear assets” – but without mentioning Israel’s undeclared weapons.

Notably, former US president Jimmy Carter talked at length about Israel’s nukes at a press conference at the Hay literary festival in May. The Guardian reported Carter’s press conference, but ignored that aspect of it.

As the US and Israel prepare for war on Iran, non-reporting of the balance of nuclear power in the Middle East adds to the sense that “something must be done” about Iran, strengthening the assumption that Iran is in the wrong and action of some sort is justified.

We saw this over Iraq. The US media specialist Ed Herman calls it “normalising the unthinkable“. MWAW will be writing to the Guardian on this score.

Malik’s crucial test case succeeded in reining in the police, who had raided his house in March in search of his notes. The court’s main ruling two weeks ago spelt out that the police have no right to conduct speculative “fishing expeditions” to force journalists to hand over their research.

But the case has starkly revealed how the terror laws mean journalists must go to the authorities if they suspect that a source has information about “terrorism”.

Given the broad-brush definition of terrorism in the Terrorism Act 2006 – which includes “glorifying” terror and possessing terrorist materials without the intention of committing an offence – the latest ruling means many Muslims will perceive journalists as a direct extension of the police. Anyone with genuine information about the terrorist milieu will have to weigh up the risk that talking to a reporter is like talking to the cops.

The court’s first ruling, however, was welcomed by Malik, who stressed how it circumscribed police powers. He told Free Press: “It’s a victory for common sense in that, from the wider perspective, we can protect confidential sources – that’s a big victory.

“The High Court said production orders are allowed, but in my case they really do have to be precisely drafted, the police can’t just go on fishing expeditions. Protecting journalists’ sources should be paramount, and now the High Court has said even in terrorism cases journalists are allowed to maintain confidential sources.”

The NUJ also emphasised how the initial ruling sent a clear signal to police that they can’t see journalists as “simply another tool of intelligence gathering”. Speaking outside the High Court after the ruling was announced, general secretary Jeremy Dear said that Greater Manchester Police had “failed to recognise the special nature of journalistic material. Rather than take the time to consider what information they really needed, the police went fishing, hoping a general order would dredge up something of use.”

Malik is an established freelance who has written extensively on terrorism for national newspapers and magazines. He is working on a book with the former Islamist Hassan Butt, who is linked to a forthcoming terrorism trail in Manchester in the autumn. Greater Manchester Police, who raided Malik’s home in March in pursuit of his notes, have also served draft production orders on the BBC, the Sunday Times, Prospect magazine and CBS demanding that they hand over materials they believe to be connected with the case.

Malik’s High Court appeal is the first major test of the application to journalism of the Terrorism Act 2000, sections 19 and 38B (the latter was added in 2001) of which make it a criminal offence to withhold information. Formerly police had to satisfy a judge that the information they sought from a journalist was closely related to a “serious offence” – the 2000 Act contains no such restriction.

Malik said: “This makes it almost impossible for journalists working in the field of terrorism. It’s been a scythe hanging over our necks since it was enacted in 2000. Journalists in the field have been breaking the law and hoping they won’t get prosecuted.”

He believes the issue came to a head because the police decided he would be in no position to defend himself, so they imposed a wide-ranging production order. But the NUJ and the Sunday Times agreed to pay his costs.

There is a maliciousness in the police attack on Malik. As the court ruling states, the police interest in Malik is in what he can tell them about Hassan Butt, and not in whether he has committed offences under sections 19 or 38B. However, according to the Court, on May 9 Butt was arrested and extensively interviewed by police; he told them his earlier public statements about involvement in Al-Qaeda were untrue. He has now been released without charge.

The case shows that journalists face enormous difficulties researching the roots of Islamist extremism in Britain. As a result, policies aimed at preventing terrorism will come to rely even further on the shadowy secret services and the ill-informed prejudices of the Murdoch press.

Moreover, the line between legitimate support for resistance to western intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan and supporting “terrorism” will be further blurred, increasing the stigma attached to the Muslim community, where hostility to government foreign policy is strongest.

A range of high profile figures and organisations have supported Malik’s case. On March 19 leading figures from journalism and civil liberties organisations, including Jonathan Dimbleby and Shami Chakrabarti, signed a letter to the Times warning of its implications.

Dave Crouch
A version of this article will shortly appear in Free Press, www.cpbf.org.uk

The most influential armchair soldier in the Western world is back in his metaphorical fatigues. Yes, it’s Field Marshal David Aaronovitch, who championed the invasion of Iraq with more vigour than any fellow officer in Her Majesty’s First Light Pundits. There have been times in recent years when David seemed to be taking the weeniest backward baby-steps towards admitting that, on Iraq, he may perhaps have dropped the tiniest of bollocks. However, these faint flickerings of the reverse lights on the tank have been quickly extinguished by defiant challenges to opponents, on the exquisitely subtle lines of: “Do you want Saddam back, is that what you want?”

And now, far from succumbing to self-doubt, the Field Marshal wishes to invade Zimbabwe and oust Mugabe, which he believes would be another military piece of cake. “How many South African or British soldiers would it take to unseat the junta and disperse the Zanu-PF veterans?”

This is not a rhetorical question, of course. Having unleashed that military brain on the logistical problems, and consulted with his masters at the MoD, he well knows the precise answer, although the Official Secrets Act of course precludes him from sharing the information. Without dwelling on the ramifications of such retro-colonialism in a country that remains so sensitive on the point, lesser thinkers foresee a grave danger of hideous civil unrest. They forget that David was correct to ignore that outlandish prospect so far as Iraq. We salute the Field Marshal for the indefatigability of his faith in interventionism, and look forward to him leading his troops into battle.

And he very well might. Visitors to The Times website will relish a three-minute video of David training for a triathlon in August. Frankly, he looks in amazing shape for a chap turning 54 a week from today, especially in an aerodynamic bodysuit on Brighton beach, and it’s suspected that the Field Marshal may be training less for that triathlon than because, tiring of all the desk work his military role imposes, he intends personally to spearhead the initial raid on the presidential palace in Harare.

Would the first Times employee to find him digging a latrine in the Wapping car park please let us know?

Michelle has been an inspirational figure at the Daily Express and Star, leading campaigns against the newspapers’ racism and Islamophobia, making the union’s “Journalism Matters” campaign a great success and fighting to build strong grassroots union organisation. She has been open about her opposition to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Journalists’ working conditions are intimately connected to the quality of the public service they provide, as Nick Davies has shown in “Flat Earth News”, which sets out to explain the media’s failure on Iraqi WMD. The government’s assault on the BBC over its coverage of the “war on terror” has included massive job cuts, particularly in news and current affairs.

Targetting of the media by the military in war zones has made journalists’ work more dangerous, while “terror law” restrictions on reporting at home threaten journalists with arrests and prosecutions. For these reasons the NUJ needs a deputy general secretary who recognises the importance of the war for our union.

See Michelle’s election website here: www.michelle4dgs.org.uk

Alarming changes are taking place in the BBC World Service structure and we are asking for your help.

The management has decided that 50% of language services should be transferred to countries where the language is spoken. As the law in most of those countries does not allow foreign media organisations to operate locally, the BBC is setting up private companies instead - BBC Pakistan Ltd., BBC India Ltd., BBC Nepal, etc.

Although preparations for offshoring different languages have been going on for the last 3 to 4 years, management neither took staff into confidence nor informed the unions of their plans. Hindi and Urdu services were told only a couple of months ago that 80% of Hindi and 50% of Urdu transmission and staff are to be transferred to BBC India and BBC Islamabad. Similar plans are in the pipeline for Nepali Service and there are signs that Bengali service will follow suit. Needless to say terms and conditions will be down-graded, and staffing levels will/may be cut.

The management argues that in the face of growing media competition we need to be closer to our audience. This is completely false premise and an extremely risky experiment which will mean moving independent journalists into the control zones of the governments of those countries and obliging them to comply with restrictive media regimes in those countries.

BBC World Service has built its reputation as the most independent and trustworthy international news organisation without its 32 language services ‘being close’ to their audiences. This is the most important issue in our campaign to stop offshoring plans. BBC World Service has earned respect and trust of its audience all over the world precisely because it was far removed from the political pressure of those countries and is perceived to be independent and unbiased. Programmes being broadcast from local stations and conforming to local media laws and political demands will not have the same authority, and BBC’s status as the world leader will be damaged for good.

Please support our campaign. Please discuss it at your next chapel/branch meeting; let people know in your communities, especially those from other Asian sub-continent; invite us to your meeting. And write to World Service management expressing your concern and challenging the wisdom of their plan, which is really about cost cutting.

You can write to:
Nigel Chapman – Director BBC World (nigel.chapman@bbc.co.uk)
Richard Sambrook – Director Global news
Thomson – Director General BBC
Sir Michael Lyons – Chairman BBC Trust

David Miliband - Foreign Secretary
Ede House
143 Westoe Road
South Shields
NE33 3PD
Telephone
(0191) 456 8910
Email: milibandd@parliament.uk

Thank you for your help.
Arjum Wajid
MoC
NUJ South Asia Chapel

1. SATURDAY: MWAW activists’ meeting
2. Police use “terror” laws to attack journalists
3. MEETING: Racism, war and Muslims
4. George Bush in London, protest Sunday June 15
5. So wrong for so long: US newspapers and Iraq
6. Somalia: Hidden catastrophe, hidden agenda
7. Media coverage of Palestine and Israel
8. From Basra to Beirut: US is gunning for Iran
9. Join our campaign

1. SATURDAY: MWAW activists’ meeting

There will be an activists’ meeting of Media Workers Against the War to discuss campaigning priorities this Saturday (May 31) at 2pm in the Terrace Café, South Bank Centre (nearest tube: Waterloo, Embankment). We’ll sit outside if the sun shines…

Agenda items include the news blackout on Somalia, Alton’s editorship of the Indie, an autumn conference, MWAW media briefings, and lots more

All welcome! Please R.S.V.P. to this email or call Dave on 07801 789 297

2. Police use “terror” laws to attack journalists

Journalists face arrest, prosecution and even deportation under “anti-terror” laws that give police extensive new powers. The government is rushing to deport an Algerian editor after police seized him for downloading a document from a US government website. The case follows the ongoing attempt by police to force a leading journalist to hand over notes from interviews with a former Islamist.

Read the full article here: www.mwaw.net/2008/05/28/terrorlaws

3. MEETING: Racism, the war on terror and the Muslim community

The War on terror has been accompanied by a rise in racism targeted at Muslims. Stop the War are hosting a series of meetings across the country with high profile speakers.

London meeting: Tuesday June 3, 7.30pm

With speakers:
Moazzam Begg, George Galloway MP, Anas Al-Tikriti, Lindsey german, Louise Christian, David Edgar

Bishopsgate Institute
230 Bishopsgate EC2M
www.bishopsgate.org.uk
Nearest tube: Liverpool Street

Called by: Stop the War Coalition www.stopwar.org.uk

4. Bush in London protest

War criminal George Bush will be visiting Britain on Sunday 15 June. No doubt he will receive a sycophantic welcome from Gordon Brown. The anti-war majority, however, will recall the hundreds of thousands who have died, the millions driven from their homes and the utter devastation resulting from the illegal attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan.

Stop the War will be organising a protest in London on that Sunday. For details, watch this space: www.stopwar.org.uk

5. So wrong for so long: US newspapers and Iraq

For the first time a mainstream editor - who just happens also to be a professional media-watcher - has written a book attacking the Iraq war coverage by the US corporate press.

Read the full article here: www.mwaw.net/2008/05/23/mitchell

6. Somalia: Hidden catastrophe, hidden agenda

Media Lens has a very useful summary of the realities underlying Bush’s war of terror on Somalia and the media’s failure to report it. It demonstrates how the government’s strategic silence on the proxy “war on terror” being fought in Somalia is reflected in press reporting:

Read the analysis here: http://tinyurl.com/6z8saz

7. Media coverage of Palestine and Israel

Arab Media Watch has compiled a study on the different language used to describe Israeli and Palestinian deaths. It shows that Israeli deaths are afforded strong, emotive adjectives, while Palestinian fatalities are reported in a much more sanitised, measured way.

View the full report here: http://tinyurl.com/4545nf

8. From Basra to Beirut: US is gunning for Iran

Robert Fisk sees the recent eruption of conflict in Beirut as a “proxy” war between Washington and Tehran. Add this observation to US recent accusation that Hezbollah is training Iraqi militants in Iran, and the American military’s promised dossier on Iran’s role in the Iraq war, and we can see that the old drumbeat of war on Iran is growing louder again.

Read the full article here: www.mwaw.net/2008/05/21/iran

9. Join us!

Join Media Workers Against the War to help us campaign for fair coverage of the “war on terror” and troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Who we are: www.mwaw.net/about

Download a standing order form - a few pounds a month would be a huge boost to our campaign:

http://mwaw.net/standingorder.pdf

Mitchell’s writing shows what comment should really look like – in contrast to the shallow hand-wringing that often passes for op-eds and editorials on Iraq in the British press. From the very start of the invasion he has raged at the media’s triumphalism and its downplaying of the loss of life. After Bush landed on an aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003, to declare “mission accomplished”, Mitchell slammed the New York Times’ coverage.

Four years later he was attacking the troop “surge” from the outset, condemning it as “a tragic escalation” of the conflict. When the US began blaming Iran for the mess, Mitchell wrote a column entitled: “We’ve been through this movie before”.

Over and over Mitchell comes back to the fact that a huge percentage of Americans believe Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks – a terrible condemnation of the US media. On the third anniversary of the invasion he wrote that pundits who agitated for an attack on Iraq should be “on their knees begging the American public for forgiveness”.

In one of his columns in April 2004 he made the first mentions of the deaths of US soldiers Casey Sheehan and Michael Mitchell – Casey’s mother and Michael’s father became prominent campaigners against the war. Another of Mitchell’s themes is suicides in the US army, the reasons for which he investigates to reveal the sheer awfulness confronting soldiers in Iraq. This has been largely ignored by the British media, although last year the Ministry of Defence disclosed that 17 serving personnel had killed themselves after witnessing the horrors of conflict in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Mitchell repeatedly castigates the refusal of newspaper editors to call for troops to be withdrawn, despite opinion polls showing this was a major, and even majority, opinion in the country. This changed fleetingly with a Los Angeles Times editorial in May 2007 entitled “Bring Them Home“, stating “The time has come to leave.” Two months later the New York Times stated boldly: “It is time for the United States to leave Iraq”.

Even the best of the British newspapers, however, evade the issue of getting the troops out. In leader columns to mark the fifth anniversary of invasion in March, only one British national newspaper talked about British and American troops leaving Iraq, but even then the Guardian said merely that it was “time to listen” to Iraqi opinion, calling on the next US president to “set a date” for withdrawal and talking about the “gains” made by presence of British troops. The Independent published a blistering attack on the war, but sadly evaded the question of troops. Otherwise:

• The Murdoch papers praised the troops’ presence;
• The FT said Iraq should be broken up;
• The Telegraph attacked Obama for being “dangerously naive” to talk about ending the occupation
• The Sunday Telegraph published an op-ed by Richard Perle (!);
• And the Observer in an extraordinary editorial called for more military intervention around the world.

It’s important to note, however, that Mitchell’s core argument is for better journalism, not “anti-war journalism”. He writes: “Most of those against the war did not ask for a media ‘crusade’ against invasion, merely that the press stick to the facts and provide a balanced assessment: in other words, that [journalists do their] minimum journalistic duty.”

Mitchell’s book is also hugely witty and entertaining: for a taste of this, see his recent column on an evening of satire at a White House dinner for journalists.

Remember, you read it here first – the British media have so far ignored the book.

Hilary Clinton’s shocking comment that the US would “obliterate” Iran if it should “foolishly consider” launching an attack on Israel is pandering to a broad constituency that wants to hear tough rhetoric about Iran. Clinton stood by her remarks this month: “I don’t think it’s time to equivocate. [Iran has] to know they would face massive retaliation. That is the only way to rein them in.”

Clinton has added to the chorus of neocon voices seeking an excuse to bomb Iran, including major media outlets. A disgraceful Washington Post editorial on April 13 talked of Iran as “a growing menace that the Bush administration, and its successor, cannot afford to ignore”. In Britain, the appropriately named Con Coughlin, the Telegraph’s political editor, is once again publishing British and US military reports on Iran’s “lethal meddling on the battlefields of the war on terror”, under the headline: “Why the West moves closer to bombing Iran“.

But it’s not all going the neo-cons’ way. In the first week of May the US faced major embarrassment when a cache of supposedly Iranian weapons seized in the Shiite holy city of Karbala turned out to be no such thing. The US military had just taken the word for it of local Karbala police. In fact, the US and Iran are on the same side in southern Iraq, both fearful of the Sadr resistance. Even the Iraqi government has distanced itself from the US talk of conflict with Iran.

The website Spinwatch has started an extremely useful blog by the retired US air force colonel Sam Gardiner which aims to follow the media’s twists and turns on Iran. Gardiner has performed extensive analysis of the media coverage before the war on Iraq, during the war and during the occupation as well as of the statements of Administration officials.

So don’t just watch this space for alerts on warmongering towards Iran – watch Gardiner’s too.

Evan Davis, Today’s new presenter, introduced a section on Basra on May 2 which opened with an resident of Basra describing Moqtada Sadr’s Mahdi Army as “very ill-educated, basically criminals” and welcoming the renewed invasion by western forces. Davis then turned to Major General Barney White-Spunner, the UK’s senior officer in Iraq: “So it sounds like fairly good news from Basra?”

“That’s certainly our view,” White-Spunner replied. Davis pressed for more good news: “Are the gains sustainable, I suppose is the question isn’t it? Or do you think if you don’t get to mend the sewers very well people are going to become discontented again and we’ll start getting back to more street disorder?”

White-Spunner took his cue and talked unchallenged about the “excellent work” UK troops were doing, about “development”, “aid distribution”, “humanitarian work”, “sensitivity” to local needs and so on. The interview was almost as cosy as editorial meetings of The Field magazine or Baily’s Hunting Directory, where White-Spunner works when not occupying foreign lands.

Meanwhile, Iraqi government troops were parading the bodies of dead Mahdi fighters like trophies and beating up prisoners. On the same day as White-Spunner’s Radio 4 interview a huge crowd of Shia Muslims protested against Iraq’s US-backed prime minister al-Maliki in Baghdad’s Sadr City, urging him to end the bloody confrontation with the Mahdi Army. Since late March, there has been a surge of air strikes in Iraq: the military has fired more than 200 Hellfire missiles in the capital, compared with just six fired in the previous three months.

The British media routinely portrays supporters of Moqtada Sadr as “militia”, “extremists”, “men in black”, “rogue gunmen” and “death squads”. Yet, up until last September, Moqtada Sadr’s group was part of the Iraqi government. The US offensive has relied heavily on the Iran-backed Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, many members of the armed wing of which, the Badr Organisation, have been battling the Sadr-led resistance.

The US demonises the Mahdi Army because Sadr is resolutely opposed to the occupation. Moreover, many Shia view the Mahdi in part as a charitable organisation and are often grateful for the security it provides. Sadr’s organisation gives money to families of Shia dead and injured, resettles displaced families and offers funds for any victim of American weapons in Sadr City. Evoking comparisons with Hezbollah, Sadr’s movement “has established itself as the main service provider in the country,” says a recent report by Refugees International. Every month the Mahdi army distributes rations of rice, cooking oil, sugar, tea and other staples, much of it provided by the Iraqi Red Crescent, to thousands of Baghdad’s poorest families.

As the Financial Times put it last month, the clashes between the government and the Mahdi army reveal a class division at the heart of the Shia community. Sadr represents the angry, dispossessed Shia masses of Iraq who suffered under Saddam. “What we’ve seen over the past few weeks is a real class struggle open up with no political means for bridging the gap,” the International Crisis Group told the FT. “Sadr’s followers don’t care if he’s an ayatollah or not. They just want him to win for them the wealth and prosperity they feel should be theirs,” a US official told the paper.

The British media’s last line of attack is that British troops are defending women’s rights. But abuse of women was widespread in Basra before the British were driven out of the city last autumn. The US-backed government has brought right-wing Islamists to power, unleashing attacks against women.

The resistance in battling the occupation. But for the BBC’s flagship news programme our boys are just doing good, building sewers and helping reconstruction. This is far from the case – the British and US armies are building a sewer of bloodshed and sectarian hatred in Iraq.

But why the deafening silence in the British media? The release of Bilal Hussein, a member of the AP team that won a Pulitzer Prize for photography in 2005, held without charge in Iraq for two years, went almost entirely unnoticed. When the British journalist Richard Butler was mercifully freed after in Iraq for two months, his rescue was given widespread coverage.

When the BBC’s Alan Johnston was held in Gaza last year, there were calls from throughout the international press and political community for his release. One of those appeals came from Sami Al-Haj, who imprisoned without charge in Guantánamo since June 2002 after being seized on his way to Afghanistan the previous December to work on an assignment.

Johnston responded to Al-Haj’s plight by writing an open letter in support of a fair trial; the ex-BBC documentary journalist Rageh Omaar also spoke out about him. However, unlike Johnston, this Sudanese-born journalist, received little sustained support or coverage from his colleagues in the media. This is despite the fact that he is the only journalist in Guantánamo and he was offered no opportunity to refute the US government’s charge of being an “enemy combatant”. Rageh Omaar, speaking to Guardian journalists in January 2008, said: “If you look at the response to the kidnapping of Alan Johnston in Gaza and compare it to the over-whelming, deafening silence in Sami’s case, it’s completely shaken my confidence in the notion of journalistic solidarity.”

From January 7, 2007, until his release al-Haj was on a hunger strike to secure his liberty or a free and fair trial. He was force-fed through tubes into his stomach, his weight plummeted and health deteriorated, with reports of poor sight, heart and kidney problems. Al-Haj’s supporters also claimed he suffered physical and mental abuse, including the withdrawal of medication.

The evidence against al-Haj has never been presented in public. Some see his imprisonment as part of a wider US campaign against al-Jazeera itself. His brother Asim al-Haj, speaking to Democracy Now in January 2008, said: “Sami al-Haj is a victim of a political operation against al-Jazeera, which Washington does not approve of. And as evidence of this is the fact that he was interrogated 130 times. And during these times, the interrogations were all about al-Jazeera and alleged relations between al-Jazeera and al-Qaeda.”

Al-Haj’s British lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, director of legal action charity Reprieve, also believed this to be the case and confirmed that virtually all Sami’s interrogations were an attempt to “prove” a link between al-Jazeera and al-Qaeda. He also said al-Haj told him he had been offered release if he was prepared to spy on his colleagues at al-Jazeera. On Sami’s release, his lawyer told the BBC: “We’ve disproved everything they threw at him.”

Reprieve also released two sketches by the political cartoonist Lewis Peake, based on drawings which al-Haj himself made of his experiences inside Guantánamo. The most recent showed a skeleton strapped to a gurney and indicates al-Haj’s own horrendous experience of the camp hospital.

Dozens of journalists – mostly Iraqis – have been detained by US troops over the last three years, according to the Committee for the Protection of Journalists. While most have been released after short periods, in at least eight cases documented by CPJ Iraqi journalists have been held by US forces for weeks or months without charge. Several of the detainees were photojournalists who initially drew the military’s attention because of what they had filmed or photographed.

Journalists continue to be targeted, by the US and by their puppet regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In February, Afghan journalism student Pervez Kambaksh was arrested for distributing a pamphlet about women’s rights, tried and sentenced to death without a defence lawyer, in a closed court. The Independent’s defence and diplomatic correspondent Kim Sengupta wrote to MWAW this week about his plight:

“Pervez has been transferred from Mazar to a prison in Kabul where, according to the authorities, he is being kept in solitary confinement for his own safety. As far as prison conditions are concerned, he was better off in Mazar where he could mix with other prisoners and had the protection of the fairly enlightened head of prisons for northern Afghanistan, Gen Taj Mohammed. There are still no definite dates for his appeal.”

Add your name to the Independents petition to free Pervez Kambaksh here:
www.independent.co.uk/pervez

Maddy Ryle