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okay I
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welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me George Galloway and me gri for
as long as the Palestinian struggle has
existed another gift to the World by
collapsing British colonialism has
blighted the subcontinent in Kashmir and
moreover far more people have perish
violently there as a result two nuclear
Powers India and Pakistan confront each
other across a line of control both with
fingers firmly on the button remarkably
however not a lot of people know that
thus the insult added to the injury
suffered by the people of occupied
Kashmir is that nobody much cares one
who does is my old friend writer and
broadcaster Victoria scoffield author of
now the fourth edition of Kashmir in
conflict and I'm glad to say she joins
us now Victoria let's start with that
point
how is it that when you write a book
about Kashmir people probably think
you're writing about scarves well
initially they did but you can be
assured I put them right very quickly
and I think what for me is tragic about
the uh dispute over the former princely
State as it was of jamu and Kashmir is
that in fact my book is in its fourth
edition when I first wrote a book in the
early 9s I thought this would be a book
and that the issue would eventually be
resolved but uh it hasn't been and
that's why I've been continually
updating the book 60 years uh the
biggest occupation force in the world
today is in occupied Kashmir jamu and
Kashmir 500,000 Indian soldiers two
nuclear armed Powers uh just a a a short
ballistic flight apart uh and a a
NeverEnding uh conflict how come the
world has allowed that well the
difficulty As We Know any conflict as it
takes the grieved parties to sit down at
the negotiating table and work out a
resolution themselves and this
unfortunately hasn't happened what you
really need is a dialogue between India
Pakistan and also the inhabitants of the
state of J and Kashmir and one of the
confusing and complex issues about
Kashmir is that even now I use the word
jamu and Kashmir but it is actually
comprised of different regions and those
inhabitants have have different
aspirations not only in the Indian
administered side as we call it you have
jamu uh jamu region which is
predominantly Hindu you've got the
valley of Kashmir where the main focus
of disaffection arises but you've got
the vast area of ladak these are
Buddhists living there so it's it's
their aspirations also have to be taken
into consideration across the line of
control you've got what are now called
gilgit baltistan formerly the Northern
areas these people are very different
ethnically from the inhabitants of the
valley and then you've got the narrow
strip of land as a Jammu and Kashmir
again with sudans and punches who don't
actually um have the kashmiri language
so it's a complex issue and it needs all
the inhabitants to be allowed to sit
down at the negotiating table but so far
this hasn't happened well the world of
course uh called for that in the United
Nation Security Council and moreover the
then great Indian Premier Mr
uh promised to abide by that uh
resolution which called for a plebiscite
yes to self-d determinate uh the the
future of the territory the British I'm
right in saying Amai were behind this as
so much uh upon withdrawing from
occupied India they allowed these
princely states to decide uh whether
they went with India or with
Pakistan uh and the Maharaja of this
particular territory against the wishes
of the majority of his people but by
Fiat joined India well that that was
really I mean I think just going back a
little bit one of the biggest tragedies
in counterfactual history is never very
satisfactory but nonetheless sometimes
it's interesting to look at it is had
the British insisted that the Maharaja
take a decision
before uh British Authority ceased we
might not have seen the the problems
we've had which have existed to the to
the present day and the fact that he
didn't take a decision he wouldn't take
a decision initially then you had a
situation of Warfare on both sides and
then he hurridly took a decision um
which and it was the then um Vice Roy
governor general Lord mountbatten who
suggested that the issue should actually
be resolved by a plebis referendum or
reference to the people both uh rulers
of India and Pakistan agreed to hold a
plebis it but then the fact that the
plebis was never held has left this
unfinished business unfinished feeling
amongst some inhabitants that actually
their future hasn't been resolved
through a as I said plebis or through
the Democratic process of course the
Indian government say well they've had
elections therefore that's tantamount to
having had a pisit but somehow you still
have this festering idea that we were
promised our right of self-determination
and we haven't been given it so half a
million Soldier Indian soldiers as
George described mentioned could you
tell us a bit how this what the
situation is like that well I mean it's
true it's a it's a very heavily
fortified State I mean a lot of the
soldiers actually are up on the On the
Border in the ladak area and I've
traveled through these regions as well
um but what's very visible is a military
presence when you go to Serena um the
capital city of the valley of Kashmir
also what's visible is the Indian
military presence outside of Serena
Serena in many respects is not as
heavily fortified as the outlying areas
um for obvious reasons because a lot of
well not a lot of foreigners but some
foreigners and the journalists come
there uh but the the fact remains for
the number of um militants the number of
uh people who took up arms against the
Indian government per capita there are
an enormous number I mean however the
statistics work out they're enormous
number of of soldiers and with the
soldiers obviously comes um acting with
impunity and this is what if you go to
the valley of Kashmir is very difficult
whereas I might go as a British citizen
I might stop at a checkpoint show my
passport but for kashmir's they
constantly feel that they're under
scrutiny and then if there's some
trouble or other there'll be curfew
they'll be locked down and again it's a
very difficult sort of life to be
leading and I always feel you know so
privileged we in the west we take for
granted we have a passport we can move
about we can go to Europe we can go
wherever we want you know for for an
inhabitant of of the valley of Kashmir
they have to apply for a Visa they have
to wait sometimes they can't um and
that's why I I earnestly sort of wish
for the resolution of the issue because
then people can lead normal lives which
is what everybody wants to do 100,000
people have lost their lives which is a
staggering death toll what used to be
called a paradise on Earth is pretty
close to hell isn't it well for for a
lot of people who live there and I think
when you mention the statistics of the
Dead you have to also take into account
for example a lot of disappeared and
that means that the wives they don't
know what's happened to their husbands
consequently they can't remarry they're
called half widows and the orphans and
what hasn't been assessed is the trauma
especially when I went to Kashmir in
when I started on the first book in the
early
1990s um the the sort of standard
comment was there's not one single
family in in the valley of Kashmir who
hasn't lost a family member and again
you have to you have to take that into
account for how people lead their lives
that said they're also wanting you know
the same as we do they want to have
weddings they want to have uh you know
sort of be able to to visit their
families they want to be able to have
the movement and until the issue is
resolved at a high political level
you're not going to see that freedom of
movement well talking of high political
levels you and I were both privileged to
be close personal Friends of the late
Benazir
BH uh and the 36th anniversary of the
judicial murder of her father zikar
alibo prime minister of Pakistan is
coming up uh murdered of course by a us
pet General uh zel hak you were actually
there in Pakistan when this Dreadful
deed was done and indeed we're both
going to be at a Memorial function on
the 4th of April uh on this how does it
feel now 36 years
later it's actually extraordinary I mean
I've grown old with
with with the issue actually which which
you know from which stem my interest of
working on on jamun Kashmir as well um
in a way it seems like yesterday but
also since that time a whole life has
been led by benb and now she's also been
assassinated and so it's with great
sadness that I see this this
family uh who aspired to public duty
public service and I think what I I
really feel is how very young zuluka Ali
buo was at that time we were very young
um in our 20s and so we sort of thought
he was senior and he'd been prime
minister and he'd been president but he
was 49 when he was arrested he was 51
when he was executed
and you feel well what a lot of
potential was suddenly snuffed out and I
think what's particularly interesting in
the present day is how much interest is
being focused on zulak calibo he was a
modern man he was a progressive man um
and how different again with
counterfactual history the history of
Pakistan could have been had he survived
I actually sat through the appeal
against the death sentence and I don't
know whether because we've got social
media now and the internet but whether
such a thing could happen in the present
day it's it's very interesting because
um for people who didn't quite
understand the complexities of the case
he
was um accused of conspiracy to murder
not murder conspiracy to murder and I
was recently reading someone's text the
other day and they said accused of
murder and I said no you must change
that conspiracy to murder it's a totally
different thing there was one man who
linked him with this this firing at a
roundabout in
laor more importantly in a way the
verdict was split
43 and yet he was executed despite the
protests of and despite the protests and
despite the international pleas for
clemency and it's just extraordinary to
think that that could happen that that
that he was actually taken out and
executed and it was also tortury and I
do remember going to be able to see um
Benz shortly just two or 3 days before
the sentence was carried out and I sat
with my my friend from Oxford days and
you know what do you say to someone when
you know their father's about to be
taken out to be executed it's the most
appalling thing and what I think one
also must pay recognition to is how she
picked herself up oh yeah and didn't
ever show
um a sort of a hatred she she moved
forward from it and she managed to she
might have been consumed with Revenge
wasn't I look forward to uh being at
that memorial service uh not service but
Memorial uh meeting commemoration with
you Victoria scoffield thanks for
joining us on the Sputnik coming up
after the break I and many others were
well hacked off by the Rupert muruk
Empire's telephone habits after the
break Peter Jukes author of Beyond
contempt tells us who did what to whom
and how they mainly got away with it
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welcome back to Sputnik I like many
thousands of others had my telephone
routinely hacked by The Grubby
practitioners of the low press I was
compensated and have more to
come but the industrial scale law
breaking by Mr Murdoch's operation then
by the mirror group has told us much
about the collapsing credibility of
British institution it is beyond
contempt what was being done lives and
relationships destroyed paranoia
engendered but in the most expensive
trial in British history in the case of
the moch Empire only the minions were
convicted the Despicable Mes at the top
were all as pure as the driven slush or
wor they joining us is the author of the
book beyond contempt Peter Jukes Peter
welcome to the Sputnik let's start with
that last point that I made they were
all innocent weren't they well there's
the court of public opinion and there's
a criminal trial the burden of proof for
the criminal trial is be you have to be
absolutely sure that for example Rebecca
Brooks knew about Glenn
malare um now one could argue with a
million pound contract over you know
four or five years she bloody well
should have known about Glenn marqu but
reaching that burden of proof to be
absolutely sure given 20 email million
emails were missing and no live
Witnesses came forward to testify
against her you can understand that
decision everywhere I go though in the
court public opinion people aren't sure
about that verdict they go even in
chipping Norton where her friends uh
live how did she get off now the trial
was the most expensive in British legal
history but the state the prosecution uh
spent uh not that very much by
comparison tell us how heavily was the
prosecution outgunned by Mr Murdock
expensive legal Talent well it's it's an
interesting moment when I discovered
this too because it tells you a lot
about the British press but I'll get to
that so towards the end of the trial
you're sitting around like in a sort of
I don't know airport in the 1970s
waiting for verdicts and we went through
the costs and the amazing thing was that
I discovered one uh defense Barrister QC
was being paid about ,000 an hour the
defense the prosecution Barrister Andrew
Edis was paid 1,000 a day Junior is pro
AR the same so you realize by Factor cuz
there are six defense teams and one
prosecution team back 12 to one outspent
in the court itself but then you've got
a obviously you got to throw in the
costs of the peace investigation
operation wheating um which was into the
phone hacking and a bit of Elvin into
corrupt payments so it works out about
2025 million spent by the state
including everything police course
defense the court costs only about one
or two million whereas news AAL play
spent well now news UK about 80 million
I mean how many £80 million Rebecca
Brooks when she you know is found not
guilty you can claim your cost back from
the state technically she came forward
with a motion for 25 million just for
herself now as the judge said well if
you're going to claim that we might have
to a disclosure about how much the
company knew and corporate issues like
that and they didn't go for it backed
off they backed off but that just on the
Press thing so I discovered this were
during you know uh the two or three
weeks waiting for a verdict with all
these great journalists individually the
journalists covering Court were
fantastic but the editorial line their
papers took was on the day of the
verdict against Coulson or the morning
afterwards they said 100 million pounds
for one guilty verdict what a waste of
the money they did not say how who spent
the 100 million and that of that there
was one guilty verdict that day of the
11 people indicted for phone hacking
nine have pleaded or been found guilty
but both the mirror s the mirror the
times the telegraph the mail and uh the
sun went to the same line three big
newspaper groups exactly the same line
about 100 million for one this is to
intimidate the state from embarking upon
any further prosecutions and also about
press regulation and the power of yes
the the the newspapers have felt they
can run the state and scare police and
scare judges the sun has a campaign
against the CPS now OD that the lot of
Sun trials going on and I'm a great
believer in the freedom of the press and
the balance of powers but when this
newspapers which are corporations think
they're more powerful than the state and
the police that is woring cuz you can't
vote them out now in your fantastic book
uh Beyond contempt which was crowdfunded
tell us a bit uh about that but you
describe it as not just uh Court
Reporting though Nick Davis the man who
led the way on this story describes it
on the sleeve as brilliant Court
Reporting which which considering you
were never a court reporter is quite a
compliment uh but you describe or your
Publishers do as a kind of walk through
culture in Britain in the 21st century
what do they mean by that well I mean
this is uh what they say evolution is a
series of successful accidents I didn't
mean it to be this way but I'm a
dramatist just Happ to be at the right
place at the right time so that I
started tweeting everybody followed me
you know all the news um feeds all the
police some what said everybody is
watching my feed on Parliament all the
lawyers and the defendants while in
court you're in court saying something
they're watching your Twitter feed so in
that way maybe my dramatic heart found a
very interesting moment in British
culture which tells you a lot about you
know the relative powers of the state of
the culture of the press uh of the
police and I'd never been to full trial
I'd popped in and out I've seen a lot of
TV dramas it's nothing like TV dramas
most of the interesting stuff happens
pre-trial or you know away from the jury
amazing process and you know uh in a way
lucky just to find myself in the storm
of this you eye of this particular
hurricane and what about the
crowdfounding part the book yeah well
that that's that's what happened was I
started I went I worked for The Daily
Beast I done a previous book about the
phone hacking Scandal of Murdoch's the
Murdoch family's 100y year history
called Fall of the House of Murdoch and
I went there just to really update the
book started live tweeting as things
happened and the affair came out and my
Twitter feed went like that and I said
sorry guys they Beast couldn't pay me a
retainer I I can't come here after the
opening after 4 days of the opening and
people said you got to stay I said well
I can't afford it somebody sent me and I
didn't know you could do this £10
through my email address on on uh PayPal
and so I was persuaded them next morning
to offer to crowdfund it they
crowdfunded it in a in a few hours and I
came back now the thing about that so
you raised the money to cover the entire
trial through crowdfunding that's unique
uh yeah I think for a yes for court like
that and also I think the thing that
really interested people was that I was
it was about the media and I wasn't in
anybody's pocket I was in their pocket
so you know either side I wasn't working
the news UK the telegraph or the BBC or
the guardian all could be seen to have
agendas they ow my employer the other
thing is people paid sometimes quite a
large amount of money total amount
raised I mean this is gross about 20
grand uh for me to provide it free to
other people now the the point I made at
the beginning about the collapsing
credibility of British institutions is
you've been talking about the media the
courts and the police just in this short
interview in the last week the police in
the form of duckenfield yeah the man who
admitted that his negligence led to the
deaths of 96 people at hillsbor even
though they' spent the last 20 odd years
denying it and seeking to blame the
victims the police's credibility shot
through four judges were
sacked because they were found to have
been looking at pornography on their
Court
computers and the media well what is
there to say about it in its credibility
uh that hasn't already been said one
after another British
institutions are reduced somehow in the
Public's mind aren't they I mean I mean
I'm I'm an optimist and I suppose the
dark light sha by a lot of this
particularly at the heart of this the
Daniel Morgan murder the dark arts begin
it's a long story and this private
investigator who is murdered associated
with news the world associated with
police corruption uh it has shocked me I
do think interesting you mentioned
Hillsboro uh one could mention the savil
uh case as well it's the power of media
over some institutions like the police
now obviously there's always been police
corrup we know the met you know
operation countrymen why do things take
so long to come out the sun had a big
place to think you know place in the
lies about the Hillsboro victims and I
think most police corruption cases take
about 15 years to come out the Daniel
Morgan murder panel inquiry like
hillsbor reporting in a year year and a
half it's taking 30 years to come out
why because there's a combination what I
think Gordon Brown said a criminal media
Nexus has existed between the power of
the press and the media to make him
break politicians and make him break um
policemen really interesting news of the
world hacking I've looked at the pattern
of it a lot of Home secretaries we had
blanid and then Clark hacked
sequentially you had senior police
officers I'm sure Stevens but hmon Yates
and all these people failed to
investigate phone hacking when it
happened why because they saw that
Rebecca Brooks Andy cson or other you
know senior journalists were close to
the Home Secretary your police officer
you're answering to them and I think you
it's not the when corruption happens it
penetrates certain veins comes certain
ways it's not quite good enough to say
it's there you you got to find out how
it happened and I think that's pretty
unique in Britain that it comes from the
media the antidote of course is uh the
new media that we have we're no longer
dependent on Rupert Murdoch or the still
less on the mirror Group which is hardly
worth the paper it's written on uh all
these newspapers ERS are losing money
losing readers and losing credibility
amongst those who are still reading them
they're doomed aren't they the last
editor of the sun will one day be
strangled by the last edition of the sun
um I'm not sure about how quite I think
you're talking metaphorically now the
fascinating thing isn't it I mean I
noticed I get attacked a lot on Twitter
by senior journalists in the Sun and
other newspapers I'm going well I'm just
a TW you know I'm just a bloke on
Twitter 15 th000 followers I don't have
2 million readers why do they care about
me they are terrible at social media
they're terrible at dialogue and people
don't understand about uh Free Speech
now with social media di uh free speech
is a dialogue it's not a megaphone where
you press a leave up there as an editor
and all these millions of copies come
out people just accept it Rupert Murdoch
replied to me the other day directly
about the solbergs and it's incredible I
mean unfortunately the organizations
which own social media you know internet
is pretty monop istic too yeah although
we we might find uh alternatives to that
watch this space Peter Jes thanks very
much indeed for joining us on the
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Sputnik and now it's your turn to tell
us what you think through the portals of
social media what's rattling guy well
Sean Cadence says Kashmir one of the
great shameful occupations of this or
any time the people are heroes one in
all and Rich th says that it would not
be remotely surprising if phone hacking
like other such scandals was more
widespread than we'll ever get to know
well more and more of it is coming out I
myself will be uh in court uh in the
medium term against the mirror group who
it turns out were doing exactly the same
to me and many many others as they were
doing at the sun and the news of the
world that's all that we've got time for
this week it's been marvelous
oh