No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a 
very uncivilised bunch 


by Terry Jones
 
Global Research, April 5, 2007 
The Guardian - 2007-03-31 


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I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment 
of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their 
waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives 
like this - allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though 
it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor 
servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing 
the picture to be posted around the world - have the Iranians no 
concept of civilised behaviour? For God's sake, what's wrong with 
putting a bag over her head? That's what we do with the Muslims we 
capture: we put bags over their heads, so it's hard to breathe. Then 
it's perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate 
them to the press because the captives can't be recognised and 
humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.





It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to 
talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the 
Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives, 
they wouldn't be able to talk at all. Of course they'd probably find it 
even harder to breathe - especially with a bag over their head - but at 
least they wouldn't be humiliated.

And what's all this about allowing the captives to write letters home 
saying they are all right? It's time the Iranians fell into line with 
the rest of the civilised world: they should allow their captives the 
privacy of solitary confinement. That's one of the many privileges the 
US grants to its captives in Guantánamo Bay.

The true mark of a civilised country is that it doesn't rush into 
charging people whom it has arbitrarily arrested in places it's just 
invaded. The inmates of Guantánamo, for example, have been enjoying all 
the privacy they want for almost five years, and the first inmate has 
only just been charged. What a contrast to the disgraceful Iranian rush 
to parade their captives before the cameras!

What's more, it is clear that the Iranians are not giving their 
British prisoners any decent physical exercise. The US military make 
sure that their Iraqi captives enjoy PT. This takes the form of 
exciting "stress positions", which the captives are expected to hold 
for hours on end so as to improve their stomach and calf muscles. A 
common exercise is where they are made to stand on the balls of their 
feet and then squat so that their thighs are parallel to the ground. 
This creates intense pain and, finally, muscle failure. It's all good 
healthy fun and has the bonus that the captives will confess to 
anything to get out of it.

And this brings me to my final point. It is clear from her TV 
appearance that servicewoman Turney has been put under pressure. The 
newspapers have persuaded behavioural psychologists to examine the 
footage and they all conclude that she is "unhappy and stressed".

What is so appalling is the underhand way in which the Iranians have 
got her "unhappy and stressed". She shows no signs of electrocution or 
burn marks and there are no signs of beating on her face. This is 
unacceptable. If captives are to be put under duress, such as by 
forcing them into compromising sexual positions, or having electric 
shocks to their genitals, they should be photographed, as they were in 
Abu Ghraib. The photographs should then be circulated around the 
civilised world so that everyone can see exactly what has been going 
on.

As Stephen Glover pointed out in the Daily Mail, perhaps it would not 
be right to bomb Iran in retaliation for the humiliation of our 
servicemen, but clearly the Iranian people must be made to suffer - 
whether by beefing up sanctions, as the Mail suggests, or simply by 
getting President Bush to hurry up and invade, as he intends to anyway, 
and bring democracy and western values to the country, as he has in 
Iraq.

Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python, www.terry-jones.net
 

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