Editing Malayan Emergency (section)

====Headhunting and scalping====
[[File:This Horror Must End.jpg|thumb|A '' [[Morning Star (British newspaper)|Daily Worker]]'' article exposing newly uncovered images of British atrocities involving headhunting during the Malayan Emergency]]
During the war British and Commonwealth forces hired over 1,000 [[Iban people|Iban]] (Dyak) mercenaries from [[Borneo]] to act as jungle trackers.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=Poole |first=Dan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eVHcEAAAQBAJ&dq=It+was+also+revealed+that+Britain+had+recruited+over+1,000+mercenaries+from+the+Iban+people+of+Borneo&pg=PR11 |title=Head Hunters in the Malayan Emergency: The Atrocity and Cover-Up |publisher=Pen & Sword Military |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-39905-741-7 |location=[[Yorkshire]] |page=XI |language=en}}</ref> With a tradition of headhunting, they decapitated suspected MNLA members; the authorities held that taking the heads was the only means of later identification.<ref name=":1">{{cite book |last=Harrison |first=Simon |title=Dark Trophies: Hunting and the Enemy Body in Modern War |publisher=Berghahn |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-78238-520-2 |location=Oxford |pages=157–158 |language=English}}</ref> Iban headhunters were permitted by British military leaders to keep the scalps of corpses as trophies.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hack |first=Karl |title=The Malayan Emergency: Revolution and Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2022 |location=Cambridge |pages=318}}</ref><ref name=":1" /> After the headhunting had been exposed to the public, the Foreign Office first tried to deny it was in use, before then trying to justify Iban headhunting and conducting damage control in the press.<ref name=":4">{{cite book |last=Hack |first=Karl |title=The Malayan Emergency: Revolution and Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2022 |location=Cambridge |pages=316}}</ref> Privately, the Colonial Office noted that "there is no doubt that under [[international law]] a similar case in wartime would be a war crime".<ref name="MAL" /><ref name="Mark Curtis 61–71">{{cite book |author=Mark Curtis |title=The Ambiguities of Power: British Foreign Policy Since 1945 |date=15 August 1995 |pages=61–71}}</ref><ref name=":4" /> Skull fragments from a trophy head were later found to have been displayed in a British regimental museum.<ref name=":1" />

=====Headhunting exposed to British public=====
{{Main|British Malayan headhunting scandal}}

In April 1952, the [[Communist Party of Great Britain|British communist]] newspaper the ''[[Morning Star (British newspaper)|Daily Worker]]'' (later known as the ''Morning Star'') published a photograph of British [[Royal Marines]] inside a British military base openly posing with severed human heads.<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":1" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Hack |first=Karl |title=The Malayan Emergency: Revolution and Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2022 |location=Cambridge |pages=315}}</ref> By republishing these images the British communists had hoped to turn public opinion against the war.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Creech |first=Maria |date=December 2021 |title=All Too Graphic: Leaked photographs of colonial atrocities during the Malayan 'Emergency' shocked postwar Britain |url=https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/all-too-graphic |journal=[[History Today]] |volume=71 |issue=12}}</ref> Initially British government spokespersons belonging to the [[Admiralty (United Kingdom)|Admiralty]] and the [[Colonial Office]] claimed the photograph was fake. In response to the accusations that their headhunting photograph was fake, the ''Daily Worker'' released another photograph taken in Malaya showing British soldiers posing with a severed head. Later the Colonial Secretary, [[Oliver Lyttelton]], confirmed to parliament that the ''Daily Worker'' headhunting photographs were indeed genuine.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Peng |first1=Chin |title=Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History |last2=Ward |first2=Ian |last3=Miraflor |first3=Norma |publisher=Media Masters |year=2003 |isbn=981-04-8693-6 |location=Singapore |pages=302}}</ref> In response to the ''Daily Worker'' articles exposing the decapitation of MNLA suspects, the practice was banned by Winston Churchill who feared that such photographs resulting from headhunting would expose the British for their brutality.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Hack |first=Karl |title=The Malayan Emergency: Revolution and Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2022 |location=Cambridge |pages=317}}</ref> However, Churchill's order to discontinue the decapitations was widely ignored by Iban trackers who continued to behead suspected guerrillas.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Poole |first=Dan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eVHcEAAAQBAJ&dq=ignored+by+British+soldiers+and+the+decapitation&pg=PA23 |title=Head Hunters in the Malayan Emergency: The Atrocity and Cover-Up |publisher=Pen & Sword Military |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-39905-741-7 |location=[[Yorkshire]] |page=23 |language=en}}</ref>

Despite the shocking imagery of the photographs of soldiers posing with severed heads in Malaya, the ''Daily Worker'' was the only newspaper to publish them and the photographs were virtually ignored by the [[List of newspapers in the United Kingdom|mainstream British press]].<ref name=":4" /><gallery>
File:Malayan Emergency Iban headhunter.jpg|alt=|An Iban headhunter wearing a Royal Marine beret prepares a human scalp above a basket of human body parts.
File:Iban headhunter holding scalp during Malayan Emergency.jpg|An Iban headhunter posing with a human scalp
File:This is the War in Malaya.jpg|The ''Daily Worker'' exposes the practice of headhunting among British troops in Malaya. 28 April 1952.
File:Headhunters Malayan Emergency.jpg|Commonwealth soldiers pose with a severed head inside a British military base in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency
File:Malayan Emergency headhunting and poles.jpg|Two corpses and a severed head belonging to guerrillas killed by the [[Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment]].
File:Photo collection of British atrocities during the Malayan Emergency.png|Atrocity photographs (including headhunting) from the archives of the [[Working Class Movement Library]], Manchester.
File:Beheaded MNLA guerrilla, Malayan Emergency.png|Severed head of MNLA guerrilla commander Hen Yan, killed in 1952 by the [[Suffolk Regiment]].
File:Suspected MNLA guerrilla decapitated by British or Commonwealth during Malayan Emergency.png|Photographs of severed head of MNLA member held in the archives of the [[National Army Museum]], London.
</gallery>