Several people within our community and the media have been rallying around the case of Gary McKinnon - a cracker who broke into US military, academic and NASA servers due to his belief in a UFO coverup.

Many rallying around this cause have drawn attention to the issues of extradition and fair trial issues - this is something that it is not my place to comment on. However, many have taken to portraying this as an autism rights issue:



As far as I am concerned, anyone promoting this as an autism rights issue is damaging our cause - by implying that Gary should be given different preferential treatment due to his diagnosis of aspergers they are automatically implying that aspergers/autism makes him less culpable for his actions. I have seen many such comments along the lines of "he has aspergers, go easy on him" in petitions related to this.

When so many media stories have portrayed aspies as violent criminals unable to control their actions, or as incapable of thinking through the consequences of their actions, this kind of activity does immense harm.

Every time an autistic individual is claimed to be unable to control their actions in criminal cases, this increases prejudice against all of us.

Gary's case may have issues relating to unfair extradition and related matters that would apply to someone of any neurotype - these matters are ones that should be drawn to the attention of the authorities. His diagnosis should not have any relevance.

A closing thought:
If Gary was black would we see the "london black civil rights movement" protesting his extradition? If he was gay would we see gay rights protesters?

Here's an American journalist's take on the injustices - and let's not beat about the George Bush here, injustices means detention for years without charge or trial, it means denial of access to legal representation (ring any bells?), it means torture - perpetrated by the US authorities in the name of the 'war on terror'.

February 14, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
When We Torture
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
The most famous journalist you may never have heard of is Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera cameraman who is on a hunger strike to protest abuse during more than six years in a Kafkaesque prison system.

Mr. Hajj’s fortitude has turned him into a household name in the Arab world, and his story is sowing anger at the authorities holding him without trial.

That’s us. Mr. Hajj is one of our forgotten prisoners in Guantánamo Bay.

If the Bush administration appointed an Under Secretary of State for Antagonizing the Islamic World, with advice from a Blue Ribbon Commission for Sullying America’s Image, it couldn’t have done a more systematic job of discrediting our reputation around the globe. Instead of using American political capital to push for peace in the Middle East or Darfur, it is using it to force-feed Mr. Hajj.

President Bush is now moving forward with plans to try six Guantánamo prisoners before a military tribunal, rather than hold a regular trial. That will call new attention to abuses in Guantánamo and sow more anti-Americanism around the world.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pushed last year to close Guantánamo because of its wretched impact on American foreign policy. But they lost the argument to Alberto Gonzales and Dick Cheney. So America spends millions of dollars bolstering public diplomacy and sponsoring chipper radio and television broadcasts to the Islamic world — and then undoes it all with Guantánamo.

Suppose the Iranian government arrested and beat Katie Couric, held her virtually incommunicado for six years and promised to release her only if she would spy for Iran. In such circumstances, Iranian investments in public diplomacy toward the United States wouldn’t get very far, either.

After Mr. Hajj was arrested in Afghanistan in December 2001*, he was beaten, starved, frozen and subjected to anal searches in public to humiliate him, his lawyers say. The U.S. government initially seems to have confused him with another cameraman, and then offered vague accusations that he had been a financial courier and otherwise assisted extremist groups.

“There is a significant amount of information, both unclassified and classified, which supports continued detention of Sami al-Hajj by U.S. forces,” said Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, adding that the detainees are humanely treated and “receive exceptional medical care.”

Military officials did acknowledge that Mr. Hajj was not considered a potential suicide bomber and probably would have been released long ago if he had just “come clean” by responding in greater detail to the allegations and showing remorse.

Mr. Hajj’s lawyers contend that he has already responded in great detail to every allegation. One indication that the government doesn’t take its own charges seriously, the lawyers say, is that the U.S. offered Mr. Hajj a deal: immediate freedom if he would spy on Al Jazeera. Mr. Hajj refused.

Most Americans, including myself, originally gave President Bush the benefit of the doubt and assumed that the inmates truly were “the worst of the worst.” But evidence has grown that many are simply the unluckiest of the unluckiest.

Some were aid workers who were kidnapped by armed Afghan groups and sold to the C.I.A. as extremists. One longtime Sudanese aid worker employed by an international charity, Adel Hamad, was just released by the U.S. in December after five years in captivity. A U.S. Army major reviewing his case called it “unconscionable.”

Mr. Hajj began his hunger strike more than a year ago, so twice daily he is strapped down and a tube is wound up his nose and down his throat to his stomach. Sometimes a lubricant is used, and sometimes it isn’t, so his throat and nose have been rubbed raw. Sometimes a tube still bloody from another hunger striker is used, his lawyers say.

“It’s really a regime to make it as painful and difficult as possible,” said one of his lawyers, Zachary Katznelson.

Mr. Hajj cannot bend his knees because of abuse he received soon after his arrest, yet the toilet chair he was prescribed was removed — making it excruciating for him to use the remaining squat toilet. He is allowed a Koran, but his glasses were confiscated so he cannot read it.

All this is inhumane, but also boneheaded. Guantánamo itself does far more damage to American interests than Mr. Hajj could ever do.

To stand against torture and arbitrary detention is not to be squeamish. It is to be civilized.

•

Comment on this column on my blog at: http://www.nytimes.com/ontheground. I also have guest bloggers there, including a public school teacher in Chicago, a Columbia University public health specialist in Rwanda, a British midwife in Ethiopia and an American aid worker in Bangladesh.

[source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/opinio...istof.html ]


[*NB:  It is my understanding that he had a valid visa, he had entered Afghanistan over the Pakistan border and he had a visa as he was supposed to be reporting on the fighting.]

Here's the BBC's take on what happens to victims of the US' 'war on terror':

Guantanamo Briton 'was tortured'  

One of the five Britons released from Guantanamo Bay claims US guards at the camp in Cuba tortured and abused him.

Jamal Udeen has told the Daily Mirror he went to Pakistan to study Muslim culture but was taken prisoner after straying into Afghanistan by mistake.

The US, which denies claims of bad treatment at the camp, held him as a terrorist suspect for two years.

Mr Udeen, 37, from Manchester, said he was beaten by men in riot gear after refusing to have a mystery injection.

'Psychological torture'

He said the guards had tried to get prisoners to confess to things they had not done.

They were shackled and attached to metal rings on the floor during interrogation, Mr Udeen claimed in the newspaper.

But he said: "The beatings were not as nearly as bad as the psychological torture - bruises heal after a week but the other stuff stays with you.

"The whole point of Guantanamo was to get to you psychologically. "

Recreation meant your legs were untied and you walked up and down a strip of gravel

A spokesman for US Southern Command in Miami, told BBC News Online: "We do treat the detainees in a fair humane way, according to the Geneva Convention."

The US transferred Mr Udeen to the UK on Tuesday, saying he was a low risk.

But Mr Udeen, a father-of-three, said inmates were kept in wire cages with concrete floors and no protection from the elements.

He claims water to the cells was often cut off before prayers so Muslim prisoners could not wash themselves as their religion instructs them to.

He told the Mirror their "recreation" time involved being untied and allowed to walk up and down a strip of gravel.

"They actually said: 'You have no rights here'. After a while, we stopped asking for human rights - we wanted animal rights."

Mr Udeen, who is from the Moss Side area of Manchester, said he was chained up and interrogated by the CIA and FBI on 40 occasions and that later MI5 officers also questioned him.

US bombing

Mr Udeen told the newspaper: "They would say: 'Are you a terrorist?' I'd say 'no, get me out of here'."

The web designer, who converted to Islam when he was 23, said his nightmare began four days into his trip to a region of Pakistan on the border of Afghanistan.

When the US began bombing Taleban strongholds he decided to leave and Mr Udeen said he paid a local truck driver to take him to Turkey - not realising the route would take him through Afghanistan.

He said he was initially arrested by the Taleban as a suspected spy but, when the Americans arrived, US soldiers took him to a "concentration camp" before being moved to Cuba.

Mr Udeen said he had agreed to tell his story to the Mirror to highlight the plight of those still being held at the camp.

[source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/engla...504034.stm ]

I, for one, have nowhere suggested that Gary should be given preferential treatment due to his diagnosis.

I don't believe that being Aspie makes him less culpable for his actions.

I do believe that he is unjustly being scapegoated by the US authorities for their own failings and due to the hysteria that has reigned over recent years, although that has happened to many NT people, so being Aspie isn't relevant in that regard.  However, being Aspie is relevant insofar as he was encouraged to admit relatively minor offences without first being given access to legal representation.  Aspies are known to be naive and not particularly streetwise.  Being Aspie is relevant insofar as he either wasn't informed of his right to legal representation, or he was led to believe it wasn't necessary, or he asked and was denied.

You protest that Aspies shouldn't be portrayed as people who can't be held accountable for their actions, they shouldn't be assumed incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions.

But what person on the planet would foresee such consequences?  Looking for proof of UFOs results in a person facing cyber-terrorism charges that potentially lead to a 60 jail sentence.  He didn't kill anyone, he *wasn't* looking for missile codes, he wasn't trying to find flaws in air traffic control or other defence systems in order to pass on information to the bad guys.  Nope, none of those things.  He was looking for information about UFOs, looking for the 'X-Files', if you like.  What reasonable person, NT or Aspie, could have foreseen that such non-violent actions, for silly rather than nefarious purposes, could have resulted in a person potentially spending the rest of his life in prison in a foreign country known for total disregard of human rights, known for torturing people, known for detaining people for years on end...  Who?  Who could reasonably have understood those consequences?  Who? Who? Really, Gareth?  Looking for UFOs = spending the rest of one's life in jail?  Who could have foreseen those consequences?

Unfair extradition - yep, they all know.  The US knows that it has the 'benefit' of a one-sided extradition treaty, that's the way they wanted it, and that's the way they like it, they want to be able to do whatever they want to other's countries' citizens, while protecting their own.  The British government knows the treaty is one-sided and unfair, but they're being Bush's poodle, and that's politics.  I said before the law and justice are two completely different things.

Breaking into a foreign military's computer systems == jail sentence

Regardless, this statement was not aimed at yourself but at those who do think he should get a lighter sentence simply due to his diagnosis.

But I would suggest that most of those violent criminals who were said to have Asperger's actually didn't have the condition or if they did, it was their co-morbids that determined their actions and not the autism.

Guantanamo is a blot on humanity and should be closed down immediately and the prisoners released if they aren't going to be tried or put into more humane conditions until their trial.

I'm not suggesting that the authorities go easy on Gary McKinnon - just that if he committed a crime in his own country, that is where he should be jailed or otherwise punished.

As I said - this is not an autism rights issue.

Not, not as such. It is a general human rights issue.

To emphasise my point, some of the petitions I have seen have comments such as "autism isn't a crime", or "aspergers makes people do things without understanding".

His rights are not being affected because of his diagnosis, and his diagnosis did not render him less culpable in his crimes.

Can we give Guantanamo back to Cuba and normalize relations?

(world applause)

Don't we still have Vieques in Puerto Rico?  At least PR is American.  Eminent Domain you know- we could move the population off if we needed to.

This is just your opinion Gareth, which you are entitled to and also as the owner of AFF I can see that this might be the AFF position.

However, you do not speak for the autism rights movement as a whole and the organisation who are in the photograph you show do support Gary and do feel that in this individual case his autism was a mitigating circumstance.

So I would ask that people accept what Gareth has said as an individual and AFF opinion, but also accept  and respect the opinion of those autism rights organsiations that support Gary.

There are many different autism rights organisations and I resent the argument that organisaitons that disagree with AFF are damaging their cause. Organisations that are separate from AFF owe AFF nothing. It is up to AFF to promote thier 'cause' and no-one else.

Instead of an Autistic rights issue,this should be a human rights issue. As far as Guantanamo goes, that issue should be over with soon. I still say he should be sentenced under U.K. law and serve his time in the U.K. He did after all break laws. Even though I understand why he did what he did. I myself would expect jailtime if I had done it. The old saying still goes: If you cant do the time,dont do the crime.
This all IMO only.....

Guantanamo is more than a jail. It is our territory by right. The jail and torture center should be shut down immediately. If there are no provable charges its prisoners should be released !

It is not about mere disagreement or somehow "owing" something to AFF. Unless you redefine the cause of autism rights to extend it with "autism privileges" autism should not be used to get someone a lesser sentence when they break the law.

The media already do a good enough job at times of painting a negative picture of autism, why help the process along by implying that autistics have diminished responsibility for their actions?

Of course, should any organisation have their own cause that does include granting some kind of extra leniency to autistics charged with crimes, they're welcome to do so - just so long as they do not expect others to believe such views are beneficial to autistics.