AMY GOODMAN: So, before the time of the trial, Katharine, youthey have clamped down on you. I think our problem now, and I think this applies on both sides of the Atlantic, is that we have populist politicians for whom that doesnt matter. Posted on Haziran 25, 2022 | By Byline. AMY GOODMAN: You mean period dramas of strong women have to be a hundred years ago. So I saw people going in and coming out and going in and coming out. I grew up in Taiwan, which was a military dictatorship. In the very typical British manner, we just pretended we had never met.. And nor do newspaper stories. But it is tempting to believe that is the case with Katharine Gun. I mean, no ones going tono crocodile tears over that. I think I found like the missing piece. Anyway, thats why the scene. Well, if Bush and Blair could have got a U.N. resolution, they would have had perfect cover for going to Iraq without having to bring up the WMD, the weapons of mass destruction, argument, because the whole weapons of mass destruction argument is the self-defense, that they needed a legalyou know, you do want to be going to war legally. Watching the film was like watching a case that was very similar to my own: Katharine Gun, photographed last month in Durham. You know, I felt vindicated. AMY GOODMAN: Martin, you went on to work with Tony Blair, didnt you? Her life story is depicted in the new film Official Secrets. In Part 2 of our discussion, we speak with Katharine Gun; the British journalists who reported on Guns revelations in The Observer newspaper, Martin Bright and Ed Vulliamy; and Gavin Hood, director of Official Secrets.. Ahead of a new film, Official Secrets, the GCHQ worker who tried to prevent the 2003 invasion of Iraq recalls those feverish days and their consequences Keira Knightley on playing whistleblower Katharine Gun: Iraq was the first time Id been politically engaged. Together they have a 13-year-old daughter. [13] Speculation was rife in the media that the prosecution service had bowed to political pressure to drop the case so that any such documents would remain secret. . In Turkey, close to her husbands family, Gun and her partner, Yasar, could raise their child in peace. Ralph Fiennes plays Ben Emmerson. I was teaching Mandarin in the local college in Cheltenham. If we found other information, it may have been different, but this information seemed to show us that wed been lied to. So, lots of leads there. And Mr. Ahmed is now the editorial director of the BBC, the revered BBC. Does he try to treat it? Sometimes you break stories, and networks ring you and say they want to interview you, and then they drop you because of the agenda. [12] At the time, the reasons for the Attorney-General to drop the case were murky. Following the incident, Gun struggled to find work that she loved, and her husband had grown disillusioned with Britain. A full trial might have exposed any such documents to public scrutiny, as the defence was expected to argue that trying to stop an unlawful war of aggression outweighed Gun's obligations under the Official Secrets Act. I wanted to go to the making of the filmKeira Knightley, did you meet with her?and also ask you, Gavin, about Keira taking on this role. KATHARINE GUN: to police custody, yes, and kept overnight in a police cell. I mean, we certainly did meet in the courthouse. We will never know. Our Daily Digest brings Democracy Now! I felt like saying, I tried to tell you this seven times, and you would not let me print it. You know, it's tough. Iraq now, nightmare. Counted amongst the likes of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and John Kiriakou is Katharine Gun, a whistleblower whose actions revealed the shocking underbelly of international politics and also inspired a big-budget movie that introduced many to the issue. Never mind the number injured. So, you know, it doesnt end, as Martin said. AMY GOODMAN: And the U.S. is still in Iraq. katharine gun real husband landsbron avstngd vind May 28, 2022. begagnat byggmaterial karlstad I hope, when shes ready for this story, she will. I hope when shes ready for this story, she will [see the film]. AMY GOODMAN: And your feelings at that time, Katharine? It opens on August 30th. And we had to sit and wait for two hours while they winged it down from London. But that is unbelievably difficult now especially in the digital world.. But deep inside me, I didnt feel guilty. Says He Will Sign Bill Criminalizing Drag as Old Photo of Him in Drag Circulates, Lori Lightfoot Loses Reelection for Chicago Mayor; Paul Vallas & Brandon Johnson Advance to Runoff, Reporter Seymour Hersh on How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline: Exclusive TV Interview, A War of Imperial Aggression: How Russias Invasion One Year Ago Changed Ukraine & the World, El Salvadors Pres. Its the intelligence agency, like the NSA, the National Security Agency, in the U.S. She leaked a memo revealing that the United States was collaborating with Britain in collecting sensitive information on United Nations Security Council members, countries, in order to pressure the members, the ambassadors, into supporting the Iraq invasion of March 2003. You know, banks of civil servants couldnt do that. We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work. British linguist, translator and whistleblower, This article is about the British whistleblower. By Gabrielle. In the runup to the critical vote on war in Iraq, Katharine Gun exposed a US plot to spy on the UN. And they had already taken him down into the custody suite, which is, by the way, where I had been before, Gun revealed. Yes and no. AMY GOODMAN: And did they say they were going to charge you with the Official Secrets Act? By . I mean, this has been going on for a number of years, and it always sort of ended up kind of petering out, so, GAVIN HOOD: Other people had approached you before. AMY GOODMAN: Ed Vulliamy, you were the U.S. correspondent for The Observer. Machine Gun Kelly and Daughter Casie, 12, Hit the Red . Most people do. AMY GOODMAN: The people Martin was fighting to get this story out. Record Coal Prices Help Break Strike. Katharine Gun leaked that memo to the Observer, in the belief that the revelation of the proposed bugging and blackmail tactics might be enough to stop the war. GAVIN HOOD: She did work for the attorney general, right up until a matter of weeks or so before the war, at which point, when he changed his mind, under massive pressure, having visited Washington and spoken to Gonzales and all the various lawyers who worked for Rumsfeld and Bush and Cheney, and theyd sold him on this idea of using Resolution 678, which authorized the 1991 Gulf War, and said, Really, that war didnt end, and were really still at war with Iraq. You get pulled over. Shes confessed to breaching the Official Secrets Act. Of course he does. Gun is on Mondays episode of the Guardian podcast Today in Focus, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. For example, youre racing to the hospital with your wife. Keira Knightley as Katharine Gun in the film Official Secrets. But lets talk about that moment in the courthouse. Let us learn more about the duo and where they are currently. Explain what happened at the Q&A, Martin. [5], On 13 November 2003, Gun was charged with an offence under section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1989. is katharine gun still married to yasar . When Gun was approached with the idea for a script by Gavin Hood (who had recently made Eye in the Sky, the film about drone warfare, with Helen Mirren), the pair of them first talked for five days in London, getting the story straight. Hes repackaged himself as sort of the European. "[12] In May 2019 The Guardian stated the case was dropped "when the prosecution realised that evidence would emerge that even British government lawyers believed the invasion was unlawful. Shes beginning to understand the issues, but she hasnt seen it yet. KATHARINE GUN: It was GCHQ internal security, yeah. You know, youre the attorney general. The comedown after they dropped the case, and trying to recover from that, was quite stressful.. And yeah, it was absolutely terrifying. AMY GOODMAN: And these ambassadors are the ambassadors of? And all of a sudden the news media is not interested in how we got into the war. A very good book by Britains most decorated journalist, called Nick Davies, called Flat Earth Newsits about the British press, but it applies everywhererealized that actually the then-editors of our paper were effectively accountable to the Tony Blair enforcement machine. Which agency was it? You know, these things happen. So, I just lay that out, really. And I was tasked to set up a website to look into this. But it may say more about the BBC than it does about him, that with this track record you can get to the top. [2] r 2003 lckte hon ut hemlig information till tidningen The Observer, angende en begran frn USA om att samla in knslig information om diplomater frn medlemslnder i FN:s . Youre terrified. And I went back, and I felt worse that day at home. She was arrested and charged with breach of the Official Secrets Act. is katharine gun still married to yasar. You have the Iraq War continuing today, 16 years after George W. Bush, knowing there were not weapons of mass destruction, invades Iraq with Britain. Katharine Gun. We still dont know who within the American administration ordered the operation. Iran, of course, isn't interested in dealing with him. Gun had, of course, been forced to abandon her career in the civil service and finally, struggling for work, left Britain altogether. AMY GOODMAN: This is the NSA guy who wrote the memo. is katharine gun still married to yasarsandie and michael rinaldo. Shes just wearing her jeans and jumpers, you know, to work. . Youre, KATHARINE GUN: And then I was taken away. Were also joined by Martin Bright and Ed Vulliamy, the two journalists who reported Guns revelations in The Observer newspaper, at a time when the paper was editorially openly supporting the Iraq invasion. by David Dayen September 13, 2019 Expand Evan Vucci/AP Photo President Bush visits the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland, January 25, 2006. Soon after, they moved to Turkey in 2011, and for the most part, the family has stayed away from the public eye. So, GCHQ had been aware of this for over 24 hours, and they were waiting for everybody to come back into work on Monday, and they were prepared. As well as illuminating Guns story, though, the film gives what was, by any standards, one of the great scoops of recent British journalism the credit that is long overdue. And the memo was like this big red flag as soon as I saw it.. Yasur is a Turkish Kurd who is married to 47-year-old Katharine. Katharine Gun's income source is mostly from being a successful . So, I thought it would be great. Who is her husband? But as we said last night, this is the purpose of Albert Camuss great story La Peste, when Dr. Rieux is given the child dying of plague. delivered to your inbox every day? AMY GOODMAN: So, and we want to get to all that, but nowwe want to get to all that, but right now youre showing this film around the country. And the situation, the toxic abomination of Brexit in our country, has sort of rehabilitated Blair in a sort of bizarre way. Gun was defended by Alex Bailin KC. Oh, yeah. I felt that I had done the morally right thing to do. And we can say that, you know, thatso, he comes back, under all this pressure. [6] Gun had previously been unaware of GCHQ, later saying that "I didn't have much idea about what they didI was going into it pretty much blind. KATHARINE GUN: Yeah, I was very excited to meet Keira in London before they started shooting. In January that year, Katharine Gun was copied into a classified memo sent to GCHQ by a senior figure in the NSA, its US equivalent. Shocked by the gall of such illegality, Katharine doesn't tell her husband, Yasar Gun (Adam Bakri) -- who's still going through the immigration process to stay in the country -- but instead goes to an anti-war associate who covertly gets said memo to Martin Bright (Matt Smith), a reporter for the pro-government paper The Observer. But he certainly was suggesting that people would know. The spin in this country and in the UK was the threat of deadly weapons ready to be deployed by Saddam. The claims were similar to those coming from the Bush administration. [16], Her husband, Yaar Gn,[17][18] is a Turkish Kurd. I was very exercised about what was happening. Now, the defense of necessity is usually used in very more simple circumstances. The intensely relevant film is based on the true story of Katharine Gun, . 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