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*Press Release* Scottish Census contract is aiding cover-up by Abu Ghraib firm

SACC
Press Release from Scotland Against Criminalising Communities
Wednesday 8 October

Human rights group Scotland Against Criminalising Communities (SACC) wrote yesterday to John Swinney, Holyrood’s Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, to add its voice to calls for the Scottish Government to cancel the Scottish Census contract awarded to CACI Ltd, a UK subsidiary of a company that provided interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The letter reveals for the first time that two SACC members have received letters from lawyers representing CACI International (the parent company that owns CACI Ltd) threatening legal action over a statement published earlier on the SACC website. The statement is still available on the website.

SACC says that the legal threats reflect CACI’s long-standing policy of responding vigorously to any unfavourable press coverage. But SACC adds that the policy has until now been mainly targeted at the US media. It says that the Scottish census contract has “provided a means for CACI International to extend its campaign of intimidation” to the UK.

The US based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has said, in a lawsuit filed against CACI in the US, that “CACI has been an ongoing part” of a “conspiratorial campaign to prevent the truth about the torture, and CACI’s participation, from ever being known to the public.” CCR describes CACI’s threats of legal action against media reporters as “a campaign of intimidation to suppress any coverage or investigation of their role in the conspiracy.”

SACC insists that, whatever the truth of the specific allegations against CACI that are currently filed in US courts, CACI’s undisputed and substantial involvement in running Abu Ghraib prison is more than enough reason for the Scottish census contract to be cancelled. SACC says in its letter to John Swinney:

“We have no doubt that CACI’s largely successful campaign to suppress unfavourable media coverage in the US is part of the explanation for the mistaken decision by GROS to award CACI the Scottish Census contract. In these circumstances, we think that CACI would only have themselves to blame if the contract were to be cancelled.”

SACC is hosting an online petition at http://www.sacc.org.uk/census calling for the cancellation of the contract. Supporters of the petition include journalist John Pilger, veteran Labour politician Tony Benn, anti-nuclear campaigner Bruce Kent, writers Iain Banks and Alasdair Gray and poet Tom Leonard, and MSP Malcolm Chisholm.

The statement over which CACI International have threatened legal action can be found at:
http://www.sacc.org.uk/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=601&catid=27