12 SEPTEMBER
KURDISH VALLEY OF VILLAGES SET ON FIRE ‘FROM END TO END’
[ 12 September 1921 ]
On Monday 12 September 1921, at 0530 hours the first pair of RAF biplane bombers, of Number 55 Squadron, took off from Mosul to take part in a surprise day long assault by mounted troops and aircraft on four Kurdish villages in the Harir Valley, some thirty miles north east of Erbil in northern Iraq.1
“OUR MINING HAS GOT THE WOGS ANGRY” – REPORT ON SECRET YEMEN TERROR OP.
[ 12 September 1963 ]
Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Cooper of the Special Air Service had been sent as part of a covert military operation to North Yemen.
CONSERVATIVES BACK FAR RIGHT GOVERNMENT OF VIKTOR ORBAN
[ 12 September 2018 ]
Today in 2018 Conservative MEPs, representing Britain’s largest political party, were among a small minority in the European Parliament to back the far right Hungarian government of Viktor Orbán , during a crucial vote. Since he had been elected prime minister in 2010, Orbán had closed down opposition newspapers, eroded judicial independence, strongly opposed LGBT rights, incited hatred of refugees as ‘Muslim invaders’ and led an anti-Semitic campaign against the Jewish businessman George Soros.
Despite Conservative MEPs voting to block any measure which might damage Hungary’s prestige and influence within Europe, the European parliament voted by a greater than two thirds majority, 448-197, in favour of initiating the Article 7 process, which could eventually mean that the country is stripped of its voting rights in the European Council. British Conservative MEPs, however, remained determined not to allow considerations of press freedom, extreme racism and injustice influence them, especially since Orbán had promised to support the government in its Brexit negotiations.2
FOOTNOTES
- Captain C.S. Littledale, Report on the punitive expedition against the Surchi by a combined force of the levies and police on 12 September 1921, p. 1, AIR 1253, accessed at the National Archives.
- Jon Stone and Joe Watts, “Conservatives back far right government of Viktor Oban in crunch vote in European Parliament,” the Independent, 12 September 2018 accessed online at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/viktor-orban-conservative-european-parliament-theresa-may-a8534401.html
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