Will this be one of the next steps in the U.S.A. and Canada, too...?
Britain placed under state of emergency
by Kamal Ahmed, Antony Barnett and Martin Bright,
The Observer, London
11th November, 2001.Britain is to be placed under a state of 'public emergency' as part of an unprecedented government move to allow internment without trial of suspected terrorists.
In a historic initiative that will incense civil liberties groups, David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, will lay the order before the House of Commons in the next 48 hours, to be followed by anti-terrorist legislation which will be rushed through in the next four weeks.
The order, which says the events of 11 September are 'threatening the life of the nation', will allow Britain to opt out of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which bans detention without trial.
It will pave the way for indefinite imprisonment of foreign nationals who the Government suspects are terrorists, and comes less than 24 hours after warnings from America that Britain is a top target for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network.
The move reveals the seriousness the Government places on the threat to Britain. Such orders can be used only in times of war or when there has been an event that puts the security of the nation at risk. Whitehall sources said the order would not be reviewed 'for at least a year'.
Internment was last used during the Gulf war against Iraqis suspected of links to Saddam Hussein's army. It has also been used against terrorist suspects in Northern Ireland and Germans during the Second World War. It is the first time the Government has sought such a major opt-out of the Convention, which is the cornerstone of human rights laws in the country.
John Wadham, director of Liberty, said it would seek to challenge the order in the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. 'This is a fundamental violation of the rule of law, our rights and traditional British values,' he said. 'There is no evidence of direct plans to commit atrocities against Britain.'
Government officials insisted this was a 'formal procedure' and did not signal a change in the level of risk to the country, but said the police needed more powers to detain suspected terrorists.
'Britain is closed to terrorism, and we will take whatever action we can,' the Prime Minister's official spokesman said. 'People will object to it, but we are absolutely determined to get the balance right between human rights, which are important, and society's right to live free from terror.'
Downing Street believes that the public will back the moves, which it says are necessary to maintain national security. Intelligence reports suggest a number of terrorists linked to extremist Middle Eastern organisations have attempted to enter the country using the cloak of asylum laws.
The official spokesman said a handful of people would be targeted by the new laws and they would be offered the opportunity to travel to a third country if it could be arranged.
Even suspects who attempt to travel through British airports can be detained if the new terrorism laws are passed.
The Government plans to rush the legislation through both Houses of Parliament by Christmas and is hoping for cross-party support.
The public emergency order will be the first of a series of controversial measures closing what the Government says are loopholes in the law. As well as internment, the terrorism Bill will contain new laws to tackle religious hatred and harsh sentences for people behind 'non-bomb' hoaxes, such as anthrax scares.
It will also contain new measures against money- laundering and a crackdown on bureaux de change, which are often used to move terrorists' assets, and will order banks to scrutinise and report on any suspicious transactions.
New bills on fast-track extradition laws and asylum reform are not now expected until the new year.
*The Home Office is also planning to seize passports from British Muslims who are planning to travel abroad to fight for the Taliban or Osama bin Laden.
Home Office Minister Angela Eagle has confirmed she will give 'serious consideration' to powers at present used against football hooligans trying to travel abroad.
The law allows action against 'a person whose past or proposed activities are so demonstrably undesirable that the grant or continued enjoyment of passport facilities would be contrary to the public interest'.
Andrew Dismore, Labour MP for Hendon, said he would now pass a list of names to Eagle of people who had expressed a desire to travel abroad to fight for the Taliban. 'It is clear that if any British Muslim says he wants to travel to Afghanistan to try to kill British or US soldiers, then that is clearly against the public interest and his passport should be removed,' Dismore said.
LINK: http://www.observer.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4296620,00.html
The Guardian, UK
12th November, 2001Blunkett rejects 'airy fairy' fears
Patrick Wintour,
Terrorists may be detained without trial
chief political correspondentThe home secretary, David Blunkett, dismissed "airy fairy" fears about civil liberties yesterday as he announced plans to detain foreign terrorists indefinitely without a formal public trial.
The plans will require the government to opt out of Article 5 on the European Convention on Human Rights, which bans arbitrary detention.
As a first step Mr Blunkett will today declare a state of emergency, the legal formality required under the European convention rules.
Mr Blunkett set out a stark choice in face of criticism from libertarian groups. Speaking on LWT's Dimbleby programme yesterday, he said: "We could live in a world which is airy fairy, libertarian, where everybody does precisely what they like and we believe the best of everybody and then they destroy us".
Mr Blunkett's plans, outlined two weeks ago and due to be published as an emergency anti-terrorism bill tomorrow, met strong criticism.
The civil rights group Liberty said they would challenge the move, pointing out no other EU country felt the need to abrogate from the convention.
"This is a fundamental violation of the rule of law, our rights and traditional British values," the Liberty director John Wadham said. "The situation in the UK does not warrant such an extreme attack on a historic core principle of British justice."
However, the Conservatives want Mr Blunkett to consider withdrawing from the convention altogether.
The home secretary said he needed the powers to detain suspected foreign terrorists if they are nationals of countries with which Britain has no extradition agreement, or if the suspect might be tortured by the country to which he was to be deported.
The suspect will instead be detained in prison until he or she can find safe residence in a third country or convince the home secretary that he or she poses no threat to security.
In a bid to allay fears, Mr Blunkett has agreed that no one will be detained until they have had a hearing in camera with legal representation in front of a high court judge.
The cases will be heard by the special immigration advisory commission. There will be a right of appeal, but only on issues of law.
Mr Blunkett said: "What they wouldn't have is trial in public because the evidence being given is of such a nature that it would be detrimental both to public policy and our protection to do so".
The Law Lords have already ruled in a related case - involving British terrorists under the 2000 Terrorism Act - that the standard of required evidence at such private hearings is acceptable.
A new power will enable asylum claims from those suspected of terrorist associations to be rejected by the home secretary. Mr Blunkett is also to restrict access to judicial review of decisions.
But he said: "I don't want anyone to be under the misapprehension that some group of very innocent individuals who just wandered into this country are somehow going to be banged away for life."
He said the numbers of people involved were very small and denied that the plan amounted to internment. He also insisted that the declaration of a state of emergency was just a technicality.
Ministers plan to have the legislation rushed through the Commons this week, with its parliamentary stages completed by the Christmas recess.
But the Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said the government could on some of the proposals find itself in hot water with peers and demanded that the legislation should only remain on the statute book if it subject to an annual vote in both Lords and Commons.
The emergency legislation will include a much more widely drawn conspiracy law that would make it a criminal offence to train, engage in communication networks with or provide goods and services to known terrorists.
LINK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4296995,00.html
The Guardian, UK
12th November, 2001Editorial: Human rights on trial
Parliament begins the sternest of tests over its ability to defend human rights this week. Today the home secretary begins his moves to opt out of clause five of the European Convention on Human Rights which prohibits indefinite detention by secret trial. There can be few more serious breaches to human rights. Tomorrow he is due to publish the first of his anti-terrorists bills that will include other dangerous curbs to civil liberties. David Blunkett in a column in a Sunday newspaper yesterday said every measure in his new bill had had to meet "one simple requirement: that it contributes to combating terrorism and crime or increases our security." Important though these two criteria are, parliament must insist on others, like no unnecessary infringements of civil liberties.
Secret courts will not improve our securityThe tone was set yesterday by a somewhat cavalier Downing Street spokesman who declared: "Britain is closed to terrorism and we will take whatever action we can. People will object to it, but we are absolutely determined to get the balance right between human rights, which are important, and society's right to live free from terror." The spokesman failed to recognise several historical lessons in that response. First the idea that civil rights are automatically in conflict with security. This is far from the truth. The introduction of internment in Northern Ireland in 1971 did the exact opposite. It savagely reduced civil rights but also, by acting as a powerful driving force for IRA recruitment in Ireland and IRA fundraising in the US, savagely reduced security as well.
No one should be allowed to forget the British army spokesman's claim on the day internment was introduced in 1971: the IRA, he declared, had been "virtually defeated". Two decades later the Labour spokesman on Northern Ireland, Kevin McNamara, declared: "In our opinion it both repugnant and redundant and... is a constant reminder of the greatest political error made by any government in the handling of the emergency. It must go."
What is being introduced for international terrorist suspects is not internment, but the equally highly criticised Diplock system of justice which followed two years after internment. The suspects will be tried by a judge acting as judge and jury. The hearing will be in secret beyond public scrutiny. Judgments and the evidence upon which they are based will be secret, making them an ideal environment for prejudice and injustice.
Ministers have still not revealed the quality - or the origins - of the evidence that will be needed to detain someone indefinitely. But do not put one's trust in the fairness of "the authorities" Of the 340 suspects picked up in the first wave of arrests in Northern Ireland in 1971, more than 100 had to be freed within days. Whitehall argues the new powers would be used much more sparingly. Only small numbers would be involved, mainly foreign nationals suspected of international terrorism, who cannot be deported back to their home states because they would face death or torture. Officials suggest there are only 20 on the suspect list. But the law on human rights was not just designed to protect the many, but also the few.
The UK already has the most draconian laws in Europe for deterring and monitoring suspect terrorists. The latest Terrorist Act is less than two years old. No other European state is seeking the extra powers that David Blunkett has been outlining. It is up to parliament to ensure that the freedom for which the current "war on terrorism" is being waged, does not end up destroying the fundamental rights of citizens at home.
LINK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4296946,00.html
The Guardian, UK
13th November, 2001Civil liberties: Anti-terror bill damned for catch-all powers
Alan Travis,
Government accused of smuggling in draconian laws
home affairs editorThe government's new anti-terrorist bill was last night attacked as a cover to smuggle into law draconian new police powers that have little direct connection to the war against terrorism.
Publication of the bill yesterday revealed it contains drastic measures such as making it a criminal offence to publish details of the movement of nuclear waste trains, and the power to jail an animal rights extremist who refuses to remove a disguise such as a mask or face paint for up to a month
Details of the 125-clause bill, which is expected to become law by Christmas, confirm that suspected terrorists who could be interned for up to six months will not hear evidence from intelligence services that led to their detention as they and their lawyers will be excluded from in camera parts of their hearings. Their interests instead will be represented by an advocate appointed by the attorney general.
Civil liberties groups last night voiced concerns that the anti-terrorism, crime and security bill goes far further than dealing with the specific threats posed by the September 11 attacks on America.
The bill will allow confidential information about an individual held by any government department or local authority to be disclosed to the police and intelligence services for any criminal investigation - not just an investigation into terrorist offences.
Home Office officials yesterday cited the example of an official in the Department of Transport passing confidential information about a train driver if that person was known to be wanted by the police.
During the eight weeks it has taken to draft the bill it has grown from just 40 clauses to 125 as other measures have been added. John Wadham, director of Liberty, last night said that while the internment proposal was by some way the worst threat to civil rights, "other illiberal measures are being smuggled in under the cover of proposals to deal with the events of September 11. Too many of these proposals risk falling short of the highest British standards of justice".
But the home secretary, David Blunkett, yesterday insisted that the legislation contained "proportionate and targeted measures which will ensure and safeguard our way of life against those who would take our freedom away".
Ministers believe that about 16 suspected terrorists would have been caught by the detention powers had they been in force last year. "Because we are talking only about a handful of people, we are not threatening the civil liberties of this country, but we are ensuring those handful don't threaten those civil liberties," Mr Blunkett said.
He denied that the new offence of incitement to religious hatred would prevent reasoned debate, humour or criticism of religions or religious practices, stressing the new crime would protect atheists as much as Muslims.
The Home Office minister, Beverley Hughes, confirmed yesterday that plans for a much wider ranging anti-terrorist conspiracy law announced last month had been dropped. Ministers have also torn up plans to backdate to September a new offence of making hoax calls about anthrax and other noxious substances, as the number of such calls has dropped sharply.
Although the opposition parties have said they will support the bill when it has its second reading next week they made clear their unease yesterday. The Liberal Democrat spokesman, Simon Hughes, said the legislation was a "mixture of the welcome, the reasonable, the worrying and the completely unacceptable". He said while the detention powers would have to be renewed every year there was no similar expiry dates for the majority of emergency powers in the bill.
The ban on publishing details of movements of nuclear waste trains comes in clause 79, which outlaws unauthorised disclosures which may prejudice the security of any nuclear premises or nuclear material.
Clause 93 makes it a criminal offence punishable by up to one month in prison to refuse a reasonable police request to remove a disguise such as a mask or face paint in a place where a senior police officer believes serious violence may take place.
The emergency measures
- Detention of suspected terrorists Applies to foreign nationals certified by the home secretary as threats to national security. Detention will be reviewed every six months by a commission which will hear intelligence evidence in camera. Appeal allowed only on points of law. Powers will need annual renewal by parliament.
- Incitement to religious hatred Penalty of up to seven years for using "threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour intended or likely to stir up hatred against a group of people because of their religious belief (or lack of religious belief)".
- Airport security New powers will allow police to stop, detain, question and search aircraft passengers within Britain and to remove and arrest someone who refuses to leave an aircraft.
- Hoaxes Creates new offence of threatening to use noxious substances, such as anthrax, smallpox and acid, to make people believe there is a threat to human life or health.
- Internet data Requires internet service providers to retain data of internet and email traffic, such as itemised billing - but not content - for 12 months for use by police in serious crime investigations. To be renewed every two years.
- Weapons of mass destruction Makes it an offence to aid the overseas use or development of chemical, nuclear, biological or radiological weapons.
- Civil nuclear industry Bans publication of details of security of nuclear sites, transport of nuclear materials and sensitive nuclear technology such as uranium enrichment.
- Withholding information Makes it a criminal offence to fail to disclose information to the authorities that could help to prevent terrorist attacks.
- Security services Wider powers for MI6 and GCHQ to carry out "intelligence gathering" outside Britain.
- Disguises Makes it a criminal offence to refuse a police request to remove hand and face coverings, such as masks and face paint, in certain public order situations. Could be used against animal rights extremists.
- MPs bypass Anti-terrorist measures agreed by EU ministers to become law in Britain without need for legislation in British parliament.
- Terrorist finances Allows immediate freezing of assets of overseas individuals and groups that support terrorists.
- Bribery and corruption Introduces crimes of corruption committed by British citizens and companies abroad and by foreign nationals in Britain which "help to undermine good governance and contribute to the conditions which engender terrorism".
LINK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,593051,00.html
Daily Telegraph, London
19th November, 2001"Anti-Terrorism" Has Become the Western World's Equivalent of "Open Sesame"; Blunkett's anti-terror Bill hides the growth of state power
by Barbara AmielTen weeks after September 11 and the site in New York City is getting cleaned up. It looks like a huge construction site really, except for the smell. People who work in the area say they can't eat the food in local restaurants because it smells of something Not quite acrid, not quite smoky, something. The wreckage of the World Trade Centre looks like a deconstructed de Chirico painting. Beside it are skyscrapers, still intact, some 60 or 70 storeys high, covered completely with orange or brown nets. Orange means the buildings have "twisted" and windows may pop out. Dark brown means structural problems that can only be solved by demolition.
The buildings wait in silence to die, but no one is quite sure how to kill them. Underneath, the fire burns. There are no tourists here. Last week the crews discovered a lift, intact. They peeled off the skin. Inside, it was filled with bodies.
This is the aftermath of terrorism. It is real and terrible. I have now read anti-terrorism legislation in three countries - the United States, Canada and Britain. One consistent thread runs through all of them which, if left unacknowledged, is also a threat. The phrase "anti-terrorism" has become the Western world's equivalent of the Arabian nights' "open sesame". Utter the mantra "anti-terrorism" and, presto, under cover of fighting bin Laden & Co, you can pass measures that have little to do with terrorism and everything with extending the control of the state over our lives.
Britain is far from alone in this. In America, President Bush's new military courts can be convened to try aliens if the president "has reason to believe" they are members of terrorist organisations. These tribunals can condemn a non-citizen to death after a hearing in which evidence may be kept secret and a third of the officers sitting in judgment may dissent. There is no review by any civilian court. Canada has its anti-terrorism legislation, which relies on definitions of terrorist activity so broad that the Canadian courts will probably strike them down. Now we have Mr Blunkett's Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill.
The Bill's measures can be divided into three. What I call "Safe Rules" are new regulations that counter terrorism with no significant reduction of civil liberties or significant extension of state power. "Mixed Rules" are also designed to counter terrorism but involve some enhancement of state power and reduction of civil liberties: reasonable people can disagree over whether the price is worth paying. Then there are "Dead Wrong" measures. They do virtually nothing to counteract terrorism while reducing civil liberties in sometimes very significant ways. All three of these abound in Mr Blunkett's new Bill. Here are some examples.
Safe Rules: the Security of Pathogens and Toxins section requires the managers of laboratories and other premises holding stocks of lethal diseases and toxins to give the police information on the people working in such a facility. The Home Secretary is also given the power to prohibit a named individual from working there. This is perfectly sensible. If you work in a laboratory that has anthrax or smallpox strains, the authorities should be aware of your identity, just as they are if we drive a bus and apply for a licence. Similarly, the Immigration and Asylum recommendations allow the state to retain fingerprints for 10 years in asylum and certain immigration cases. This could help prevent applicants who have been turned down once from re-applying and creating multiple identities - which terrorists have done.
For Mixed Rules, take the Bill's regulations on bribery and corruption. The new Act will supersede the 1916 Act, which had local jurisdiction only. A British court can now interfere internationally in business methods. This might have some application to the fight against terrorism, but I suspect that in many cases the use of this section will simply give the state another handle in private and business transactions. British companies or businessmen who have to deal with local "customs" in business - including the provision of certain "perks" for clients - may now find themselves under the malicious, uncomprehending or ideological scrutiny of London bureaucrats.
A similar example of Mixed Rules is the whole Race and Religion section (part five). This section is intended to stop religious groups fomenting hatred for other groups. But it uses the terrible language introduced by the Left in the old racial offences legislation. The phrase "behaviour intended or likely" is insidious. "Intended" requires a guilty mind. "Likely" requires a subjective judgment. The only practical use of this section against terrorism will be to prevent the establishment of schools akin to the Pakistani madrassas, which encourage suicide bombers.
But this use is dwarfed by other uses to which the measure could be put by the authorities. Our present Government seems committed to ecumenism and uncomfortable with religious orthodoxy. We might use this section against those who say that people who don't believe in God will burn in hell. Or any Sunday school teacher who is not sufficiently ecumenical. The maximum penalty for this is seven years, which is certainly better than the penalty Salman Rushdie faced, but this section is in essence the fatwa of the ayatollahs of liberalism.
One example of "Dead Wrong" is in the section on disclosure. Getting around disclosure rules has been an aim of statists for years. They want a big clearing house for information gathered by various government agencies. All that stands in the way of Orwell's Oceania is that certain rules prevent Big Brother having complete files on us. Until now, whether it is Statistics, the Census, Inland Revenue or the National Health Service, information collected by the government comes with an assurance that it will be used for the specific purpose for which it is collected and none other. These assurances are predicated on a recognition that freedom and the values associated with it presuppose an area of privacy that ought to be as inviolate as a person's home.
In this section, the Government actually abandons the pretence that this Bill is simply about preventing terrorism. The "explanatory notes" on disclosure state that these new expanded disclosure rules will "ensure that public authorities can disclose certain types of otherwise confidential information where this is necessary for the purposes of fighting terrorism and other crimes" (my italics). The Bill itself goes even further: this disclosure will cover investigations including "tribunals of any description". The Government's various revenue departments will have "no obligation of secrecy imposed by statute or otherwise" for any investigative purpose.
This proposed Act blithely sweeps away all assurances we have had that when we report information to the Government under an official promise of confidentiality, that information cannot be used by another branch of the Government without, minimally, a court order showing cause. In this section "anti-terrorism" is a battering ram to break down all restraints and considerations of privacy.
One might concede that in certain cases, disclosure will help the fight against terrorism. But I cannot readily see how extension of disclosure to the Cereal Marketing Act (1965), the Diseases of Fishes Act (1983), the Schedule to the Property Misdescriptions Act (1991) and the dozens of other acts named as recipients of the extended disclosure rules will do so.
The detention provisions for asylum seekers and refugees have attracted much comment and those sections are clearly unhappy developments for those of us concerned with civil liberties. I have a great deal of sympathy for the argument that if we had not been such super liberals signing on to the European Human Rights Conventions, we would not have had this problem. Super-liberalism will give you sub-liberal consequences. Our officials can't use the normal discretion in admitting people that would have prevented much of this problem.
Ultimately, the key question with this proposed legislation is: what aspects of it would have helped prevent the September 11 catastrophe? It would be a tragedy indeed if we compromised our freedoms without making a dent in evil and only accentuated the 21st-century's march towards statism. The balance is difficult: nothing is more injurious to civil liberties than terrorism and terrorists and what they would do if they were able to make our laws. Short though the debate allowed on this Bill is, if its intended targets ruled us, there would be no debate at all.
Washington Post,
20th November, 2001Briton Defends Terrorism Measure
By T.R. Reid
Blunkett Says U.S. Order Is Tougher
Washington Post Foreign ServiceLondon, Nov. 19 - Responding to stinging criticism from left and right, Britain's home secretary today defended a proposed law permitting suspected terrorists to be jailed without trial by arguing that the measure is not as tough as President Bush's recent executive order authorizing secret military tribunals for foreigners charged with terrorist offenses in the United States.
David Blunkett, the chief law enforcement official in Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet, faced repeated attacks in Parliament as he argued that Britain must withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights so that it can impose indefinite detention without trial for foreigners alleged to be terrorists.
Under questioning, Blunkett conceded that no other European nation has withdrawn from the human rights convention since Sept. 11. But he cited the United States as a model, noting the "sweeping powers of detention" in an executive order signed by Bush last week that could bring terror suspects to trial faster and in more secrecy than in normal criminal courts.
"In the United States, they can use the military courts and present evidence" secretly, Blunkett told the House of Commons. "I would not advocate that course here."
Blair's proposed anti-terrorism, security and crime bill does not involve military tribunals, but it does authorize foreigners to be jailed with no hearing if police or security officials identify them as potential terrorists. The measure also gives the government broad new powers to track an individual's telephone calls, e-mail traffic and Internet browsing.
The comprehensive plan prompted strong criticism from civil libertarians, but it is almost certain to become law, probably within a month. Blair's Labor Party has such a heavy majority in Parliament that any government proposal routinely passes. In this case the chief opposition, the Conservative Party, has agreed to support most of the bill.
Last year, Blair declared a "monumental step forward" when his government incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into British law -- the first written bill of rights in British history. But Blunkett, the home secretary -- roughly equivalent to the U.S. attorney general -- now says Britain must opt out of parts of that code to avoid the provision requiring speedy trial for all criminal defendants.
Although courts here recognize a public trial as part of unwritten "common law," Britons had never had a written guarantee of the right to trial until the country adopted the European rights convention. "In a country without a written constitution, governments can change things when they want to," noted Graham Allen, a member of Parliament from the Labor Party.
In 1979, following a bombing by the Irish Republican Army, Britain instituted similar detention rules for suspected terrorists in Northern Ireland.
About 2,000 people were "interned," in some cases for years, without trial.
Blunkett said that the new detention policy would not undermine human rights in Britain "because we are only talking about a handful of people."
Media reports here say police have already identified about two dozen people who could not be held under current law, but are to be jailed when the new measure is enacted.
Suspects jailed under the law could be held indefinitely, but there would be a review of the detention every six months.
The rules do not say whether suspects would have the right to a lawyer.
The anti-terrorism bill also gives police more power to peruse records of telephone and Internet usage of both British citizens and foreigners.
Privacy rules here currently require telecommunication and Internet companies to destroy within three months records of calls, messages and Web sites visited. Under the new law, providers will be instructed to retain the information and make it available to government investigators as requested.
LINK: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55694-2001Nov19?language=printer
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
21st November, 2001Critics urge Britain to water down terror bill
By Patrick Wintour in LondonThe British Government is under pressure to dilute its emergency anti-terrorism bill after it came under a hail of all-party criticism in parliament for being too far-reaching.
The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, turned on his parliamentary critics on Monday, saying he despaired at the inability of some people to remember the scale of the threat posed by the terrorist attacks of September 11.
He faced repeated fire in Parliament as he argued that Britain must withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights so it could impose indefinite detention without trial for foreigners alleged to be terrorists.
Under questioning, Mr Blunkett conceded that no other European nation had withdrawn from the human rights convention since September 11. But he used the United States as a model, citing the "sweeping powers of detention" in an executive order signed by President George Bush last week that could bring terror suspects to trial faster and in more secrecy than in normal criminal courts.
"In the United States, they can use the military courts and present evidence" secretly, Mr Blunkett told Parliament.
"I would not advocate that course here."
Mr Bush was also forced to defend his executive order creating special military tribunals to try foreigners charged with terrorism, saying on Monday that he needed the option "should we ever bring one of these al-Qaeda members in alive".
The times demanded unusual measures, he said.
Mr Blair's anti-terrorism, security and crime bill does not involve military tribunals, but it does authorise the jailing of foreigners without a hearing if police or security officials identify them as potential terrorists. The measure also gives the Government new powers to track an individual's telephone calls, email traffic and Internet browsing.
The comprehensive plan prompted strong criticism from civil libertarians, but with the Conservative Party agreeing to support most of the bill it is almost certain to become law.
In the House of Commons the proposals were given a second reading by a vote of 458 votes to five, but the bill is expected to be criticised heavily in the committee stage this week.
It also faces a difficult ride in the House of Lords. Peers sent a preliminary warning on Monday when the Liberal Democrats voted against abrogating the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Conservatives abstained. An abrogation would let the Government detain suspected foreign terrorists without trial, the most controversial of the 120 clauses in the bill.
In a minor concession Mr Blunkett promised to amend the bill so that suspected terrorists would only be arrested if suspicion was based on "reasonable grounds".
He also promised that aspects of the bill would lapse after five years, and that the Ministry of Defence police would be subject to normal complaints procedures.
However, he will come under pressure to concede a full judicial review of any detention decision, and to drop clauses unrelated to terrorism, including proposals for an offence of inciting religious hatred and allowing public bodies to disclose information to each other in criminal investigations.
The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post
Chicago Tribune,
20th November, 2001British terror bill stirs rights worries
By Polly Stewart
Associated PressLondon -- British lawmakers overwhelmingly approved tough new anti-terrorist proposals Monday that some lawyers say might contravene the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Anti-Terrorism, Security and Crime Bill includes measures to detain suspected terrorists, tighten airport security, freeze suspected terrorists' funds and create a new offense: incitement to religious hatred.
The bill passed its key second reading in Britain's House of Commons by a vote of 458-5. It will be scrutinized by committees and must pass one more Commons vote and approval from the House of Lords before becoming law.
Home Secretary David Blunkett said the legislation is a "rational, reasonable and proportionate response" to the terror attacks in the United States.
"Circumstances and public opinion demanded urgent and appropriate action after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon," he said.
Some human-rights lawyers, citing the European convention, have questioned the legality of a provision that would allow the government to detain people indefinitely without trial.
The provision applies to terrorist suspects who are not British citizens and whose lives would be endangered if they were deported.
The convention bans European countries who are party to the agreement from detaining suspects indefinitely without trial. However, Article 15 of the European Convention says countries can opt out of this provision "in time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation in extraordinary circumstances."
In a written opinion for the London-based civil liberties group Liberty, human-rights lawyer David Pannick said Britain's circumstances did not satisfy this condition.
"There has been no terrorist incidents in this country associated with the 11 September attacks in New York and Washington," Pannick said in the report. "Indeed, there have been grave terrorist outrages in England in recent years [attributed to the Irish Republican Army] which did not lead the government to conclude that detention without trial was appropriate.
"An important additional factor is that neither the United States of America nor any other of the more-than 40 states in the Council of Europe has introduced similar measures," Pannick said.
Another human-rights lawyer, John Cooper, said he too has "grave concerns" about the bill. He also questioned whether Britain could enforce such a law.
The House of Commons' influential Home Affairs Select Committee said the bill was being rushed through Parliament.
The committee's chairman, Chris Mullin, said it had "reluctantly accepted" the case for new powers to lock up suspected terrorists but has suggested additional safeguards be built in.
The government hopes to have the new law in place by the start of the Christmas parliamentary recess.
LINK: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/printedition/chi-0111200278nov20.story?coll=chi%2Dprintnews%2Dhed
The Guardian, UK
20th November, 2001MPs savage terror bill
Patrick Wintour,
Both houses keep up pressure to dilute legislation as angry Blunkett gives ground
chief political correspondentDavid Blunkett, the home secretary, was under severe pressure to dilute his emergency anti-terrorism bill last night after 10 Labour MPs joined a 74-vote cross-party revolt against his plans to rush the bill through the Commons in just three days.
When the bill got its second reading after a stormy six-hour Commons debate, the government got a 458-5 vote majority, with four Labour MPs and one Tory - former cabinet minister John Gummer - voting No, backed by two Tory tellers, Douglas Hogg and Richard Shepherd.
But when the motion to subject detailed debate on the bill to a tight timetable - completed by next Monday - was voted on, 74 MPs demanded extra time. The four Labour rebels, George Galloway, Paul Marsden, Brian Sedgemore and Jeremy Corbyn, were joined by Bob Marshall-Andrews, Neil Gerrard, Kevin McNamara and Dr Lynne Jones, plus one other.
Under a hail of criticism in both Lords and Commons, Mr Blunkett had earlier endured his most gruelling parliamentary session since becoming a minister. In frustration he said he despaired at the inability of some people to remember the scale of the threat posed by the September 11 terrorist attacks.
But the measures were criticised as going too far and being too wide by the chairman of the home affairs select committee, Chris Mullin, and his predecessor Lord Corbett.
Although the Labour majority will ensure that the wide-ranging bill is quickly passed by MPs, the measures face a difficult ride in the Lords.
Peers sent a warning shot yesterday when the Liberal Democrats voted against a derogation, or opting out, from the European convention on human rights and the Conservatives abstained. A derogation would let the government detain suspected foreign terrorists without trial: the most controversial of the 120 clauses in the bill.
In his first, as yet minor, concessions yesterday Mr Blunkett promised to amend the bill so that he would only arrest suspected terrorists if his suspicion was based on reasonable grounds. He also promised that aspects of the bill would fall after five years, and promised to make the Ministry of Defence police subject to normal complaints procedures.
But he will come under pressure to concede a full judicial review of any detention decision, and to drop clauses unrelated to terrorism, including proposals for an offence of inciting religious hatred and allowing public bodies to disclose information to each other in criminal investigations.
During a 70-minute speech in the Commons, Mr Blunkett had to wait 40 minutes before a Labour MP - Kevin Hughes - came to his defence.
Mr Hughes asked: "Don't you find it bizarre, like I do, that the yoghurt-eating, muesli-eating, Guardian-reading fraternity are only too happy to want to protect the human rights of people who engage in terrorist acts but never once do they talk about the human rights of those affected by those terrorist acts?"
Mr Blunkett hit out at his media critics, saying the most difficult decision some of them ever faced was what to buy at Sainsbury's.
He insisted that the bill was necessary because the terrorist threat has increased dramatically since September 11: "they have declared that it is open season on all of us".
But Lord Corbett, a former chairman of the home affairs select committee, said the new powers smacked of "the worst aspects of the Soviet Union and other repressive states".
LINK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4302587,00.html
The Times, London
20th November, 2001No quarter given as Blunkett takes on House
It is years since a visitor to the Commons could have witnessed a scene such as yesterday’s: a strong-minded Cabinet minister, wholly in command of his brief, using his own words, his own brain, to defend a Bill, not as government policy, but as the child of his own belief, before a tremendously sceptical House ready to rise again and again to reject his argument. A magnificent display of obstinacy and conviction - on both sides.
David Blunkett was introducing his Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill at second reading. He hit a storm.
Both sides had a formidable case. The difference between them went the deeper because they agreed on so much. There was little serious dispute over fact, law, or the aims of anti-terrorist policy. On one issue alone the debate turned: weighing the infringement of liberty against the enhancement of security, what weight should be placed in each balance? Nobody won, nobody lost, nobody backed down. It was a proper fight between conflicting beliefs and interests. This, and not the horse-trading pursuit of some lowest-common-denominator "consensus", is the House at its best.
The moment the Home Secretary rose he was attacked on all sides: indeed the assault started at Points of Order before he rose. Many MPs were furious about the shortness of time allowed for consideration of this Bill, Douglas Hogg (Sleaford & N Hykeham) and Edward Garnier (Harborough) making the running on the Tory side, Kevin McNamara (Hull N) and Mark Fisher (Stoke-on-Trent Central) attacking from behind. Mr Fisher, a good egg who actually looks like an egg, leapt up and down growling while, beside him, Bob Marshall-Andrews (Medway), in a Vesuvial rage, rumbled and Helen Jackson (Sheffield Hillsborough) twittered.
Ten minutes in, Mr Blunkett reached his first big argument - for detaining without trial certain apparently dangerous persons. Assailed from every direction, the Home Secretary began to fight.
Fifty minutes into his speech, and on the same issue, he was still fighting. He had neither given an inch, nor convinced a single opponent. Only his Tory Shadow, Oliver Letwin, really drew blood (later) when he needled Mr Blunkett into slamming down his notes in rage.
By the time I left, after an hour, the Home Secretary had moved to his proposed law against religious hatred, and was being attacked from every quarter. Here, too, the Home Secretary was not giving ground. By turns amused, angry, provocative - and more than once speechless with exasperation - this blind Cabinet minister would stare around the room guessing, with sometimes incredible accuracy, whence and from whom each of many mutters was coming, and invite the mutterer to state his case. His junior ministers, festooned with some white ribbon into which they had been blackmailed by whatever is supposed to be the week’s cause, looked like fettucinistrewn dummies beside their unribboned master. I heard not a single intervention in his support, unless you count Kevin Hughes (Lab, Doncaster N) who lashed out against the “yoghurt-eating, mueslieating, Guardian-reading, sandal-wearing” airyfairies who opposed the Bill. Mr Hughes thus offended half his own side, and deeply wounded truffle-munching, grouse-shooting, port-swilling, brogue-wearing Telegraph-reading Tories, who also opposed the Bill.
There was one casualty. As the Liberal Democrat spokesman Simon Hughes began an interruption, a lady in the public gallery passed out. Such is Mr Hughes’s power to bore that he can now stun, within the space of a single sentence, in mere anticipation of what is to come.
LINK: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,11-2001532898,00.html
The Guardian, UK
20th November, 2001Blunkett under fire from all sides on terror bill
Patrick Wintour,
MPs fear loss of traditional freedoms
chief political correspondentDavid Blunkett, the home secretary, yesterday told MPs that his emergency anti-terrorism bill was required to protect the country from terrorists who have declared open season on Britain and its way of life.
Facing a barrage of hostile questions during the bill's second reading, he denied he was riding roughshod over democracy by giving MPs only three days to debate the 124-clause bill.
The anti-terrorism, crime and security bill was given a second reading by 458 votes to five, a government majority of 453, but faces a rough ride in its committee stage and when it goes to the Lords.
Ministers have allowed just three days to rush the bill through all its Commons stages.
Mr Blunkett said detailed proposals had been published on October 15, followed proper deliberation and were less draconian than if they had been published in the immediate aftermath of September 11. He repeatedly claimed that civil right lobbyists had misunderstood the proposals, which he said built on existing judicial practice.
The bill will allow the government to detain suspected foreign terrorists without proper trial if there is no safe third country to which they can be deported. The measure requires the government to opt out from aspects of the European convention on human rights.
Admitting that he was facing "substantial heckling" from his own side, Mr Blunkett said: "The threat has increased dramatically, not merely because people acted as suicide bombers but because they have declared open season on all of us, in terms of organising to destroy our lives, our liberty and way of life."
The home secretary said he despaired at the inability "of some to hold in their minds the gravity of what we are dealing with" and insisted: "The issue is whether the home secretary should hold someone when we cannot transfer them to a safe third country, or whether we should release them into the community."
Chris Mullin, the home affairs select committee chairman, said the government should require that the bill be dropped after five years, or be reintroduced with a full parliamentary process.
He also insisted that plans to introduce new laws on religous discrimination had no place in emergency legislation.
Kevin McNamara, Labour MP for Hull East, claimed the bill contained the embryo of five bills, but the equivalent of only four committee days had been set aside for debate in the Commons.
Mark Fisher, the former minister and Labour MP for Stoke on Trent Central, warned that "when this house acts quickly, it seldom acts wisely".
Jeremy Corbyn, Labour MP for Islington North, said many of those who were appalled by September 11 did not believe the answer was to "suspend traditional rights".
Brian Sedgemore, Labour MP for Hackney South condemned the bill as "a ragbag of the most coercive measures that the best mandarin minds from the Home Office can produce". He said: "Not since the panic and hysteria that overcame the British establishment in the aftermath of the French revolution has this house seen such draconian legislation."
For the Conservatives, Oliver Letwin , shadow home secretary, said his party had the "severest reservations" about the part of the bill which outlaws incitement to religious hatred. He doubted if ministers had any idea how the powers - raising issues of freedom of expression - would be interpreted by the courts. The anti-terrorism clauses also needed to be time-limited.
The former Tory cabinet minister, John Gummer, who joined four Labour MPs in voting against the bill, branded parts of the legislation "objectionable and wholly wrong". Mr Gummer said the new offence of incitement to religious hatred could outlaw Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses.
Another Tory, Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) said Britain was becoming a "security state". Mr Shepherd said provisions on bribery and corruption and incitement to religious hatred should never have been included in the legislation.
The new powers of detention were "wholly unacceptable. The one king of our law becomes the home secretary. He determines what is right and what is wrong".
Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said the government had made no clear and persuasive case for opting out from the European convention on human rights and insisted that the bill should be restricted to issues directly linked to terrorism.
Mr Hughes criticised the timetabling of the bill, claiming that "16 hours maximum for a bill of this size is just not realistically possible or even justifiable, however exceptional the circumstances".
LINK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4302550,00.html
The Guardian, UK
20th November, 2001Abolition of ancient rights proves hard to swallow
Simon Hoggart,
The GuardianDavid Blunkett had the task of launching his anti-terrorism, crime and security bill yesterday. This is the one which will allow us to bang up suspected terrorists indefinitely, without either charge or trial. MPs on all sides tried to tear him to pieces; he survived by deploying a blend of thoughtfulness and good humour, with only occasional outbursts of rage.
The bill is likely to be law by this time next week. Even rightwing MPs felt that, when it came to abolishing a right established in Magna Carta 786 years ago, they should spend slightly longer than seven days on the job.
The home secretary doesn't agree. In fact, he has only contempt for "airy-fairy civil rights" and the lawyers who, in his view, spend their time worrying about these matters at £300 an hour while the terrorists fill lorries with Semtex before heading off to a nuclear power station.
Or, come to that, for "those who write columns who have never taken responsibility for any decision they have taken in their lives except what to buy in Sainsbury's". (This was probably not an attack on the supermarket's poster boy, Jamie Oliver. "Whack 'em in the ole jail, turn the ole key, mmm, lovely stuff...")
But it was Labour's Kevin Hughes of Doncaster North who summed it up for the incarcerators. He made a ferocious attack on - and I swear this is what it sounded like - "the yoghurt-eating, muesli-eating, Guardian-eating fraternity".
Even though Mr Hughes was the only person in an hour to support him, the home secretary found that a bit much. "I must declare that I do eat yoghurt, and I sometimes eat muesli, and I wear sandals in summer." However, even he would not admit consuming the Guardian, either literally or figuratively. Few members of the government find this paper easy to digest.
But the chamber was full of Guardian eaters of one kind or another, some quite surprising. Mr Blunkett knows he must placate as many MPs as he can if he's going to get the bill next week, so he stopped his speech every time someone wanted to intervene. This was often.
At one point, he was answering an intervention during an answer to an intervention, which was in turn... well, you get the idea. After more than an hour he had only got halfway down the first manilla page of his braille script.
The former Tory cabinet minister Douglas Hogg popped up as often as a mole in an arcade "whack-a-mole" game. The bill had 140 pages and 124 clauses, yet after today MPs would have only two days to scrutinise it.
Labour's Kevin McNamara pointed out that the whole thing was being dispatched in the time normally spent on four committee meetings. He sat down to that wildly unfamiliar sound, wild Tory cheering.
Mr Blunkett said that the whole business had been considered for 10 weeks. Mark Fisher, a Labour ex-minister who is becoming a highly efficient, one-man suicide awkward squad, said there was a world of difference between tossing ideas round and a printed bill. "When this house acts quickly, it seldom acts wisely," he said, to more cheers from the party which brought in the Dangerous Dogs Act and set up the child support agency.
Labour backbencher Bob Marshall-Andrews wanted to know why, if the evidence against these suspects was so great, they couldn't be tried in the normal way.
Mr Blunkett said that if they could use it in court, then they would. It looks, in short, as if these people are to be convicted on lobby terms: "Informed sources suggested last night that he was as guilty as sin..."
Mr Marshall-Andrews looked displeased. But he is a man who can eat an entire copy of the Guardian for breakfast, washed down with a hot mug of bile-flavoured coffee.
LINK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4302551,00.html
The Independent, UK
20th November, 2001Five dissenters as MPs back Bill to allow internment
By Ben Russell
War on Terrorism: Legislation
Political CorrespondentDavid Blunkett, the Home Secretary, steered emergency anti-terrorist legislation through the Commons last night despite a barrage of complaints from MPs, who attacked measures to allow foreign suspects to be detained without trial.
Backbenchers denounced the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill as an erosion of civil liberties and complained that debate on the 114 pages of legislation was limited to three days.
Five MPs, including the former Conservative minister John Gummer, voted against the Bill on its second reading, leaving the Government with a 453 majority.
Brian Sedgemore, Labour MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch, said the Bill was "a ragbag of the most coercive measures that the best mandarin minds from the Home Office can produce. Not since the panic and hysteria that overcame the British establishment in the aftermath of the French Revolution has this House seen such draconian legislation."
The other three who voted against were the Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North), George Galloway (Glasgow Kelvin) and Paul Marsden (Shrewsbury and Atcham).
Mr Gummer said that parts of the Bill were "objectionable and wholly wrong."
Mr Blunkett faced an hour of intense questioning when he opened the debate. He promised an extended annual debate to renew the powers in the Bill, but insisted the measures were essential now terrorists had "declared open season" on the West. "I would be the first to come back to this House and ask that we drop that power, but I am the first to ask in the circumstances that we agree to it," he said.
The 124-clause Bill includes measures to detain suspected terrorists without charge or trial, tighten airport security, freeze suspected terrorists' funds and create a new offence of incitement to religious hatred.
The Commons Home Affairs Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights have criticised the plan, warning that changes to traditional civil liberties may not be justified by increased terrorist threats.
But Mr Blunkett told MPs: "This is our home. It's our country. We have a right to say that if people are abusing that right and seek to abuse rights of asylum in order to be able to hide in this country ... We must take steps to do something."
He said the terrorist threat against Britain had increased drastically since 11 September. "If 10 weeks makes such a difference to people's perceptions, then I despair in terms of whether we can hold in our minds the gravity of what we've been dealing with, the threat that exists and whether, proportionately and cautiously, we should take steps to protect ourselves," he said.
Ministers hope to have the legislation on the statute books by Christmas. But Labour backbenchers led MPs of all parties yesterday to criticise the way the Bill was being rushed through Parliament.
Mark Fisher, Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, warned: "Surely the Home Secretary accepts the historical precedent that when this House acts quickly, it seldom acts wisely."
Mr Corbyn asked: "Does the Home Secretary accept that there are many people who are appalled at what happened on 11 September, but do not believe the answer is to suspend many of our traditional legal rights?"
Oliver Letwin, the shadow Home Secretary, said: "The problem here is that there has been wholly inadequate consultation of a wide range of measures because of the time.
"The Home Secretary believes he needs these powers now to protect us against what may be an appalling attack. To the extent that proves right, I am unwilling on my part, and the part of my party, to put this country at the risk of the Home Secretary being right. That is why, uniquely, or very exceptionally, we are willing to accept the argument here that we should look at this thing again later."
Liberal Democrats attacked the legislation as a step too far, and said they would abstain.
The proposals, however, won support from Labour MP Kevin Hughes (Doncaster North) who said: "Don't you find it bizarre, like I do, that the yoghurt-eating, muesli-eating, Guardian-reading fraternity are only too happy to want to protect the human rights of people who engage in terrorist acts, but never once do they talk about the human rights of those affected by those terrorist acts?"
Some 23 amendments to the Bill were tabled ahead of yesterday's debate. Seventeen Labour backbenchers, including Peter Kilfoyle, a former defence minister, Tony Wright, chairman of the Commons Public Administration Select Committee, and Gwyneth Dunwoody, chairman of the Transport Select Committee, called for controversial powers for detention to be removed.
The Conservative MP for Tatton, George Osborne, said the internment measures "drive a coach and horses through 800 years of legal history".
LINK: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?dir=62&story=105792&host=3&printable=1
The Scotsman,
20th November, 2001Tories rebel on terror bill
Jason BeattieTory peers are planning to vote against key sections of the anti-terrorism bill in a move which will throw into chaos David Blunkett’s ambition to have the legislation on the statute book by Christmas.
Although the Conservatives claim they support the general tenure of the controversial bill, there are serious doubts about the proposals to intern terrorist suspects without trial and the inclusion in the draft legislation of the so-called race hate laws.
The emergency bill passed its second reading in the Commons last night without Tory opposition and is set to go the Upper House next week.
But the Opposition is planning to table a series of motions in the Lords which, if successful, will effectively sabotage the Home Secretary's plan to have the legislation enacted before parliament breaks for its winter recess on December 18.
A senior Tory source said the party did not want to appear weak on terrorism but there was deep concern at the planned extension of government powers resulting from the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill.
"There are a number of areas, particularly proposals to make religious hatred a criminal offence, which we believe are not necessary to defeating terrorism at home," he said. "Oliver Letwin has already made clear we would prefer deportation to internment. We will be looking to introduce a number of ‘sunset clauses’ to the part of the legislation dealing with this issue."
The Conservatives are confident that with the backing of the Liberal Democrats, cross-benchers and Labour rebels, the offending parts of the legislation can be defeated when it goes to a Lord’s vote in a couple of weeks.
Mr Letwin, the shadow home secretary, said the Tories would give the legislation a "reluctant" backing in the Commons.
"We will be putting down amendments to improve this bill and make it more balanced," he added.
Home Office sources expressed surprise at the decision by Tories to scupper parts of the bill in the Lords, claiming the Prime Minister had private assurances from the Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith that the legislation would receive a safe passage.
The Guardian,
21st November, 2001Innocents are going to be locked up
by John Wadham
The terror bill is not needed and will lead to human rights abuses
Anti-terrorism laws have led to some of the worst human rights abuses in this country over the last 30 years, contributed to miscarriages of justice and led to the unnecessary detention of thousands of innocent people. Only a tiny percentage of those detained have ever been charged and, almost without exception, could have been detained under ordinary criminal laws.
The current terrorism bill will give the home secretary the power to intern on the basis of suspicion, not what a person has done but what an intelligence expert thinks they might do. The authorities will be dependent on the intelligence of foreign governments as a basis for suspicion and detention. Some of these sources lack democratic and human rights credentials and some of the suspects will be dissidents and asylum seekers. These measures will only apply to foreigners. British citizens will be exempt.
The home secretary argues that his proposal is not internment because those locked up will be free to leave the country at any time. These people will be "free" to return to the country that persecuted them or to the place where they are likely to be tortured and executed. And they will be free to find another country to take them, but only after they have been branded as terrorists by him. These are people he says are so dangerous we need to detain them indefinitely. However, if they do want to go to another country they can be released immediately. Presumably, if the "intelligence" reports are correct, they will then engage in terrorist activities elsewhere or be free to plan attacks on the UK, the state that locked them up.
There will be an appeal but the person and his or her lawyer will not be entitled to see all the evidence and the appeal panel will have to exclude them when it hears that secret material. The case will not have to be proved beyond reasonable doubt, the presumption of innocence will not apply and the usual quality checks on the evidence will be missing. Finally the bill will remove the rights of judicial review and habeas corpus.
Internment has been tried in Northern Ireland, the intelligence was wrong and hundreds of innocent nationalists were locked up. It was tried more recently during the Gulf war, when again innocent people were locked up. This time those detained are likely all to be Muslims.
There are alternatives. Those who plan or commit criminal offences in the UK can be prosecuted here. The new draconian Terrorism Act, which came into force earlier this year, extends the possibilities of prosecution here for offences committed in other countries. In some cases, it will be possible to send people to face trial for offences that they have committed in other countries back to those countries. The security services here could keep people under surveillance given all their new powers in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and ensure that they commit no offences. Consideration needs to be given to creating a new and fair system to try suspected international terrorists who cannot receive a fair trial in their own country.
The government, only one year after bringing the Human Rights Act, is opting out from one of its fundamental provisions, the prohibition on arbitrary detention. Of the 40 or so other countries signed up to the convention we are the only countryto do this. Not even in the US, where the September 11 atrocities took place, has the government considered it necessary to adopt a policy of indefinite detention.
The government's proposed sop to the Muslim community is to extend the criminal law to make it an offence to incite religious hatred. There are already laws which could be better used to protect all of our communities. Given the discrimination that exists in the police and criminal justice system it is more likely that Muslims will be prosecuted than those who vilify them. What we need is stronger anti-discrimination laws that will prevent anyone from being sacked or harassed on the grounds of religion alone. People should keep the freedom to criticise other's ideas, even their religious ideas.
Other measures have been smuggled into this bill which have nothing to do with terrorism or the events of September 11. Because of the priority given to the internment issue, many of these have had no publicity. They include the power to: take fingerprints to establish identity; allow the police to take identity photographs by force; allow personal and private information to be obtained by the police and others without any controls, checks or safeguards; keep the fingerprints of all asylum seekers even those given refugee status; store communications data of millions of innocent users, including email and the internet, on the off-chance that it might be of use in the future; allow EU law on home affairs matters to be implemented by way of secondary legislation, usurping the key role of parliament in protecting the rights of citizens and creating a criminal offence for those who do not give information about terrorism to the police.
· John Wadham is director of Liberty. info@liberty-human-rights.org.uk
LINK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4303409,00.html
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