Reason Against Gary Extradition
We are a group of concerned citizens who oppose the gross injustice being visited upon Gary McKinnon by the UK and US governments, who seek to extradite him to the USA on suspicion of a crime for which no evidence exists, and in contravention of his Human Rights and those of his family.
NB These pages are under construction, hence why content is small thus far. Contributors wanted/welcome.
So the Home Secretary Theresa May has stopped the Judicial Review in order to consider the evidence against extraditing. This is good news indeed, but until there is a permanent halt to Gary's extradition, it is not good news enough!
What I am wondering is whether there is anyone out there of a musical bent who'd be able to put the words below to this music. Anyone?
Hand in hand the Facebook groups
And all around the internet
Thirty thousand Tweeters chant
Keep McKinnon Home
Starting at midnight, another McKinnon Monday is upon us. As I've been tweeting for some time now, every Monday is a #McKinnonMonday until Gary's extradition is fully and permanently stopped. With a government now composed of a coalition between two parties who have both repeatedly and publicly denounced Gary's extradition and the treaty behind it, it can only be a matter of time before the government announce that they have kept their word. So, in the hopes that this will be the last McKinnonMonday, let's make it a big one, and make it count!
Tweet For Gary
In the same vein as the Tweet4Gary day held last October, this McKinnon Monday will be 24 hours of tweets to remind the various politicians of their promises and demand that Gary's extradition be stopped. Soon, and permanently.
I will be using the hashtag #freegarynow - follow @dandelion101 and @cliffsull, and if you don't already, be sure and follow Gary's mum, @JanisSharp.
The idea is to tweet the following people:
And while we're on the subject, there's other stuff we can do with Twitter as well:
McKinnon Monday on Facebook
Phone
You can also email your own MP here.
You can write to Her Majesty The Queen at Buckingham Palace, London SW1A 1AA
The Prime Minister
You can also phone Downing Street on 020 7930 4433 or 020 7276 3000
The Parliamentary Switchboard number is 020 7219 3000 - ask for Nick Clegg's Office. The email address of Nick Clegg's assistant is bradleyj@parliament.uk
The 25th of May is fast approaching. That is the date set for hearing the Judicial Review of Alan Johnson's decision not to halt the extradition of Gary McKinnon. A concerted show of the continued public opposition to the proposed extradition is now urgently required.
It is time for us to remind the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, and the ministers of the new coalition government, of the commitments they have made to halt this extradition. Both David Cameron and Nick Clegg have publicly condemned the extradition, and the rotten treaty that lies behind it. They must now keep their word and call a permanent halt to this extradition.
I urge everyone to write to the following people and demand a permanent halt to the extradition of Gary McKinnon, as per the LibDem and Conservative commitments in this regard made prior to the General Election.
1. David Cameron, Prime Minister
2. Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister
3. Theresa May, Home Secretary
4. Dominic Grieve, Attorney General
5. Chris Huhne.
If clicking on those links is a bother, just send an email to: cleggn@parliament.uk, and cc it to: mayt@parliament.uk, grieved@parliament.uk and huhnec@parliament.uk Simples.
You can also leave a message for David Cameron on facebook here, and for Nick Clegg on Facebook here.
Wouldn't it be nice to see their facebook pages innundated with demands to honour their promises and stop the extradition?
Gary needs us at this critical time. Please, don't let him down.
In the run-up to the general election, it has been announced (in case you weren't aware) that there will be three televised debates between the three main party leaders, on the BBC, Sky and ITV. Members of the public will be invited to submit questions for these detates by email.
Until details of the relevant email address are announced, Gary McKinnon supporters can write to Adam Boulton, and Alastair Stewart, who will be moderating the Sky and ITV debates respectively, to ask that the plight of Gary McKinnon be raised during the debates. The debate moderated by Alastair Stewart will cover domestic affairs, and that by Adam Boulton will cover international affairs. Clearly, Gary's case is relevant to both topics.
If enough people write, we can hopefully get this issue, which after all affects every UK citizen, firmly on the election agenda where it belongs. Can we flood the editorial teams with questions about Gary' case?
Email FAO Adam Boulton at Sky News via news@sky.com (or possibly adam.boulton@bskyb.com)
Email FAO Alastair Stewart at ITV via viewerservices@itv.com (or alastair.stewart@itv.com)
We should also take this opportunity to write to Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg to ask a) that the case of Gary McKinnon be addressed as a matter of serious public concern during these debates, and b) what their party's view or policy would be, if elected, towards Gary's extradition.
It is up to us, the public, to ensure that Gary McKinnon is a prominent election issue - let's go to work!
To halt the extradition of Gary McKinnon, and to leave the government in no doubt as to the public's opposition to this grotesque injustice, we ask everyone to write to their politicians in support of Gary. We need to keep doing this until justice is done, and Gary is free from the threat of extradition.
In the UK, this means write to your own MP, to Jack Straw, David Miliband, Alan Johnson, and to the Prime Minister (10 Downing Street,
London, SW1A 2AA). Every single letter counts. To save you some time, here is a template letter you can use, either in its entirety, or feel free to add to or subtract from it as you see fit, or of course, to compose your own. Even if you have already written, please write again, and keep writing until justice prevails. If you are not a UK voter, please watch this space for 'Letters For Gary Part II'.
Dear
I am writing to you because of serious concerns which I have about the injustice that is being perpetrated on Gary McKinnon.
Whilst undoubtedly wrong in doing what he did, Gary McKinnon was not malicious nor has there been any evidence whatsoever that he caused any damage. What he did and admitted to, was not extraditable and carried a sentence of only six months at the time.
He has been diagnosed by the world’s leading experts in autism as having Aspergers Syndrome, is suicidal and has severe depression. The unbelievable stress of having such an extreme and grossly disproportionate sentence hanging over anyone’s head for such a long time is inhumane. Anyone who is aware of the symptoms of Aspergers Syndrome is aware that sufferers are truthful even to their own detriment; they have a heightened sense of justice and pursue the facts and details of their passion/obsession with a diligence that defies belief. In Mr McKinnon’s case this was UFO’s and what he believed was suppressed free energy technology. He felt this obsession was for a just and worthy cause.
Technically he did not ‘hack’ as there were no passwords or firewalls on thousands of computers on those networks, a fact which shocked him. So much in fact, that he left hundreds of notes informing the various system administrators that their security was nonexistent. In a letter disclosed by the Crown Prosecution Service, evidence supplied by the American authorities as to the alleged damage, was dismissed by the CPS lawyers as ‘hearsay’, ‘inadmissible’ and ‘unable to be adduced’. If, as the Americans prosecutors allege, Mr McKinnon did intentionally cause damage, why then did they allow him to have free unrestricted internet access for over three years after he was arrested in March 2002? Why did they wait until almost three years later before they requested his extradition from the U.K government, despite the fact that Mr McKinnon had not abused the trust placed in him regarding his internet access from March 2002 through until June 2005?
The U.S waited before requesting extradition, for the UK to apply the totally one-sided Extradition Treaty wherein America no longer had to show any evidence to extradite any British citizen. It is clear to any intelligent person that this fact casts doubt on the motives of the US approach. The treaty was applied as law without democratic parliamentary debate and was signed in secret under the ‘Queen’s Prerogative’. This is an arcane legal manoeuvre which was described by the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain and Secretary of State for Justice, Jack Straw, as “having no place in a modern democratic government” . It was three months after this treaty was signed before MPs were permitted to read the text of the treaty which stated that, in order to extradite an American citizen, contestable evidence had to be provided, whereas, in order to extradite a British citizen, no evidence at all needed to be provided and mere suspicion was all that was required.
Baroness Scotland stated:
when we make extradition requests to the United States we shall need to submit sufficient evidence to establish ‘probable cause’. That is a lower test than prima facie but a higher threshold than we ask of the United States, and I make no secret of that. The fact is that under the terms of its constitution the United States of America cannot set its evidential standard any lower than ‘probable cause’.”
Baroness Scotland appears to have no concerns that UK citizens are not treated equally to US citizens, or to others throughout the world, as she stated on 16th Dec 2003
“Complete reciprocity has never been a feature of our extradition arrangements. As your Lordships will know, for many years certain other countries have, for constitutional reasons, been unwilling to extradite their own nationals. The United Kingdom has never had any such reservations. Our extradition relations have reflected that. In other words, we have been in the position where the United Kingdom has been willing to extradite even though in corresponding circumstances the other country would not be prepared to extradite.”
By way of assurance to the worries of US senators with Irish support, the Baroness went on to say
”The treaty is not aimed at speeding up extradition from the US of people suspected of involvement in terrorism connected with Ireland. I hope I was able to satisfy you that the concerns about the treaty raised by certain Irish/American groups are entirely groundless”
This is a gross betrayal of British people and desperately needs to be addressed. When the Supreme Court on 27th January 2010 ruled that laws allowing the freezing of assets of suspected criminals are illegal because they bypassed the democratic parliamentary process, then this too has to be similarly deemed illegal as it too deliberately bypassed the democratic process.
I am writing to you as a fair minded intelligent person with a sense of justice to ask you to urgently do something to address these failures of justice. Something has to be done before it is too late and I believe you have the power and the duty to confront this and to refuse the extradition request for Mr McKinnon.
Yours Sincerely
Yes, ladies and gents, we now have the opportunity to petition for the removal of Alan Johnson from office.
Please spread the word far and wide!
If you would like to leave a message of support for Gary and his family, please post it in the comments here.
Happy Christmas to all
x
In Progress - watch this space for more added
Articles
Gary McKinnon on Youtube
1. Write to letters pages of the newspapers in 100 words or less.
2. Submit a question for the Leader's Debates in the run-up to the General Election. Help get Gary McKinnon and the Extradition on the election agenda. We need to know the position of the Party Leaders on this issue BEFORE the election.
3. Email Andrew Neil at The Daily Politics and ask him to raise the Extradition Treaty and Gary McKinnon as an election issue on his shows. You can email daily.politics@bbc.co.uk
4. Save the date of 3rd May (Bank Holiday Monday). There will be a balloon release in central London for Gary on Westminster Bridge in London - please come if you can and show your support. If you can't make it, you can release your own balloon in a suitable location of your choice, and film it for YouTube, or put photographs of it online.
5. Download Chicago/Change The World by Chrissie Hynde, David Gilmour & Bob Geldoff. It's on iTunes, Amazon and HMV.
Then get all your friends to do the same. The idea is to make it chart, preferably at #1, but any chart position will generate publicity and demonstrate to the government the level of public support for Gary.
Can we Change The World for 2010? Can we make this chart? Yes We Can!
6. Write letters. If enough people do this, it really will make a difference. Every letter counts.
We need people to write to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street, London SW1A 2AA or Fax: 020 7925 0918.
Writing to Home Secretary Alan Johnson, to Jack Straw at the Ministry of Justice and the Foreign Office will also help.
The aim of the letters is a) to state your objection to the extradition of Gary McKinnon b) Urge immediate political or diplomatic intervention c) Call for the resignation of Home Secretary Alan Johnson and a moratorium on all pending extraditions to USA until the treaty is reformed.
CC your letter to your own MP.
It will help if you can also send or email a copy of your letter to the editor of a national newspaper, for the record.
If you want, you can email your letter to me as well, at Dandelion7993 [at] aol.com and I will post it here. I won't give your name if you prefer it not to be published.
7. Send flowers to the Queen at Buckingham Palace asking her to intervene to halt the extradition.
8.Submit a petition against the extradtition to Downing Street. So far they appear to have rejected approximately 60 such petitions. If we all submit one, maybe they will get the message.
9. Make a video in support of Gary for YouTube. It could be a song, a poem, or any statement of your views, however you wish to express yourself.
10. Spread the word any way you can. Join the Facebook Group and spread the word by inviting your facebook friends. Join the Cause on Facebook and invite all your friends. Get the Twibbon and get RTing on Twitter. Follow @Tweet4Gary or search the hashtags #garymckinnon or #freegary. Tell your friends. Blog about it. Make as much noise as you can.
