My Gripe An Thing

FILM director Alfred Hitchcock, author Roald Dahl and artist Lucian Freud are among the people who have snubbed honours from the British monarch, government records revealed for the first time.

Painters Francis Bacon and LS Lowry, the sculptor Henry Moore and Brave New World novelist Aldous Huxley are also on the list published by the Cabinet Office ministry.

The list names 277 people who refused honours between 1951 and 1999 and have since died.

It is the first official confirmation that hundreds of people have snubbed the offer of knighthoods and other prestigious accolades.

News of people refusing an honour is rare and normally only emerges if they volunteer the information themselves.

The Cabinet Office was ordered to release the details by the Information Commissioner’s Office public body following a 15-month battle.

Lowry, famous for his “matchstick men” style in portraying the urban landscapes of northern England, turned down a record five honours during the period.

He rejected an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) gong in 1955, the higher Commander (CBE) rank in 1961 and the even higher knighthood in 1968.

Bacon rejected a CBE in 1960, as did Freud in 1977.

Dahl turned down an OBE in 1986. Other writers who snubbed accolades included Chronicles of Narnia author CS Lewis, who rejected a CBE in 1952.

Cinema legend Hitchcock turned down a CBE in 1962 but accepted a knighthood in 1980, four months before his death.

Among others named on the list, writer JB Priestley snubbed the chance to become a lord in 1965, the only case of a life peerage being rejected.

Evelyn Waugh, who penned Brideshead Revisited, turned down a CBE in 1959.

Brief Encounter actor Trevor Howard refused a CBE offer in 1982.

Philip Larkin rejected an OBE in 1968, while fellow poet Robert Graves turned down the CBE in 1957.

“It is entirely an individual’s choice as to whether they accept an honour,” said a Cabinet Office spokesman.

“People refuse honours for a variety of reasons but the numbers are very small and represent around 2 per cent of nominations.”

Beatles legend John Lennon publicly returned his MBE medal in 1969 in protest over Britain’s hand in the Nigerian civil war.

US man who bound his 22-month-old daughter with tape and posted the photo on Facebook has pleaded not guilty to aggravated domestic battery and unlawful restraint.

A spokesman for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office in Chicago says 21-year-old Andre Curry entered his plea during a brief hearing overnight.

Mr Curry remains in custody and is scheduled to return to court tomorrow for a hearing on his lawyer’s motion to reduce his $US100,000 ($95,750) bond.

Mr Curry’s lawyer has said his client was just trying to be funny with the photograph and that he didn’t harm his daughter.

The child’s mother tells WMAQ-TV that Mr Curry was just joking and adds that he’s a great father.

NEW YORK—Muslim groups are calling for New York’s police commissioner to step down because of his appearance in a film they say paints their religion and its adherents in a bad light.

About 20 activists held a news conference on the steps of City Hall on Thursday and criticized Ray Kelly for giving an interview to the producers of the movie “The Third Jihad.”

The movie uses dramatic footage to warn against the dangers of radical Islam. Muslim groups say it encourages Americans to be suspicious of all Muslims.

“Terrorism is an evil that must be eliminated, but one cannot fight wrong with wrong,” said Talib Abdur-Rashid, a Muslim cleric.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Thursday he stood by Kelly and the commissioner’s spokesman, Paul Browne. Activists had also demanded Browne’s resignation.

However, the mayor said Kelly would have to redouble his outreach efforts to Muslims.

“Anything like this doesn’t help credibility, so Ray’s got to work at establishing, re-establishing or reinforcing the credibility that he does have,” Bloomberg said.

Kelly appears for about 30 seconds of the 72-minute movie. He originally said he was not involved but on Wednesday acknowledged he had given a 90-minute interview to the filmmakers in 2007.

The movie was later shown to police trainees. The police department said it was played in a continuous loop in the sign-in area of counterterrorism training sessions between October and December 2010. As many as 1,489 trainees may have seen the movie, according to documents released under New York’s public records law.

Kelly apologized Wednesday for his appearance and for the playing of the movie.

The Muslim leaders said they are worried that the police department is teaching officers to treat all Muslims as suspects. They demanded the resignation of Kelly and Browne, and a U.S. Department of Justice inquiry into the showing of the film.

The activists also want retraining of all 1,489 officers “that are walking this city with poison in their brains,” said Cyrus McGoldrick, civil rights director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations-New York. CAIR is one of the organizations that “The Third Jihad” accuses of being soft on terrorist groups.

Kelly has said the department does surveillance only when it is following leads. But an investigation by The Associated Press has revealed a secret intelligence program, set up with the aid of the Central Intelligence Agency, aimed at infiltrating religious groups and monitoring neighborhoods even when there is no evidence of wrongdoing.

The CIA has since decided to pull its officer from the NYPD after an internal investigation criticized poor oversight of the collaboration.

 

SEVERAL suspected diehard supporters of slain Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi have been subjected to torture and some have even died in detention centres run by armed militias, human rights groups said yesterday.

“Several detainees have died after being subjected to torture in Libya in recent weeks and months amid widespread torture and ill-treatment of suspected pro-Gaddafi fighters and loyalists,” Amnesty International said.

The London-based watchdog said its delegates had met detainees held in Tripoli, Misratah and smaller towns such as Ghariyan who showed visible signs of torture inflicted in recent days and weeks.

“The torture is being carried out by officially recognised military and security entities, as well by a multitude of armed militias operating outside any legal framework,” Amnesty said.

In a separate statement, Doctors Without Borders said it had suspended its work in Misratah, Libya’s third-largest city, which withstood a devastating siege by Gaddafi’s forces during last year’s uprising. “Detainees in the Libyan city of Misratah are being tortured and denied urgent medical care, leading the international medical humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres to suspend its operations in detention centres in Misratah,” the group said.

Its doctors were increasingly confronted with patients who suffered injuries caused by torture during questioning.

“The interrogations were held outside the detention centres,” it said.

The concerns raised by the two groups came hours after top UN officials expressed similar fears about Libyan “revolutionary brigades”, accusing them of being behind a surge in violence and holding thousands of people in secret detention centres.