This Thursday is the one year anniversary of the Mumbai attacks. My very good friends were caught up and injured in that attack and since then they have been campaigning for compensation for victims of terror abroad – did you know that the UK government give no compensation to people caught up in terrorist attacks if they are overseas?
The good thing was that it was all about to change, the Queens speech last week was to announce the change that all victims of terror going back to 2001, this includes victims of the Bali bombings, Sharm El Sheikh, Turkey and Mumbai, would get compensation to be able to live their lives to their best ability, total compensation of just £4m.
At the last minute this decision was taken out of the speech and so the reform is now not going to be made because Gordon Brown was worried that a campaign would be mounted to apply this to all injured soldiers, amounting to £500m.
As a friend of people injured and having sympathy for all the others who have had to change their lives because of these horrible attacks, I am angry that this has happened, where it goes from here I don’t know, but I am in full support of compensation to victims of terror overseas and will help influence government at every opportunity.
If you would like to read more, here are some links.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/22/gordon-brown-victims-terror-compensation
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6617592/Compensation-plan-for-terror-victims-dropped-over-Whitehall-row.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6896098.ece
