UK Reactions to Human Rights Watch Report
Dear Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
I wish to see copies of documents held by FCO which mention and refer to the Human Rights Watch publication:
"Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, March 2004."
In particular I am interested in seeing UK official reactions and assesments in response to this publication.
I also wish to see Diplomatic Telegrams sent from Belgrade and Pristina to the FCO during 16 - 30 March 2004
Yours faithfully,
A Petrovic
FOI Request, Ref: 0081-12
Dear Mr Petrovic
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request. It has been assigned a unique reference number (above) and has been passed to the relevant section within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to deal with. They will be in touch with you should your request need clarification.
We received your request on 23 January 2012 and will aim to respond within 20 working days.
Yours sincerely
Information Rights Team
FCO
Dear A Petrovic
Thank you for your email of 22 January 2012 to the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office requesting information under the Freedom of
Information Act.
You asked as part of your request:
“to see copies of documents held by FCO which mention and refer to the
Human Rights Watch publication: "Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority
violence in Kosovo, March 2004."
We would be grateful if you could refine this part of your request by
specifying a particular timeframe. As currently drafted your request would
go over the statutory limit set under the FOI act and we would be unable
to proceed with it.
We will then accept your revised request and establish whether we hold any
information relating to it before considering the appropriate course of
action.
Please contact the information rights team by return on email address:
[1][email address] quoting the reference number in the subject line
above.
Kind regards
Western Balkans Department
FCO
Dear Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
Please restrict the timeframe for those documents in response to the HRW report from October 2005 - December 2005.
I also wish to see Diplomatic Telegrams sent from Belgrade and Pristina to the FCO during 16 - 30 March 2004.
Yours faithfully,
A Petrovic
Dear A Petrovic
Thank you for your email of 11 February 2012 to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act.
You asked as part of your original request to also:
"see Diplomatic Telegrams sent from Belgrade and Pristina to the FCO during 16 - 30 March 2004"
I assume you mean telegrams sent between 16-30 March 2004 that refer to the Human Rights Watch publication and the events the report was concerned about, and not other subjects?
Kind regards,
Western Balkans Department
FCO
Dear Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
I wish to see all Diplomatic telegrams sent from Belgrade and Pristina between 16 - 30 March regardless of the subject matter.
Yours faithfully,
A Petrovic
Dear A Petrovic
Please find attached a letter relating to your FOI request.
Kind regards,
Western Balkans Department
FCO
Dear A Petrovic,
Please find attached an interim reply to your freedom of information
request relating to the Human Rights Watch publication.
Kind regards,
Tan
Tanweer Hussain
Information Rights Team
FCO
References
Visible links
1. http://www.fco.gov.uk/
2. http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/
Dear Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
In your last response you said:
"As already confirmed to you in previous correspondence, the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office does hold information relevant to your request. However, as previously advised, we
are deliberating where the public interest test lies in respect of section 27 (international
relations). This is taking longer than we expected but we now aim to respond substantively
by no later than 16 April."
I am still waiting for your response.
Yours faithfully,
A Petrovic
Dear A Petrovic,
I am pleased to inform you that a reply has been finalised and will be sent to you by the relevant department, hopefully tomorrow.
Regards,
Tan
Dear A. Petrovic,
Thank you for your request under the Freedom of Information Act to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Please find attached our response letter to you, and the first batch of documents relevant to your request. A second email containing the rest of the documents relevant to your request will also be sent.
Kind regards,
Western Balkans and Enlargement Department
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Dear A. Petrovic,
Please find attached the second batch of documents relevant to your request.
Kind regards,
Western Balkans and Enlargement Department
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Dear Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Foreign and Commonwealth Office's handling of my FOI request 'UK Reactions to Human Rights Watch Report'.
In your letter of 16th April you claim:
“In previous correspondence, we confirmed that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office(FCO) does hold some information relevant to your request. We also confirmed the FCO does not hold information falling within the terms of the first part of your request. “
Although I agree that you did confirm that FCO holds some information relevant to my request, at no stage did you confirm that you do not hold information falling within the terms of the first part of my request. Please advise when you sent me notification of this fact. Furthermore, I believe you have not carried out an adequate search to find information falling in scope of the first part of my request. It seems highly doubtful to me that FCO does not hold this information.
I also wish to complain that you did not issue a refusal notice for withholding info under s35 at the same time that you issued a refusal notice under s27. You only told me that you were considering s35 when you sent your final response to me on 16th April.
I believe your arguments for withholding info under s27 and s35 are weak and generic. I believe there is a greater public interest in knowing what HMGs views and policy is regarding the destruction of sacred heritage sites and ethnic discrimination when carried out by a regime HMG supports. Surely the greater public interest is in uncovering whether any wrongdoing occurred in UK governmental circles and, if it did, to prevent it happening again.
Finally, I believe you have redacted some information incorrectly under s40. Although I agree that names of junior officials should be redacted, it seems to me that some of the names you have redacted are those of senior public figures/officials which are already in the public domain and by releasing these the principles of the DPA will not be breached.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/uk...
Yours faithfully,
A Petrovic
Internal Review for FOI Request Ref 0081-12
Dear Mr Petrovic
Thank you for your request for an Internal Review of your FOI Request Ref
0081-12. It has been passed to the relevant department within the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office to deal with. They will be in touch with you with
an outcome.
We received your request on 23 April 20X2 and will aim to respond within
20 working days.
Yours sincerely
Information Rights Team
FCO
Dear A. Petrovic,
Please find attached a letter and relevant documents in response letter to your request for a review of your Freedom of Information request (ref 0081-12) on the UK reactions to the Human Rights Watch report.
Kind regards,
Western Balkans and Enlargement Department
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
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A Petrovic left an annotation ()
I like that - "hopefully tomorrow"
Even though tomorrow never comes. Either the FCO will send my response on the 18th or they will not. What does "hopefully" have to do with it?