Civil Liberties | ukwatch.net

Freedom of Information: Scotland to explore extending its reach

tim — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:28:04 +0000

The Scottish Government has raised the prospect of extending the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act to cover more organisations carrying out certain public functions.

Parliamentary Business Minister Bruce Crawford said the Government is committed to fully exploring the issues around coverage but stressed that a final decision on extending coverage would be taken only after consultation with interested parties and those organisations potentially affected.

As a first step, Mr Crawford will have discussions with interested parties about bringing within the scope of the Act the following organisations:

> Registered social landlords
> Contractors who provide public services that are a function of a public authority (for example, contractors providing prison services)
> Local authority trusts or bodies set up by local authorities (for example, bodies set up by local authorities as limited companies to run leisure facilities)

At the start of a week when the Minister will be in London and Cardiff to discuss FOI policy in the UK Government and the Welsh Assembly, Mr Crawford said:

“The Scottish Government is committed to the principles that underpin Freedom of Information legislation. Principles of openness and transparency, essential parts of open democratic government and responsive public services.

“We’ve taken steps within the Government to publish more of our material proactively. For example, we recently revised our Publication Scheme which describes the vast range of Government information we routinely publish. The First Minister also recently announced a pilot scheme within an area of the Scottish Government, which will see an increase in the amount of information made public.

“And we are committed to continually assessing whether the scope of the Act can be improved. I believe it has served the people of Scotland well but it is still a relatively new piece of legislation and many people and organisations are still getting used to both its real and potential impact.

“The organisations we are looking at in terms of coverage have not been chosen at random. They are bodies about whom concerns over a lack of coverage have consistently been raised with us. The concerns may have arisen because of changes in the way public services are delivered – for example the contracting out of services traditionally provided directly by a public authority.

“Discussions will take place before any decision is taken to formally consult. But formal consultation is not a rubber-stamping exercise. Any extension of coverage needs to be measured and appropriate.

“For example, we will look closely at the issue of the proportional impact on smaller organisations particularly in the voluntary sector.

“I am aware there are differing arguments and there is a need to balance those. But I believe it is only right to give serious thought to extending FOI coverage in Scotland.

“Later this week I will discuss FOI with the relevant UK and Welsh Ministers and share our experiences. I am keen to ensure that Scotland continues to build a reputation for greater transparency and accountability”.

The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (the Act) provides significant and important rights allowing access to recorded information.

The Act came into force on January 1, 2005 and provides a statutory right of access to information held by Scottish public authorities. These include, for example, the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament, local authorities, schools, colleges, NHS Scotland and the police. The Act also requires the proactive publication of certain information. Compliance with the Act is promoted and enforced by the Scottish Information Commissioner.

Police force journalist to share notes

Ellie Keen — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:53:37 +0000

Freelance journalist Shiv Malik must hand over his source material on terrorism to the police, the High Court ruled last week, slamming Malik for daring to take the case to a judicial review – and forcing him to pay costs.

Malik’s crucial test case succeeded in reining in the police, who had raided his house in March in search of his notes. The court’s main ruling two weeks ago spelt out that the police have no right to conduct speculative “fishing expeditions” to force journalists to hand over their research.

But the case has starkly revealed how the terror laws mean journalists must go to the authorities if they suspect that a source has information about “terrorism”.

Given the broad-brush definition of terrorism in the Terrorism Act 2006 – which includes “glorifying” terror and possessing terrorist materials without the intention of committing an offence – the latest ruling means many Muslims will perceive journalists as a direct extension of the police. Anyone with genuine information about the terrorist milieu will have to weigh up the risk that talking to a reporter is like talking to the cops.

The court’s first ruling, however, was welcomed by Malik, who stressed how it circumscribed police powers. He told Free Press: “It’s a victory for common sense in that, from the wider perspective, we can protect confidential sources – that’s a big victory.

“The High Court said production orders are allowed, but in my case they really do have to be precisely drafted, the police can’t just go on fishing expeditions. Protecting journalists’ sources should be paramount, and now the High Court has said even in terrorism cases journalists are allowed to maintain confidential sources.”

The NUJ also emphasised how the initial ruling sent a clear signal to police that they can’t see journalists as “simply another tool of intelligence gathering”. Speaking outside the High Court after the ruling was announced, general secretary Jeremy Dear said that Greater Manchester Police had “failed to recognise the special nature of journalistic material. Rather than take the time to consider what information they really needed, the police went fishing, hoping a general order would dredge up something of use.”

Malik is an established freelance who has written extensively on terrorism for national newspapers and magazines. He is working on a book with the former Islamist Hassan Butt, who is linked to a forthcoming terrorism trail in Manchester in the autumn. Greater Manchester Police, who raided Malik’s home in March in pursuit of his notes, have also served draft production orders on the BBC, the Sunday Times, Prospect magazine and CBS demanding that they hand over materials they believe to be connected with the case.

Malik’s High Court appeal is the first major test of the application to journalism of the Terrorism Act 2000, sections 19 and 38B (the latter was added in 2001) of which make it a criminal offence to withhold information. Formerly police had to satisfy a judge that the information they sought from a journalist was closely related to a “serious offence” – the 2000 Act contains no such restriction.

Malik said: “This makes it almost impossible for journalists working in the field of terrorism. It’s been a scythe hanging over our necks since it was enacted in 2000. Journalists in the field have been breaking the law and hoping they won’t get prosecuted.”

He believes the issue came to a head because the police decided he would be in no position to defend himself, so they imposed a wide-ranging production order. But the NUJ and the Sunday Times agreed to pay his costs.

There is a maliciousness in the police attack on Malik. As the court ruling states, the police interest in Malik is in what he can tell them about Hassan Butt, and not in whether he has committed offences under sections 19 or 38B. However, according to the Court, on May 9 Butt was arrested and extensively interviewed by police; he told them his earlier public statements about involvement in Al-Qaeda were untrue. He has now been released without charge.

The case shows that journalists face enormous difficulties researching the roots of Islamist extremism in Britain. As a result, policies aimed at preventing terrorism will come to rely even further on the shadowy secret services and the ill-informed prejudices of the Murdoch press.

Moreover, the line between legitimate support for resistance to western intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan and supporting “terrorism” will be further blurred, increasing the stigma attached to the Muslim community, where hostility to government foreign policy is strongest.

A range of high profile figures and organisations have supported Malik’s case. On March 19 leading figures from journalism and civil liberties organisations, including Jonathan Dimbleby and Shami Chakrabarti, signed a letter to the Times warning of its implications.

What's it got to do with RIPA?

Ellie Keen — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:00:09 +0000

Liberty called for an overhaul of RIPA yesterday after the European Court of Human Rights slapped the UK government over the way it applied the UK’s previous interception legislation.

But the Home Office today said it did not see that the judgement had any implications for the UK’s current suite of laws covering covert investigations.

The court ruled that the UK had violated article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, by tapping communications of Liberty, along with British Irish Rights Watch and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties between 1990 and 1997. Article 8 quaintly demands the right to respect for private and family life and correspondence.

The three human rights groups had claimed that the MoD’s Electronic Test Facility had eavesdropped on their phone, fax, email and data comms between 1990 and 1997.

The three had first lodged complaints with the UK’s Interception of Communications Tribunal, the DPP and the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, to “no avail” with local courts ruling “there was no contravention to the Interception of Powers Act 1985”.

Liberty et al then took the case to the European Court Human Rights, which after a mere nine years decided that there had indeed “been an interference with their human rights as guaranteed by Article 8”.

The court found that the 1985 Act gave the UK government “virtually unlimited” discretion to intercept communications between the UK and an external receiver, and “wide discretion” to decide which communications were subsequently listened to or read.” The government had guidelines to ensure a “safeguard against abuse of power”, but these were not included in legislation, nor made available to the public.

The court concluded that the UK’s 1985 interception law “had not indicated with sufficient clarity… the scope or manner of the exercise of the very wide discretion of the conferred on the State to intercept and examine external communications” so as to guard against abuse of power.

The 1985 Act and the 1990s eavesdropping on Liberty and its Irish counterparts came against the background of the IRA’s armed campaign against the British state.

Over a decade on, and the 1985 Act has been replaced by RIPA. It has the same objective in detecting terrorism, serious crime and the like, but is more commonly known for being applied by local councils to people suspected to circumventing school applications procedures and not cleaning up after their dogs.

Gareth Crossman, Liberty’s Policy Director, said in a statement yesterday the judgement highlighted the need for a review of RIPA.

Liberty’s legal officer Alex Gask said: “While secret surveillance is a valuable tool, the mechanisms for intercepting our telephone calls and emails should be as open and accountable as possible, and should ensure proportionate use of very wide powers.”

Mark Kelly, Director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, said the judgement had clear implications for many other Council of Europe member states, including Ireland. ”Our lax data interception regime will require a thorough overhaul in order to ensure that it meets the standards required by the European Court of Human Rights under Article 8.”

The Home Office was less vocal, saying it did not think the judgement had any implications for RIPA. While yesterday’s judgement concerned the 1985 Act, a Home Office spokesman said there were no legal challenges against RIPA.

The Guardian divided on response to David Davis

tim — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:59:32 +0000

The decision by David Davis to resign and force a by-election based on opposition to the Labour government’s erosion of civil liberties has produced divisions within what passes for Britain’s liberal milieu. A conflict over whether or not to support Davis, based on his campaign against the extension of detention without trial to 42 days, is being fought out in the pages of the Guardian and the Observer.

The issue for some goes beyond simply deciding whether or not to register a protest against 42 days detention and other measures undermining democratic rights. What is being fought out is whether to remain loyal to Labour while nodding occasionally towards the Liberal Democrats, or to transfer political allegiance to the Conservatives.

The Guardian’s Sunday sister paper, the Observer, was initially cautiously supportive of Davis, describing his resignation in its June 15 edition as “A wild move but the principles are correct.”

“Opinion polls show broad public support for the government’s position on 42 days,” the Observer claimed, before adding, “Mr. Davis hopes, and it is a decent aspiration, that a by-election campaign will change minds more effectively than parliamentary debate. But, meanwhile, the business of passing or rejecting this bad law falls to the Lords. They must heed the principled arguments that should have defeated the government in the Commons last week.”

The belief that the public backed the government was quickly proved to be wrong. It soon became clear that Davis had more correctly judged the national temper.

Pro-Davis, Pro-Tory?

A number of Observer and Guardian feature writers were far less cautious and began openly speculating about whether Davis and even the Tory Party itself could be supported against Labour.

Chief political commentator Andrew Rawnsley wrote in the same edition of the Observer, “David Davis is vainglorious, mad and really rather terrific.”

“It tells you quite a lot about David Davis that his nose has been broken five times,” Rawnsley declared. “David Davis is no saint. There’s truth in some of the accusations that are being hurled at him by furious Tories…. In tabloid cliché, he is usually described as a bruiser. I see a man who is actually a romantic, not least about himself…. So, yes, there is ego here … But there is also an extremely strong element of fiercely held belief.”

Finishing his eulogy to Davis, the man of action and principle, Rawnsley opined, “In the background, there is a serious and significant philosophical and political divide in the Conservative party which will matter hugely if and when they return to power. It is a tension about whether the Conservatives are essentially a libertarian or an authoritarian party.”

Others commissioned by the Guardian’s “Comment is Free” seemed to have lost their heads and even their hearts to Davis. Jan Morris wrote breathlessly on June 25 how, “In defending 800 years of hard-won political rights, this rebel is also standing up for a crucial part of the national spirit…. It is not just a matter of those 42 days, of habeas corpus or even of human rights in the political sense of the phrase: it is an elemental struggle that is dividing the British again into two nations, as Benjamin Disraeli saw them long ago.”

Morris accused half of the British people of having been “Brainwashed by a tabloid press of brilliantly insidious techniques, then, numbed by the relentless mediocrity of television,” “willingly forfeited the right to make up their own minds, and mutely accept[ed] indoctrination.”

In contrast, Davis is hailed for defending “not just political liberty but liberty of the mind, of the identity, of the spirit—even, patriots might sententiously say, of the national soul…. So perhaps Davis is a prophet as well as a politician. When he talks of habeas corpus he is echoing ideas far older and more profound, reaching back to the earliest yearnings of antiquity, the first glimmerings of human individuality, when our ancestors began to break from tribal disciplines and devise preferences of their own.”

The coverage in the Observer and the Guardian never again reaches these levels of hero worship, but on occasion its own writers have come close.

On June 27, the Guardian’s G2 supplement ran several pages on Davis by Nicholas Watt under the heading, “Maverick or freedom fighter?”

Watt begins by describing how, “Narrowing his gaze with the poise of a former SAS officer, David Davis shifts slowly in his armchair and points through his sitting room window to a line of trees in the distance. ‘The key to security is the line of sight’ ... Davis will take no lectures about failing to appreciate the threat of terrorism. ‘I was on an IRA death list,’ he says. ‘We’ll have none of that nonsense about being soft on terror.’ “

Like a passage from a 1950’s Boys’ Own comic, Watt describes Davis as “A Tory bruiser,” known to some as “the Knuckleduster.” We learn yet again of how Davis frequently succeeded in breaking his nose, while playing Rugby, swimming and intervening “to save a friend who was being mugged on Clapham Common.” In addition, “The Davis clan have all been taught to be toughies, thanks to an imposing climbing wall in an outhouse.”

The most explicit political exposition regarding the significance of supporting Davis is made by Henry Porter, who writes regularly on civil liberties.

He insists in the June 29 Observer, “We can’t leave David Davis to carry the fight on his own.”

It is when he explains who he means by “we” that Porter asks, “So who is to answer those questions?”

Answering his own question, he replies, “Certainly not Labour, though there are many good people on the backbenches.” The Liberal Democrats are patted on the back for being “ardently for freedom.”

But in reality, Porter insists, “it must be the Tories, right?”

He places caveats on adopting a pro-Conservative stance, but argues for it nevertheless. He goes so far as to compare the democratic and freedom-loving credentials of various prominent Conservatives. Party leader David Cameron is “said to be more libertarian than his friend, the shadow Chancellor George Osborne. Dominic Grieve, who has succeeded Davis as shadow Home Secretary, is solidly libertarian,” and so on.

He then appeals to the Conservatives to “make the big argument, because there are political opportunities here.”

“The first is that Labour has betrayed its mission to champion the poor and vulnerable…. The Tories could surely demonstrate Labour’s failure in this department.

“The second opportunity concerns the traditional Conservative mission to champion the individual and roll back state power.”

To portray the Tories as a party of civil liberties at best expresses an extraordinary level of political disorientation amongst a petty-bourgeois layer who once would have recoiled at such a description. But to some degree it is also a recognition of the direction in which the wind is blowing.

Cameron and a future Tory government would, after all, have need of apologists and converts with a vaguely leftist background if they were to have any chance of maintaining a grip on power. The same phenomenon—former social democrats and liberals transferring their allegiance to the new political order—has already been amply demonstrated in France following the coming to power of Gaullist President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Pro-Labour, pro-Jill Saward?

Even so, to even begin to advance Davis and Cameron as defenders of democratic rights is testimony to how far to the right Labour itself has travelled.

Not everyone is quite so prepared to abandon the sinking New Labour ship. But those opposing support for Davis are, if anything, advancing positions more politically grotesque than their journalistic colleagues.

On June 20, with Labour refusing to stand against Davis, the Guardian published a comment by Olly Kendal, former adviser to Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, entitled, “Wanted: an election challenger.”

He appealed for anyone whatsoever to stand “who will serious challenge the former shadow home secretary.”

Kendall insisted that any high-profile public figure that came forward as a “credible candidate” would do. And he or she certainly need not oppose 42 days, “as important and fundamental to our society as it is.”

Instead he proposed a single-issue campaign on the burning issue of MP’s pay, suggesting as a candidate—“Who better than the man who in 2000 took over the helm of the BBC, promising to ‘cut the crap’ at the corporation”—Greg Dyke.

Kendall closes by acknowledging a small flaw in his proposal, given that Dyke, “refused to stand as London Mayor unless he could stand as a unity candidate for both the Lib Dems and Tories.”

Nevertheless, the search for a supposedly “credible candidate” was clearly being pursued in earnest.

On June 25, the Guardian’s senior political correspondent Andrew Sparrow wrote in his politics blog, “David Davis may find himself facing serious by-election candidate after all.”

The person in question was Jill Saward. Sparrow designated her as a “serious candidate” not merely because she supposedly has a “high-profile” for having “waived her right to anonymity after being raped at her Ealing Vicarage home in 1986, [and] has made her name as a campaigner on behalf of the victims of sexual violence.”

Sparrow is boosting Saward because she intends to use the issue of rape as an emotive argument against Davis and in a way that helps Labour.

He quotes at great length from Saward’s web site, in which she defends the use of closed-circuit TV cameras and the amassing of a national DNA database on the basis that this helps the police track down and convict rapists.

Sparrow adds, as if presenting a profound insight, “Interestingly, she also criticises Davis for not accepting the result of the Commons vote on 42-day detention. ‘Why would anybody want to stand as a member of parliament if they are not prepared to accept the will of parliament when it makes a decision?’ she asks.”

On June 26, Sparrow moved to the Guardian’s print edition to again proclaim Saward as “Davis’s most prominent opponent,” devoting an entire article to presenting her views, before merely listing the names of six of the other candidates standing against Davis. (Chris Talbot, the Socialist Equality Party candidate, was omitted, as is the norm.)

Though Saward is standing as an independent, Sparrow makes even clearer that she is being given such preferential treatment in large part because she functions as a proxy candidate for Labour. He writes, “Saward floated the idea of standing as a candidate in an article on her web site on Tuesday. She said that, at that stage, it was her own idea, but that since the article appeared she had received encouragement from party politicians.

“She would not say who was urging her to stand. But it is known that Labour is very keen for a high-profile candidate to challenge Davis.”

The debate being conducted in the Guardian and the Observer could end with them taking opposed positions on the Haltemprice and Howden ballot or not taking a position at all. But the fact that these two publications respond to the growing threat to civil liberties by discussing whether to continue supporting Labour or to back the Tories is a measure of the profound decay of liberal thought in Britain.

Hounded

Ellie Keen — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 10:48:01 +0000

SCHNEWS asks who’s harassing who as hunt seeks giant exclusion zone

“If we can get this, it will be a massive victory for hunting and will set a precedent for other hunts to follow.” Simon Bonner – Countryside Alliance chairman.

“This is nothing more than a flagrant attempt to use the anti-stalking laws – which were drafted to protect vulnerable individuals – to prevent the monitoring of hunting because the hunt believe the Hunting Act does not give people the right to monitor.” – Simon Wilde

Yes, repression via the Protection from Harassment Act is back! (see SchNEWS 581). The Crawley and Horsham Foxhunt are trying to take out an injunction against local hunt monitors Simon and Jaine Wilde, along with the rest of the West Sussex Wildlife Protection Group. They’ve received the now familiar black ringbinders of ‘evidence’ from Timothy Lawson Cruttenden (aka TLC)1 and are now due in the High Court on the 15th July.

The hunt want an outright ban on “old sabbing tactics — balaclavas, sprays, whips, hunting horns and tape recorders”, or so says senior master Anthony Sandeman, “But the main thing is the continual trespass. Farmers are getting fed up with it.” Of course trespassing isn’t usually a criminal offence under English law but if the injunction goes through it will give the police a power of arrest over a huge swathe of West Sussex. The hunt also want to prevent ‘loitering on footpaths’ for the purposes of filming and, crucially, they even want to prevent hunt monitors from filming from public roads. Other clauses in the proposed injunction include an exclusion zone around the hunt kennels and a demand that monitors inform the police 24 hours before any planned activity. Breaching any of these clauses could mean arrest and prison.

To recap for those of you who weren’t paying attention: injunctions under the Harassment Act create criminal offences out of civil law. An ‘interim’ injunction – which can be obtained on the flimsiest of evidence – has the full force of law behind it. In this case something as simple as standing on a footpath taking photos could become a criminal offence, punishable by up to five years in prison.

But why are the C&H Foxhunt – adamant that they are only carrying out legal activities – so camera-shy? One hunt monitor who attends the hunt is in no doubt: “We know the C&H are hunting, they cast the hounds into woods, and frequently chase foxes. What they do bears no resemblance to drag-hunting. We’ve been watching hunts for years and we know what hunting looks like.” The League against Cruel Sports discovered the C&H breaking the hunt ban in February 2007, saying, “The reality is caught on film in horrifying detail. A fox is pursued by the Crawley and Horsham over the Sussex countryside. It seeks refuge in a small hole on the edge of a field. Twenty minutes later – and after a frantic dig out involving three men, spades and two terriers – the fox is dragged to the surface, held aloft and thrown to the waiting hounds. After ten minutes of being savaged by the hounds – encouraged by watching huntsmen – almost nothing remains of the fox.”

Of course according to Lawson-Cruttenden, “We’re not trying to stop anyone who wants legitimately to monitor the hunt, but we think that means people are entitled only to photograph the master and huntsman while they are engaged in legal hunting activities.” What this means in practice is that if anyone else at all is within the camera angle then monitors could find themselves under arrest. All others (including the C&H’s thirty-strong squad of stewards) will have the status of ‘protected persons’. Our hunt monitor told SchNEWS: “Effectively filming will be obstructed and potentially made illegal. All they’ll have to do is have a protected person with them whenever they’re up to anything dodgy and we’ll have to put our cameras away.”

Toff With Their Heads

This attempt to strangle the rights of hunt monitors to document the abuse of wildlife showcases the balance of power in the countryside. On the one hand you have some of the UK’s richest landowners/grandees – including the likes of Nicolas Soames MP, grandson of Winston Churchill – backed to the hilt by the wealth of the Countryside Alliance and the Master of Foxhounds Association, and on the other a group of slightly more down-to earth individuals who go out every weekend to try and gather evidence of the abuse of wildlife.

Unfortunately civil court cases cost money and it’s possible the landed classes may be able bulldoze this through by sheer weight of bullion. If they lose then, hey, it’s just this year’s agricultural subsidies down the pan and one less tin of caviar at Christmas – but if Simon and Jane lose then they lose their home. Of course ‘Fatty’ Soames has every reason to stay away from the lens: on the strength of film from the monitors he was fined for riding a quad bike on the public highway without a crash helmet. But with an injunction in place the monitors might have been arrested for filming in the first place, preventing any inconvenient court appearances.

The real irony is that the notorious C&H hunt are no strangers to the ‘stalking’ game themselves. Pro-hunt websites such as Moochers.org carry photos, profiles and addresses of those they refer to as ‘antis’. In recent years, monitors have captured on camera C&H huntsmaster Kim Richardson warning monitors, “You’re all fair game now … I’ve fucking told everyone” – before assaulting one of them. Richardson is the son of the late Sir Michael Richardson, who was known as ‘Mr Privatisation’, one of the highest ranking freemasons in England and a ‘darling’ of Lady Thatcher.

During the run-up to the ban, supporters of the C&H achieved a publicity coup by ramming the monitors van off the road – while it was occupied by a film crew from ‘Tonight with Trevor Mcdonald’. Hunt supporter John Hawkins was convicted of GBH after breaking a female monitor’s arm in two places on 29th January 2005. During the same incident a hunt whipper-in and steward were cautioned for assaulting the driver and stealing the group’s van keys. More recently, terrier man Jeremy Charman was fined £80 for throwing a dead rabbit at monitors in November last year. Meanwhile hunt steward Christopher Curtis received a warning for blocking footpaths – under the Harassment Act!

Simon and Jane have suffered a great deal over the years due to their commitment to the fight against bloodsports. As well as being a continuous presence at their local hunts they were leading voices supplying evidence to the various parliamentary inquiries, which eventually provided the evidence required to back an outright ban. They’ve had attacks on their home, carcasses dumped in the front garden and been the victims of repeated vicious beatings in the field.

As one hunt monitor told us: “This injunction under the Harassment Act is nothing more than an attempt by some very rich men to buy themselves an exemption to the law of the land. If granted it will be a charter for abuse of wildlife and monitors alike. A video camera is often our only way of protecting ourselves when under attack by hunt thugs. It’s also our only way of documenting the horrific treatment dished out to wildlife by this organisation which claims to be hunting legally.”

For more about Hunt Sabbing see www.hsa.enviroweb.org

1. For more about TLC and the tender loving care he puts into injunction cases against animal rights, as well as anti-arms trade and climate change activists see SchNEWS 581, 531, 509, 492, 471

Society is Indeed Broken

Ellie Keen — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:42:29 +0000

...and we all know who broke it

When submerged under a veritable deluge of ideologically-driven ‘reforms’, it takes something especially imbecilic to provoke a double-take. Louise Casey, the mouthy former head of the Government’s ‘Respect task force’, is set to spearhead the latest New Labour gimmick on law ’n order. Among the 20 proposals that fade from the merely banal to the truly asinine here are three that provoke a modicum of analysis.

Anonymous evidence

Elderly and disabled crime victims – as well as people at risk of reprisals— should be allowed to give evidence in court from behind screens. Ministers are sympathetic to the idea, which already happens routinely in cases involving sex offences and gangs.

Fine, in one way, except that ‘anonymous evidence’ does not allow the defence to cross-examine witnessess or indeed raise questions as to any previous relationship the accused might have had with the accuser that might have lead them to offer evidence (not to mention the possibility of witnesses being coerced as a result of a police vendetta) against the accused in the first place.

Internet crime maps

Online maps with crimes plotted on them to be published every month so people can see how dangerous their area is and how well the police are doing. Gordon Brown has backed the move in principle, but areas could be stigmatised if the maps are street-by-street.

The truth is many working class areas are already operationally stigmatised. ‘Control and contain’, whereby crime in one area is ignored by the police the better to protect a ‘nicer’ middle class area nearby, is commonplace. Online maps would merely give what is custom and practice an air of routine formality.

Youth clubs

Friday-night youth clubs to be set up in 50 of the most deprived areas.

Youth clubs for the the 50 most deprived areas? There are a number of delirious aspects involved in the proposition. Ever notice how New Labour ministers and the media are happy to talk blithely about ‘deprived communities’ without any mention to how they came to be ‘deprived’ in the first place? In the absence of any such analysis it takes a remarkable level of political remove to imagine that thirty years of the deliberate stripping out of the grassroots infrastructure in working class neighbourhoods can be remedied by organising ‘a youth club on Friday nights’. What about the other nights? Or ‘deprived area’ number 51? Or indeed 151?

The media who should be asking the serious questions don’t do so. The Independent’s response, for example, was almost unbelievable. ‘Funding for youth services is already being boosted with poorer communities targeted. But should high-crime areas be rewarded?’ it asks. It is true that poorer communties are indeed being targeted and not in the benign way The Independent likes to pretend. But more than that, as even government statistics demonstrate, it is self-evidently working class people in the high crime areas that are most likely to be the victims of crime. Why punish the community further? But as far as The Independent is concerned—Why not?

Former Tory leader Ian Duncan-Smith blathers on about ‘a broken society’ in a similar way. But rival parties never ever challenge him on who broke it. That is because the beginnings of a solution are staring them all in the face. But why bother going to the root of the problem (the callous and systematic destruction of a youth club infrastructure and the selling-off of school playing fields, and so on) when under existing neo-liberal orthodoxy the unthinking dribblings in the Casey formula work just as well?

Fortress Britain

William Benzies — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:32:21 +0000

“The public has to be more alert”, warned one “international terrorism expert” in the Daily Mail late last year, because Scotland “is set to become another Israel within five years”. “[A]nti-terror measures will soon become a common feature of life”, he assured the audience, and called for “routine arming of police officers” and increasing children’s “awareness of the dangers of terrorism” and for them to be “encouraged” to report anything “out of the ordinary”.

The oracle of doom was one Amnon Maor, identified as the head instructor of counter-terrorism for the IDF and Israeli border police¹. Maor is working with security firm 360 Defence, based near Glasgow, which is “training Scottish police, military and civilians in security techniques”. This wouldn’t be the first time the British police benefits form Israeli anti-terror expertise. The police squad that carried out the extrajudicial execution of the young Brazilian electrician Jean-Charles de Menezes in the London underground had received similar training.

In the post-September 11 world, writes Naomi Klein, Israel has pitched its “uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the ‘global war on terror²’.”. Britain has since been furnished with its own unpopular occupation of Arab land – and the lessons from Israel are not lost on its architects. In disaster lies opportunity – and the only thing more useful than a thing to fear is fear itself. The give away line in Maor’s prescription above is his offer to increase children’s awareness of the dangers of terrorism – absent the real thing, fear will suffice. The Prime Minister may not have many achievements to his name, but he can claim patents to ‘Fortress Britain’, whose battlements sit on a foundation of fear.

The Power of Nightmares

In October 2001 it was revealed that the Pentagon was consulting Hollywood writers and producers specialising in spy thrillers and disaster flicks to imagine future attacks in order to best prepare for them. Developments such as the colour-coded threat alerts that change hue at the Department of Homeland Security’s caprice have alarmed even cold war hawks like Zbigniew Brzezinski. Lamenting the ‘culture of fear’ he writes:

“Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue… Such fear-mongering, reinforced by security entrepreneurs, the mass media and the entertainment industry, generates its own momentum³.”.

In Britain each of the New Labour government’s political missteps has been accompanied by similar fear-mongering. While a terrorist threat does exist, its magnitude is wildly exaggerated. The European Police Office (Europol) released its first report on terrorism last year which listed 498 terrorist attacks for Europe in 2006; only one was attributed to Muslims. The majority – 136 – were carried out by the Basque separatist group ETA; only one of them deadly. When it came to the arrests on terrorism related charges, however, a good half were Muslims⁴.

It began with the ‘Ricin plot’: the highly publicised arrests, national hysteria and front page headlines. There was no Ricin, or a plot. It wouldn’t be until 2005, well after Colin Powell had used it in his case to sell the Iraq war to the UN, that the ban on reporting on the case was finally lifted and the public apprised of the truth⁵. The February 2003 ‘terror alert’ had Blair scrambling tanks to Heathrow, timed conveniently to coincide with the large scale demonstrations against the coming war. Notable support in the media came from BBC propagandist Fred Gardner, long suspected of ties to the intelligence services⁶. which were themselves busy fanning the fire. Simon Jenkins, the conservative columnist noted, “In 2002-03, before the Iraq war, the security service supplied the Cabinet Office with a weekly catalogue of ‘terror fears’ – anthrax, smallpox, sarin, dirty nuclear devices and a Christmas bombing campaign – to soften public opinion for the war⁷.”.

In June 2006, 250 heavily armed police men acting on ‘specific intelligence’ raided a home in Forest Gate arresting two young Muslims, shooting one in the process. The chemical weapons that they were alleged to have possessed were never found. Both were acquitted without charge. The police apologised. On August 10th, 2006, a day after then Home Secretary John Reid had hinted that new anti-terror measures were in order, the Deputy Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, Paul Stephenson, announced that the police had foiled a plot to commit “mass murder on an unimaginable scale”. Officials were soon conceding that the immediacy and scale of the threat may have been “exaggerated”; however, the scare succeeded in deflecting attention from Blair’s widely-denounced manoeuvres preventing a ceasefire in Lebanon. From Beirut, an outraged Robert Fisk wrote:

“Stephenson’s job is to frighten the British people, not to stop the crimes that are the real reason for the British to be frightened …I’m all for arresting criminals…But I don’t think Paul Stephenson is. I think he huffs and he puffs but I do not think he stands for law and order. He works for the Ministry of Fear which, by its very nature, is not interested in motives or injustice⁸.”.

In November 2006, the MI5 director general Eliza Manningham-Buller warned of a violent threat from 1,600 suspects in 200 groups that could last “more than a generation”. Although she identified government policy towards Iraq as the main factor contributing to the rising radicalism, Blair endorsed the statement. He continued his scapegoating of Muslims with the periodic reiterations of the ‘Islamic threat’ to rationalize the fear, repression, lies and resentment brought in on the heels of the Iraq war. When Blair announced that “the rule of the game have changed”, no one took it more seriously than the tabloid press; they demonstrated just how toxic things could get when gloves come off with government sanction. Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian confessed:

“I try to imagine how I would feel if this rainstorm of headlines substituted the word ‘Jew’ for ‘Muslim’ – I wouldn’t just feel frightened. I would be looking for my passport.”

One can’t miss the Islamophobic nature of much of the hysteria when one compares the difference in the treatment of the cases of Robert Cottage and David Bolus Jackson of the BNP with that of Mohammed Atif Siddique. The case of the former two, arrested for the possession of rocket launchers, a “record haul of chemicals used in making home-made bombs”, extremist literature, and bomb-making information, barely got covered in national media; the latter, a 20 year old, received front page attention and eight years in prison for merely downloading extremist literature, and his attorney, Aamer Anwer, got charged with ‘contempt of court’ for calling the trial a “tragedy for justice”.

The new MI5 chief, Jonathan Evan, raised the fear factor a year on with the warning that 15-year-olds were being “groomed” for terror and that there were up to 2,000 people involved in “terrorist-related activity”. Recalling Donald Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknown’s”, the man appointed by John Reid with Tony Blair’s approval, bizarrely added “there are as many again that we don’t yet know of”. Described variously as “lurid”, “inflammatory”, “highly ideological”, “playing Halloween”, it came on the eve of the Queen’s address calling for yet another terror bill. The institutional imperative of self-preservation may also have been at play: MI5 has already expanded by 50 % with eight new regional offices, and will have doubled in size by 2011. Eyebrows have been raised at these very public interventions by the heads of a clandestine service. Simon Jenkins noted that chiefs of the secret service have long feared that the absence of a public profile may diminish funding appropriation. “The answer of both MI5’s Evans and MI6’s John Scarlett is to join the fear factory⁹.”.

Taking Liberties

The assault on constitutional rights that started in the US with Clinton’s ‘Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty’ law of 1996 was replicated in Britain with the ‘Terrorism Act 2000’. Section 41 of the Act granted police the right to detain terror suspects for up to one week without charge (criminal law on the other hand requires that suspects be charged within the first 24 hours of arrest, or be released). Section 44 granted police stop and search rights all across Britain – it has since been used against: Kevin Gillan and Pennie Quinto for protesting outside Europe’s biggest arms fair in London; the 82-year-old Walter Wolfgang for heckling Jack Straw at the Labour Conference; Sally Cameron for walking on a cycle-path in Dundee; the 80-year-old John Catt for being caught on CCTV passing a demonstration in Brighton; the 11-year-old Isabelle Ellis-Cockcroft for accompanying her parents to an anti-nuclear protest; and a cricketer on his way to a match over his possession of a bat.

In the United States, September 11 occasioned the most robust assault yet on civil liberties in the form of Bush’s ‘USA Patriot Act’ leading eminent constitutional law professor Sanford Levinson to describe Carl Schmitt, the leading authority on Nazi legal philosophy, as “the true eminence guise of the Bush administration” to the extent that the Administration (advised by Dick Cheney’s lawyer, David Addington) espoused a view of presidential authority “that is all too close to the power that Schmitt was willing to accord his own Führer¹⁰.”. The respected lawyer Gareth Pierce noted equally worrying tendencies in the UK:

“Blair bulldozed through Parliament a new brand of internment. This allowed for the indefinite detention without trial of foreign nationals, the ‘evidence’ to be heard in secret with the detainee’s lawyer not permitted to see the evidence against him and an auxiliary lawyer appointed by the attorney general who, having seen it, was not allowed to see the detainee. The most useful device of the executive is its ability to claim that secrecy is necessary for national security¹¹.”.

The ‘Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001’ succeeded in ramming through measures that had been rejected in the 2000 Act. The ‘Criminal Justice Act 2003’ doubled the period of detention without charge to 14 days. Although the government suffered a significant setback when the Law Lords swept aside the indefinite detention ruling since it broke European human rights legislation (described by the Law Lords as “draconian” and “anathema” to the rule of law, it was seen by Lord Hoffmann as a bigger threat to the nation than terrorism). Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, immediately made clear his intention to undermine it. The government obliged by subsequently passing the ‘Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005’ which gave the Home Secretary the right to use Control Orders and opt out of human rights laws¹².

In the wake of the terrorist attacks in London on July 7, the government upped the ante with the ‘Terrorism Act 2006’, which doubled – yet again – the detention period to 28 days, a period far longer than any other state in the western world. The bill marked the first parliamentary defeat for Tony Blair, whose original proposal was for 90 days detention without charge.

Blair’s determination to deflect attention from the failures of his scandal-ridden government by turning the war on terror into a permanent undeclared state of emergency appeared finally to have hit a wall. However, despite a noticeably prudent start, Brown’s multiplying political problems soon had him reaching for Blairite nostrums. He renewed the case for doubling the period of detention without charge (subsequently reduced to 42 days). This despite the fact that the newly appointed Home Secretary Jacqui Smith had conceded that circumstances had not yet arisen where it had been necessary “to go beyond 28 days”. Seumas Milne reported in The Guardian that:

“it’s widely acknowledged in Westminster that a key motivation for this latest assault on long-established rights and freedoms is Brown’s determination to wrong-foot the Tories tactically and portray them as soft on terror”.

The deleterious effects of a creeping surveillance state cannot be discounted. While the public may have little enthusiasm for an ID card scheme after discs containing personal details of 25 million individuals were lost by the government, Brown remains adamant. Given the government’s record for handling personal data, proposals for a universal register of citizen’s DNA samples is very worrying. So are Tony Blair’s remarks about identifying problem children who may grow up to pose a menace to society by intervening before they were born¹³. A new plan under the government’s e-borders scheme would require each person entering or leaving UK to answer 53 questions including “credit card details, holiday contact numbers, travel plans, email addresses, car numbers and even any previous missed flights”. Taken when a ticket is bought, the information, it was reported, “will be shared among police, customs, immigration and the security services for at least 24 hours before a journey is due to take place.”

When popular shows bear names like ‘Big Brother’, the appurtenances of mass surveillance society, such as the 4.2 million CCTV cameras, become an acceptable, even desired, part of the scenery. Privacy International rates Britain as an “endemic surveillance society” and, according to Timothy Garton Ash, the British state collects more data on its citizens than did the Stasi in East Germany. The more than 3,000 new criminal offences introduced under the Labour government have also turned privatized prisons into a growth industry. Today Britain has a higher incarceration rate than China, Burma or Saudi Arabia.

While the terrorist threat today has nowhere near the intensity of the IRA campaign, police are using military aircraft such as the Britten-Norman Islander used previously only in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Reaper robot drones of the type being used in Afghanistan will also be in operation during the Olympics.

Reign of the Terrorologist

Riding the back of the raft of anti-terror legislations are the terrorologists and the ‘security’ entrepreneurs; and they have found green pastures in Fortress Britain. With governments unwilling to address political causes, the trend is increasingly one of framing the subject in cultural terms: ‘they hate our way of life’, ‘they hate our freedoms’ etc. This clears the way for the terrorologist to step in and sell a toxic brew of cultural stereotypes and pop psychology packaged in pseudo-academic jargon. In his study of the trade, James Petras detects the following “eerily predictable patterns”:

“They use a common language to describe their subjects and their environment; they are extremely ideological under a thin veneer of scientific jargon; they possess a keen sense of selective observation; they always pretend to possess a psychological understanding though few if any have dealt close up with their subjects in any clinical sense except perhaps under conditions of incarceration and interrogation.
Their style…slippery with euphemisms when it comes to dealing with the violence of their partisan states… Psychobabble provides a ‘legitimate’ sounding channel for… assuming a state of civilized superiority in the face of their dehumanized subjects. Indeed, the dehumanization process is central to the whole terrorist-political-academic enterprise¹⁴…”.

One consequence of earning an elevated place in official demonology is that the bar for those passing judgement drops radically. When it comes to Islam, Muslims and their alleged links to terrorism, any shoddy indictment will pass muster. Doom-laden sensationalism makes for good copy; it makes no demands on rigour and scepticism, and a stable of ‘experts’ is readily at hand to amplify fear. The degree to which this has penetrated public discourse was demonstrated by the Big Issue – a publication generally about as provocative as a phonebook – with a front page story on ‘cyber terror’ and ‘online vigilantes’. Trotting out a stable of ‘terror experts’ the story served as a platform for several tendentious claims (“There are no longer clear boundaries between real-world cells and ‘amateurs’ assisting terror plots via their computers”; “al-Qaeda is equal in the media war”). Rather than question why a dubious source such as Evan Kohlmann – the man used as a ‘expert witness’ in the Atif Siddique trial, who “has no expertise beyond …an internship at a dubious think-tank¹⁵.” – should be consulted by Scotland Yard, the story served as a puff piece for three Israel lobby hacks. Rita Katz has served in the Israeli military; Aaron Weisburd runs Internet Haganah (Hebrew name for the paramilitary that later became the IDF) a project of the Society for Internet Research that works with the Mossad-linked Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center; and both Katz and Kohlmann are protégés of Steve Emerson whose own expertise includes having seen “the hallmarks of Middle Eastern terror” in the Oklahoma bombing (actually carried out by Timothy McVeigh, a decorated white Christian war-hero).

The trade of the terrorologist is not new: incubated in the Reagan administration’s earlier ‘war on terror’, its proponents had been exposed and elegantly debunked by Edward Hermann. September 11 ushered in a new breed – ubiquitous, ideological, and relentless. Some, such as Rohan Gunaratna of the St. Andrews-based Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV), reinvented themselves over night as ‘experts on al-Qaeda’. Gunaratna’s book Inside Al Qaeda became an instant best-seller, even though before the date his expertise was limited to South Asian groups, such as the Tamil Tigers. In the book he claimed he was the “principal investigator of the United Nations’ Terrorism Prevention Branch”. However, after a Sunday Age investigation, he admitted that no such position existed. Intelligence services have been generally dismissive of his claims.

However, despite all this, he keeps making appearances as an ‘expert witness’ at various UK prosecutions and in media reports.

CSTPV itself bears some scrutiny. Established by an alumni of the RAND Corporation (a US think-tank which played a key role during the Cold War; satirized as the ‘Bland Corporation’ in Dr. Strangelove, it was an enthusiastic supporter of the arms race), the Centre has links to the government and intelligence agencies. Shaping discourse on terrorism through its two influential academic journals, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Terrorism and Political Violence, CSTPV emphasises terror directed against states, while mostly ignoring violence by states, excluding however those not allied to the West (‘Hell is other people’, Sartre might say). Reports by the Centre have been used by the government to rationalise permanent anti-terror legislation. The RAND-CSTPV nexus also has stakes in the Iraq conflict through its links to mercenary firms operating in the country. However, despite the conflicts of interest, the Centre’s embedded expertise remains much in demand¹⁶.

CSTPV’s output may be ideological; but it still retains a degree of sophistication. With the low demands on rigour, joining the fray now are some actors less restrained. In early 2006 it was revealed that authorities at several universities, including my own, were co-operating with Special Branch as a result of a recently published study by the right wing Social Affairs Unit. Conducted by Anthony Glees, the Director of Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, the study claimed to find evidence of Islamist, animal liberation and British National Party recruitment on UK campuses. The evidence comprised of the fact that people who have been arrested under anti-Terrorism legislation attended universities at some point. It castigated Universities for teaching students “theoretical tools for understanding the world”, such as Marxism, which could lead to further radicalization when students moved “from campus to Mosque”. Policy Exchange, another dubious neoconservative outfit, shouldered its way into the debate with an Islamophobic report on extremist literature being promoted through various Mosques which, to the BBC’s credit, was publicly debunked by a Newsnight investigation. This, however, did not deter Policy Exchange members from using the report to lobby the EU.

Hero and Horse

On November 18, 1822, the Observer reported that nearly “a million bushels of human and inhuman bones” had been imported in the previous year from Europe into the port of Hull. Battlefields swept alike of the “bones of the hero and the horse which he rode” delivered their haul to Yorkshire bone grinders who reduced them to granulary state. “In this condition they are sold to the farmers to manure their lands¹⁷.”. Two centuries on, the gap between the ‘support our troops’ rhetoric and reality has yet to be bridged.
An internal report into the state of the British Military obtained by The Independent on May 11 reveals that soldiers are living in such poverty that they can’t even afford food, with many living on emergency food voucher schemes set up by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). “Commanders are attempting to tackle the problem through ‘Hungry Soldier’ schemes, under which destitute soldiers are given loans to enable them to eat” the paper reported. With its proclivity for market solutions, the tradition of soldiers getting three square meals a day for free has been replaced with a controversial Pay as You Dine (PAYD) regime, which charges soldiers not on active duty for their meals, leading many into debt.
Likewise, slightly more than a year back on March 11, 2007, the Observer had revealed the shocking picture of neglect and poor treatment of wounded soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. It reported, for example, that “the youngest British soldier wounded in Iraq, Jamie Cooper, was forced to spend a night lying in his own faeces after staff at Birmingham’s Selly Oak Hospital allowed his colostomy bag to overflow. On another occasion his medical air mattress was allowed to deflate, leaving him in ‘considerable pain’ overnight despite an alarm going off.” Another complaint alleged that one soldier “suffered more than 14 hours in agony without pain relief because no relevant staff were on duty”. (This, of course, is as much a reflection of the chronic lack of surplus within the health system as it is of the wider militarised draw on public resources.) The MoD has already revealed a serious shortage of medical staff in the armed forces:

“There was a 50% shortfall in the number of surgeons required by the army, an 80% shortfall of radiologists and a 46% shortfall of anaesthetists¹⁸.”.

Soldiers in the field haven’t fared any better: for example, both Reg Keys and Rose Gentle lost sons in Iraq due to the lack of proper equipment. Iraq has taken its toll on an overstretched military. Due to “continuing high level of operational commitment” an MoD report has revealed, “more than 1 in 10 soldiers were not getting the rest between operations they needed.” The report also referred to a “continuing difficult environment for army recruitment and retention”. With a high number of officers and other ranks going over voluntarily with another 2,000 awaiting approval of their applications to quit, the armed forces as a whole are nearly 7,000 under strength, the report revealed¹⁹.

The crisis has caused the military to redouble its recruitment efforts with visits to Scottish schools up by more than 180% in the last three years, The Herald revealed. The news comes only weeks after the National Union of Teachers voted to block future military careers’ presentations “to pupils as young as 14” in England and Wales. “Despite the outlay of almost £500m, in 2006-07 the field army – the frontline operational part of UK ground forces – missed its ‘gains to strength’ (GTS) recruitment goal by 12%. In 2007-08, it achieved only 63% of its target²⁰.” (In the US, the military has been reduced to enlisting former convicts and the mentally ill.) The degree of desperation is also evident in the recent advertising campaign for military recruitment: the military experience is presented as a sanitized adventure, an adrenaline-soaked escape from ennui. High-minded calls of duty and honour have been replaced with ones such as “for the travel, for the action, for the adventure”; “for the fun, for the friendship, for the Friday nights”.

The MoD caused much consternation among the National Union of Teachers when it distributed materials on the Iraq war for use in schools. The ministry was accused of “misleading propaganda” which “unethically” targeted recruitment materials at schools in disadvantaged areas. One worksheet described the purpose of the UK mission in Iraq as “helping the Iraqis to rebuild their country after the conflict and years of neglect”. Touting “achievements” in “security and reconstruction” it failed to mention the US-led invasion, its legality, Iraqi civilian deaths or the absence of WMDs. This is not the MoD’s only advance on the classroom. Another example is the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) outreach programme, which sends DSTL scientists to talk to university and school students to encourage them to think about a career at the lab. According to Frances Saunders, the chief executive, DSTL sponsors “year-in-industry students, and are working with the MoD to develop school lesson texts to get people interested in the science behind defence.” Although DSTL already has strong links with universities including Southampton, Imperial, Oxford and Cambridge, Saunders plans to broaden this network.

Not since Suez has the military suffered a greater loss of prestige. RAF airmen in Cambridgeshire were recently advised against wearing uniforms in public in order to avoid being “verbally abused” for their participation in Afghanistan and Iraq. With the demoralizing effect of ill-conceived interventions abroad, the struggle for politicians is then of rehabilitating the myth of the military, rather that the military itself. What interests policy makers is not so much the military, but the cult of military. Plans are also underway to introduce US-style citizenship ceremonies for children and a new public holiday to celebrate ‘Britishness’ by 2012, as part of “wide-ranging proposals to strengthen British citizenship.”

In sharp contrast to the decrepit military stands the fortunes of the private military industry. The preference of recent governments for market solutions has facilitated the transfer of most military R&D to the private sector, with giants like QinetiQ and BAe Systems securing plum deals. When the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (Dera) was split in two in 2001, QinetiQ, a British company with links to the US-based Carlyle group, absorbed the majority of its activities. Along with a raft of other lucrative PFIs, the private military industry is set to benefit from the largest to date, involving at least £14 billion of taxpayers’ money, for a privatised Military ‘Academy’ at St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan to train all-service personnel and private ‘security services’. The corporate bonanza in Iraq has had Private Military Contractors – mercenaries – reaping windfalls profits for investors with stakes in the businesses, such as Frederick Forsyth and former Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind (of Aegis and ArmorGroup respectively). The lure of salaries, at times reaching as high as £1,000 a day, may be one reason why the military is losing so many of its men to the mercenary business²¹.

While the defence establishment has long complained of funding shortages for the forces, the R&D budget remains secure. The MoD, it was reported, has promised not to raid the R&D budget to pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, this injunction doesn’t apply in the reverse, as it has been revealed that the Conflict Prevention Fund set aside for clearing landmines and removing arms from conflict zones was being raided to pay BAe Systems to subsidise the £5m-£10m servicing cost of six Tornado jets in Iraq. The measure was needed because the MoD has closed its own state-of-the-art facility for servicing Tornado jets presented as a way of saving £500m over 10 years²².

Sensing opportunity as the war on terror grinds on, its neoconservative architects have swooped in from across the Atlantic to establish a presence in Britain. With ties to the arms industry and the neoconservative wing of the Israel lobby, the Henry Jackson Society seems to be assuming the role that the Committee on Present Danger played in the United States. Its Israel-centric worldview, as exhibited by its roster of speakers, predisposes it towards perpetual conflict. The support for a militarized ethnocracy is not the natural inclination of a liberal-democratic Britain; it can only be sustained in a context where Israel can be seen aligned with Britain in an overarching conflict against a common enemy. So it is that the Israel lobby has contrived to pass its enemies off as those of the ‘West’. HJS appears well placed to sustain this state of conflict should the Tories get in as its supporters include two of David Cameron’s key advisers. It is a dangerous confluence of interests.

Fortress Britain in the end is as much a consequence of ill-conceived alliances as it is a response to the neoliberal order’s need for distraction from its inherent contradictions. While not nearly as unscrupulous as his predecessor, Gordon Brown’s growing travails may lead him to seek the politician’s time-honoured remedy: to scare the hell out of the population. One only hopes that Fortress Britain is the apogee of what Tony Blair had set in motion with his promise to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with George W. Bush in his so-called ‘war on terror’, because things could always be worse.

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad is a member of Spinwatch.org. His commentaries on arts, politics and culture appear on Fanonite.org.

¹ Might he be the same Amnon Maor of the squad of six Israeli border policemen who back in 1994 were sentenced to six months in prison with one year suspended sentences and a fine of NIS 1,000 each, for brutally assaulting an Arab in a supermarket whose cart had accidentally knocked one? “The six also arrested a passerby who witnessed the beating, and had asked them to stop and to show identification”, the Jerusalem Post reported. The Judge castigated them for abuse of authority and violating “all norms of acceptable behaviour”. (Jerusalem Post, 8 December 1994)
2. Naomi Klein, ‘How war was turned into a brand’, The Guardian, 16 June 2007
3. Zbigniew Brzezinski, ‘Terrorized by “War on Terror”’, Washington Post, March 25, 2007
4. European Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2007; David Miller, ‘The statistical invisibility of Islamist “terrorism” in Europe’, Spinwatch, 23 May 2007
5. Duncan Campbell, ‘The ricin ring that never was’, The Guardian, 14 April 2005
fn6. Gardner admits that the MI6 tried to recruit him while he was stationed in Cairo, however, he insists he turned them down. See David Rowan, ‘Interview: Frank Gardner’, Evening Standard, 15 June 2005
7. Simon Jenkins, ‘These fear factory speeches are utterly self-defeating’, The Guardian, 7 November 2007
8. Robert Fisk, ‘If You Want the Roots or Terror, Try Here’, The Independent, 12 August 2006
9. Seumas Milne, ‘A pointless attack on liberty that fuels the terror threat’, The Guardian, 8 November 2007
10. Sanford Levinson, ‘Torture in Iraq & the rule of law in America’, Daedalus, Summer 2004
11. Gareth Peirce, ‘Was it like this for the Irish?’, London Review of Books, 10 April 2008
12. See ibid. for a description of the true onerous nature of the control orders, especially for detainees with families.
13. Henry Porter, ‘The way the police treat us verges on the criminal’, The Observer, 29 October 2006
14. James Petras, ‘Anatomy of the “Terror Expert”’, Counterpunch.org, 7-8 August 2004
15. Jim Crace, ‘Just how expert are the expert witnesses?’, The Guardian, 13 May 2008
16. J. Burnett and Dave Whyte, ‘Embedded expertise and the “War on Terror”’, Journal for Crime, Conflict and the Media, 2005, 1(4): 1-18.
17. Quoted in the incisive study of the social consequences of conflict, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, by veteran correspondent Chris Hedges.
18. Jonathan Owen and Brian Brady, ‘Soldiers need loans to eat, report reveals’, The Independent, 11 May 2008; Ned Temko and Mark Townsend, ‘Scandal of treatment for wounded Iraq veterans’, The Observer, 11 March 2007
19. Richard Norton-Taylor, ‘Under-strength and under strain as experienced soldiers queue to quit’, The Guardian, 23 November 2007
20. Ian Bruce, ‘Army visits to Scottish schools soar by 180% in three years’, The Herald, 12 May 2008
21. ‘Corporate Mercenaries’, War on Want, 30 October 2006
22. David Hencke, ‘MoD plans raid on landmine removal fund to keep Tornados flying in Iraq’, The Guardian, 10 March 2008

Labour refuses to answer Davis’s by-election challenge

Tim Holmes — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 04:58:55 +0000

Labour will not contest the by-election forced by the resignation of shadow home secretary David Davis, which he says is intended to initiate a public debate on the government’s attack on democratic rights.

The decision confirms that the Labour government is incapable of defending its extension of the period in which people can be detained without charge to 42 days—a measure that it managed to push through Parliament only with the support of nine members of the Democratic Unionist Party, reportedly “persuaded” with financial incentives for Northern Ireland.

More fundamentally, it underscores Labour’s hostility to any form of democratic accountability—a position which it made a point of principle with its decision to support the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq in defiance of popular opinion.

Initially, Davis’s announcement was greeted with universal scorn and derision by the media, who claimed that his “egotistical stunt” would backfire due to broad public support for the government’s stance.

While Labour joined such claims, it refused to say if it would contest the election from the very start. Instead, having been defeated in the London Mayoral contest by Conservative Boris Johnson and with record lows in opinion polls, it turned to its closest backer, Rupert Murdoch, for help.

Within hours of Davis’s resignation, Kelvin MacKenzie, the former editor of the Sun, boasted that he had the oligarch’s blessing to take on Davis and that “the Sun has always been up for 42 days, or perhaps even 420 days, frankly.”

MacKenzie, who said he had discussed his candidacy with Murdoch and Sun editor Rebekah Wade earlier that evening, said he was “90 percent certain” to challenge Davis if Labour decided not to. He also revealed that Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Tony Blair had been present at the party, implying that he had Labour’s backing to act as its proxy.

But as thousands of e-mails and texts to newspapers and media outlets showed that Davis’s stance had struck a chord with the public, little was heard from MacKenzie or the Sun for several days.

The former editor’s claim that Murdoch would finance his candidacy—which would be illegal under electoral law—combined with the possibility that the Sun’s claim to represent the “man in the street” would founder should it be seen to tie itself too closely to an unpopular government—appears to have done for MacKenzie’s candidacy.

Not that Murdoch was out of the picture. The Guardian reported that the Sun had also “considered approaching Rachel North, a survivor of the 7/7 bombings, who has campaigned for justice for the victims.” And his other media outlet, Sky News, reported that Labour was canvassing John Smeaton to stand in its place. The baggage handler won the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for helping police foil a terrorist attack at Glasgow Airport last year. The report was considered especially authoritative because it came from Sky TV’s political editor Adam Boulton, husband of Anji Hunter, Blair’s former spin-doctor and close friend.

North, however, told the Guardian that she “admired Davis’s stand” and was “a big fan of civil liberties and freedom and democracy.” At the weekend, Smeaton also scotched claims that he had any intention of standing, stating that he did not understand where the rumours were coming from.

Finally, on Thursday, MacKenzie confirmed he would not be a candidate in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election, citing financial considerations.

“The clincher for me was the money. Clearly the Sun couldn’t put up the cash—so I was going to have to rustle up a maximum of £100,000 to conduct my campaign,” he said, rewriting events to suggest that the earlier declaration of his candidacy had been entirely a personal whim. Instead, he urged Sun readers to support Northampton market trader Eamonn Fitzpatrick, who has said he will run as an independent in favour of 42-days detention.

Currently, the unknown fruit and vegetable salesman is one of several independent candidates who, in addition to their campaign over one or another single issue, are defending the government’s detention powers.

Labour’s hostility to democratic accountability

Labour has attempted to justify its abstention on the grounds that the by-election is a “farce.” Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman accused Davis of “wasting over £80,000 to run a by-election, paid for by the council taxpayers,” while Culture Secretary Andy Burnham has said Davis should be made to personally foot the bill.

Such demands establish an entirely new criterion for elections—i.e., whether the government of the day considers them politically pertinent or financially worthwhile. Labour has already overturned its manifesto commitment to hold a referendum on the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty—rejected by Irish voters last weekend—on the grounds that it no longer considers it necessary.

In truth, Labour cannot publicly defend its policies because it is the political plaything of big business and the super-rich, whose interests are antithetical to those of the broad mass of the population.

That is why Brown chose to make his rebuttal to Davis before an invite-only audience of just 50 people from the pro-Labour think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research.

The thrust of his speech on June 17 was that “modern security” requirements, “modern challenges” and “new threats” could not be managed “by the old, tried methods and approaches.”

Terrorism, organised crime and drug trafficking were all organised globally, using the latest technology, he said.

Whereas in the “old world” police took “fingerprints, now we have the technology of DNA.”

“While the old world relied on the eyes of a policeman out on patrol, today we also have the back-up of CCTV.

“While the old world used only photographs to identify people, now we have biometrics.”

In other words, technological progress justifies the state’s acquisition of massive new powers—including plans for a national DNA database, identity cards and widespread surveillance (as in the case of closed-circuit cameras)—an argument that evokes Orwell’s 1984.

As for Brown’s claims that technological developments could be used to “strengthen the protection of the individual,” there was no evidence of this in his speech, which was all about strengthening the state. His pledge that liberty meant “never subjecting the citizen to arbitrary treatment” and “always respecting basic rights and freedoms” was made ridiculous by the government’s passage of 42-days, and its earlier plans to introduce 90-days detention.

Concern at exposure of Labour and the “left”

It is a measure of the putrefaction of Labour and the so-called “left” in general that a right-wing Tory can present himself as the champion of civil liberties.

Labour’s 42-days detention is only the latest and most draconian of the more than 200 pieces of “anti-terror” legislation enacted by Labour since 2001 that have overturned fundamental civil liberties and have established the legislative framework for a police state.

Throughout this time, the Conservative Party has supported the “war on terror.” Davis himself voted in favour of 28-days detention without charge and the Iraq war. But he can attack Labour as “gutless” because not a single Labour “left” was prepared to break ranks and challenge the government. The two Labour “rebels” over 42-days who have said they will back Davis—Bob Marshall-Andrews and Ian Gibson—only did so when it became clear the government would not contest the election.

Even more strikingly, all the government’s critics have thus far preferred to sign up to Davis’s campaign, rather than launch their own. Veteran Labourite Tony Benn has said he supports Davis, as has Observer columnist Henry Porter and Shami Chakrabarti, the director of the human rights organisation Liberty.

This has raised alarm at the pro-Labour New Statesman magazine, which, like all official political circles in Britain, was caught off-guard by the extent of the political disaffection that would be revealed by Davis’s resignation.

On June 12, New Statesman editor Martin Bright had hailed Davis’s “courageous” resignation. In his blog, “I salute David Davis,” he wrote that the shadow home secretary had done “the decent thing” and wished “Davis well” in the election.

Within a week, his position had changed. The government’s abstention and the willingness of its “liberal” critics to rally to a Tory candidate left Bright concerned that Labour’s left periphery was fatally compromised politically.

In an air of desperation, Bright wrote, asking, “Where is the David Davis of the left, prepared to resign and challenge the government’s authoritarian agenda…. Where is the politician or public figure to challenge the government’s authoritarian agenda from a progressive perspective? In short, where is the liberal candidate to stand in Haltemprice and Howden?”

Issuing the call for a “genuinely liberal candidate to stand against David Davis,” he pledged that such a candidate “would receive the full backing of the New Statesman.”

Treatment of Harmondsworth Detainees

Ellie Keen — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

PRESS RELEASE

On Monday 23 June, the High Court will determine whether an independent investigation must be held after vulnerable detainees were locked in flooded cells without food or water while fires burned during a disturbance in Harmondsworth detention centre.

Liberty is bringing the legal challenge on behalf of three individual detainees who claim that during the November 2006 Harmondsworth disturbance they were denied food and water for up to 40 hours; locked in overcrowded, pitch-black rooms flooded with water for more than 24 hours; forced to urinate and defecate in front of each other; and strip searched in front of several officers. Permission to judicially review the Home Office and Kalyx Ltd (the contractor running the centre) was granted by the High Court in March.

Liberty’s Legal Officer Alex Gask, who brought the legal challenge, said:

“This appalling mistreatment of immigration detainees will only be stopped if exposed through a root and branch independent inquiry. It is shameful that these men were abandoned to pain, fear and hunger while in UK detention.”

One detainee told how he was taken to the centre’s medical clinic suffering from a bad back. ‘They just abandoned me,’ the man said. ‘There was no doctor and, when I asked where the doctor was, the detention officers laughed at me … One of them stepped on the hem of my trousers to make me fall over. He then started laughing and called me a “fucking negro”.’

In January 2008, the Border and Immigration Agency’s race relations audit found that repeated patterns of alleged racist incidents at Harmondsworth detention centre were missed by the in-house investigation process and that regular taunting of detainees by some officers went unchallenged.

The disturbance in November 2006 allegedly began shortly after the publication of a damning report on conditions in the centre by the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (HMIP). Four detainees were acquitted of conspiracy to commit violent disorder in February 2008.

Liberty will argue that the inquiry should cover the appalling conditions of detention under the Home Office and Kalyx Ltd which led to the disturbance taking place. Evidence from the claimants and other witnesses about the conditions in Harmondsworth substantiate the HMIP report, including:

an individual with HIV/AIDs being “outed” by prison officials and subsequently abused by other detainees
an individual with diabetes being denied insulin treatment • an individual with a visible skin disease bullied by prison officials
arbitrary solitary confinement • no effective complaints procedure
guards using racist taunts and beating detainees without provocation
detainees beaten by guards for such behaviour as requesting the faxes sent them by their lawyers.

The Home Office’s investigation into the disturbance led by Robert Whalley and published in July 2007 found that, “the underlying causes are still there and, without any changes, the same thing could happen again at either establishment.” Not a single detainee was spoken to throughout the Home Office investigation.

Contact: Jen Corlew on 0207 378 3656 or 0797 3 831 128

Notes to Editors

1. The High Court of Justice will hold a judicial review on Monday and Tuesday 23-24 June 2008 on behalf of three claimants who were detained at Harmondsworth detention centre in November 2006 against the Secretary of State for the Home Office and Kalyx Limited (formerly “UK Detention Services Ltd.”) Liberty argues that the Home Office is in violation of Article 3 of the Human Rights Act which prohibits inhuman and degrading treatment by failing to conduct an independent inquiry into the disturbance. For a copy of the application contact jenc@liberty-human-rights.org.uk

2. Liberty has compiled Harmondsworth detainees’ witness statements about the conditions in Harmondsworth both during and before the disturbance. The statements reveal that solitary confinement as a punishment for speaking out at Harmondsworth is common, according to Liberty’s witnesses. ‘If we made a complaint we would be given a warning,’ one man known as ‘K’ told Liberty. ‘If we were given three warnings, we would be put in an isolated cell. We were scared of making complaints against officers because we expected to be treated badly if we did. We were treated like pigs and very unfairly, as if we were serious criminals.’

3. Anne Owers, Chief Inspector Prisons, visited Harmondsworth for an unannounced inspection on 17-21 July 2006. Her report on this inspection, published on 28 November 2006 was “undoubtedly the poorest report we have issued on an IRC”. This report is available here

Till Death or Deportation

Ellie Keen — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

In a London hospital Mahmoud Abu Rideh lies in a critical condition from a hunger strike against the Control Order conditions which he has lived under for more than three years. Following an attempt on his life more than a month ago, he has been refusing food, and much of the time even ice cubes or water for 31 days. Wheelchair-bound, he is now coughing and excreting blood. Disillusioned with the injustice he has encountered in Britain, all Mr Abu Rideh requests is allowance to leave the UK and be deported to Syria, or for his Control Order to be lifted.

Background

A veteran of Israeli gaols, Mahmoud Abu Rideh is a stateless Palestinian. He came to the United Kingdom as a refugee from Jordan and was granted indefinite leave to remain in November 1998. His family, including his six children, are British citizens.

The illusory promises of security expected from the self-proclaimed champion of human rights were shattered when police forced their way into Mr Abu Rideh’s home in December 2001. Offering nothing but allegations that he was a threat to national security, police immediately transported him to HMP Belmarsh. Due to the impact of his detention on his mental health, he was later transferred to HMP Broadmoor. Mr Abu Rideh was finally released in March 2005, following the House of Lords ruling against his detention, but his return to home was the beginning of a new kind of imprisonment- control orders, under which he was subjected to telephone reporting three times every 24 hours, day and night, daily reporting in person to a police station, electronic tagging [at the outset], a 12-hour daily curfew, meetings outside the house and visits to anyone in the house prohibited except of persons cleared by the Home Office. He has witnessed his children endure the resulting isolation, scrutiny and pressure.

Lord Carlile, the government’s Independent Reviewer of anti-terrorist legislation has stated that Control Orders, which are reviewed on an annual basis, should not be used for longer than two years. Despite this, Mr Abu Rideh has been held under a Control Order for three years, and yet before the three years of Control Order existence he had already been interned for 3 and a half years indefinitely without trial. An emergency appeal against the Home Office’s recent refusal to modify his conditions was held in the High Court a week ago but the result is still awaited.

Mr Abu Rideh has never been questioned by the authorities, charged with any offence, nor have his solicitors been shown any evidence of why he is considered a security risk.

Psychiatrists’ reports over now seven years have shown Mr Abu Rideh to have become deeply paranoid, isolated and depressed. The Control Order regimes have driven several men beyond despair, to choose a return to a country where they are likely to be tortured, or to choose, like Mr Abu Rideh, to die. Appeals from his family, friends, religious authorities can no longer reach him. If his Control Order can be lifted as suddenly, and without explanation, as the one of Detainee ‘E’ was last week, his life would be saved.

TAKE ACTION FOR MAHMOUD ABU RIDEH NOW!

1. Write to the Home Office.
2. Write to Minister of Justice Jack Straw who promised to assist Mr Abu Rideh.
3. Sign our petition for Mr Abu Rideh at http://www.petitiononline.com/aburideh/petition.html
4. Send a message of support to Mahmoud and his family by emailing us at contact@cageprisoners.com or writing to: Cageprisoners, 27 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3XX

See the Cage Prisoners site for sample letters

Referenda: Democracy vs Elites

William Benzies — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:04:20 +0000

In his article in openDemocracy following the vote in the Republic of Ireland on the European Union’s Lisbon treaty, George Schöpflin makes a confusing case against the use of referendums (see “The referendum: populism vs democracy”, 16 January 2008).
He says that those who support referenda have fallen victim to the “seduction of direct democracy”. There is no such thing as “the people”; it’s not democracy but populism, which in turn leads to the tyranny of the majority. Worse, it’s power without responsibility and the focus on a single issue leads to unholy alliances. The basic problem is the failure to hold national elites to account because the connection with European Union institutions is weak.

Let’s turn this on its head. Would George Schöpflin have made the same case if there had been twenty-seven referenda and in each and every single country the vote had been an overwhelming “yes”?

I doubt it. I think he would have been much more likely to have penned a glowing piece praising the virtues of participatory democracy. The people of Europe had spoken; some in defiance of their purportedly Eurosceptic governments. I hazard a guess that he even would have urged national governments to take head and listen to their people – who had so clearly expressed their collective will.

We are writing articles about the EU and the use of referenda because when given the chance to have a say, three out of four broadly pro-European countries (France, the Netherlands, and the Republic of Ireland) came up with a largely unexpected “no”.

This came as a shock and governments which had originally promised one didn’t dare to ask to their people. In the United Kingdom all three political parties entered the 2005 general election with a manifesto commitment to hold a referendum. They all in different forms got cold feet and reneged.

So let’s look at George Schöpflin’s argument again. He’s right to say that not all things lend themselves to being decided by a referendum.

But it is not the complexity of the question which matters, but whether it is about conferring power; power which emanates from the people.

General-election manifestos are complex documents. Few have read them, even fewer have understood them – but when it comes to the general election people decide which package they prefer. The voters don’t say “yes” or “no” but tick a box labelled Labour, Conservative or LibDem.

I am puzzled by Schöpflin’s denouncement of “ad hoc coalitions”. Some may call this “tactical voting”. In the 1997 general election there was many a constituency where LibDem supporters voted Labour or vice-versa because it was the best way of getting the Conservatives out. I can’t see much wrong with that.

More worrying is the line that referenda are bad because they introduce new political actors. I’d say “hallelujah” to that. Anything that stops political elites from becoming complacent seems a good thing to me.

After the demos

So let’s try again.

There is a case for direct democracy when the people decide who should govern. When the government passes power onto a third party, then the people have a right to express their consent or otherwise.

As the great constitutionalist AV Dicey put it: “the referendum is the people’s veto; the nation is sovereign and may well decree that the constitution shall not be changed without the direct sanction of the nation.”

George Schöpflin is right when he says the European demos is weak. I would go further and say it does not exist. But the national demos – “we the British”, the Germans, the French or the Hungarians – is strong. To argue that “the people” is an antediluvian concept and we have progressed to some higher plane, may sound trendy and modern. But in my constituency in Birmingham they know who “we the people” are. Maybe it’s clearer to call them “the taxpayers”.

Schöpflin assumes that European Union integration operates within three different sectors – the EU and its institutions, the national elites and the supposed European demos.

I’d argue that the appetite for European integration is waning; there is no discernible European demos and the real problem is that the European elites in particular and the national elites to a lesser extent seem to be unable to comprehend or understand this.

So stop condemning referenda just because we don’t like the answers they produce and begin a proper debate about what kind of allocation of powers and responsibilities “the people” across Europe would be willing to support.

Hicham Released After 31 days In Detention

Ellie Keen — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:16:26 +0000

Press Release

From a group of Nottingham residents, concerned students and academics at the University of Nottingham, UK.

Following the cancellation order on his deportation, and after being detained for over 30 days, Hicham Yezza has been released on bail after the Home Office refused to grant him temporary release.

Hicham, a prominent political journal editor, writer and University member was arrested under anti-terror legislation for the possession of ‘radical material’ on May 14th. The document in question is widely used for research purposes and was downloaded from an official US government website. At the time of the arrest the document was being used as material for a PhD proposal (supervised by staff in the Department of Politics and International Relations) of a student friend who was also arrested.

In the wake of the arrest the Home Office attempted to deport Hicham: a move that elicited widespread condemnation. Alan Simpson MP said: “The basis of that removal is to try to justify the abuse of power under the Terrorism Act” (see website for text of speech). The deportation order was cancelled in the midst of protests and a concerted campaign for Hicham’s release, but he remained in detention for weeks in various immigration removal centres. The Home Office attempted to justify Hicham’s continued detention by claiming he had an ‘absence of close ties’ to the UK. This was despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, including hundreds of character references from friends and university colleagues, testifying to his excellent character and exceptional contributing to British society over the last 13 years.

Hicham’s arrest highlights the routine and inappropriate use of the terror laws in Britain. Despite the fact that the ‘radical material’ was immediately confirmed as research material by academic supervisors, both Hicham and Riswaan Sabir were held for 6 days. This is a pre-charge detention period that would be illegal in most EU countries.

This development comes in the wake of recent national debate surrounding the extension to 42 days pre-charge detention and at a time when the US Supreme Court reaffirms the writ of habeas corpus in relation terror suspects held in Guantanamo. Yet the UK Government continues to undermine this cornerstone of liberty and accelerates the erosion of fundamental civil liberties.

When asked for comment on his release, Hicham said: “Being detained for the past 31 days has been the most harrowing experience of my life. The support my campaign has received from thousands of friends and supporters – including MPs academics, artists and concerned citizens in Nottingham and beyond – has been nothing short of inspirational and has sustained me through this difficult time. I have spent almost half my life in Nottingham and throughout that time have done my utmost to be a productive and positive member of the student and local communities. I look forward to continuing my fight for justice and I hope sense will prevail.”

Campaign coordinator Musab Younis expressed his delight, commenting: “The incredible success of the campaign is testament to Hicham’s deep roots in the community and unique contribution as a well-known activist, academic, writer, and artist. The campaign will press ahead in its aim to secure Hicham’s right to stay in the UK. We confidently expect a swift and positive resolution to this case, in line with the values of justice and free speech that we expect our country to uphold.”

“We are delighted that Hicham Yezza has been granted immigration bail and has been released,” said David Smith, immigration specialist with Midlands law firm Cartwright King and who is representing Mr Yezza. “The judicial review will now continue and we hope that the case will proceed in an orderly fashion to its proper conclusion.”

Contact the Campaign:
Phone: 07948590262 / 07505863957 / 07726466211
Email: staffandstudents@googlemail.com
Website: http://freehichamyezza.wordpress.com