Monty Python member Terry Jones slams UK, US over prisoner policy

RAW STORY
Monday April 2, 2007

Comedian and film director Terry Jones blasted the UK and US over the way they treat prisoners, comparing their policies to what he views as civilized treatment of British sailors by Iran.

"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," he wrote in a satirical editorial published in The Guardian. "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," he continued.

Mocking US practices at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, Jones said that one "right" the US affords prisoners is that of "privacy" by solitary confinement.

"Allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all right," is an uncivilized practice, he mocks. "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!"