CAMPACC | ukwatch.net

Oppose Unjust Proposals of the Counter Terrorism Bill

Ellie Keen — Sun, 11 May 2008 00:47:35 +0000

Yet another Counter-Terrorism Bill is now before Parliament. These proposals would extend the injustice of current ‘anti-terror powers’, which make exceptions to the normal criminal law, especially its protection of suspects through the right to a fair trial.

The proposed powers are based on the Terrorism Act 2000, which defined terrorism so broadly as to include simply the threat of violence to property in an attempt to influence a government, anywhere in the world. Such a broad definition could include many normal political activities in this country and any resistance to oppressive regimes abroad. That Act also created ‘terrorist’ offences of associating with particular organizations, sharing a platform with their members, and helping them financially, e.g. simply by selling publications.

Since the Terrorism Act of 2000, ‘anti-terrorism’ measures have imposed much injustice, particularly on Muslim and migrant communities. Of over 1200 people arrested under anti-terrorism laws, less than 5% have been convicted of ‘terrorism’ offences, few of these involving any plans for violent activities. A key effect has been to create a climate of fear – fear that political activity, or simply talking to the wrong people, will bring arrest or house raids.

The proposed new powers would extend current injustices, especially punishment without trial, in several ways:

Detention without charge would be extended from 28 days to 42 days
‘Terrorism suspects’ could be detained without charge for six weeks. Before 2000 it was 4 days. Neither government nor police have given any convincing reason why so long is needed.
Post-charge questioning of ‘terror suspects’ – presumed guilty?
‘Terror suspects’ could be subjected to further questioning after a criminal charge, even up to the trial date. Saying nothing could count against them at trial.
At present, people once charged can refuse to answer until their trial, without their silence being interpreted as a sign of guilt or deception.
‘Terrorist connection’ would justify a heavier sentence
Judges could give people longer sentences for ‘ordinary’ offences if they had a ‘terrorism connection’ – for example, allegedly supporting a banned ‘terrorist’ organization.
Confiscation of property without trial
Convicted ‘terrorists’ could have their property confiscated – such as bank accounts, vehicles, computers or even a house. The special procedure would not be a normal trial; it could involve secret evidence.
Extra punishment without trial beyond the original sentence
Convicted ‘terrorists’ could face a ban on foreign travel once released from jail. This would be done by a special order, not a trial. Those convicted could also face a requirement to tell the police where they go whenever they sleep away from home, in some cases for life.
New offence for volunteers of not giving information to police
Volunteer workers, for example in a youth project or charity, could be prosecuted for not telling police about suspected ‘terrorist’ activities. People might be over-suspicious and report imagined activities because they are afraid of being criminalised for concealment.
New offence of providing information about the armed forces
The Bill would make it an offence to seek or communicate information about the armed forces which could be useful to terrorism. This could apply simply to peace protestors telling each other, for example, what happens at a military base.
Hiding evidence about police killings
Some inquests could be held in secret, without juries. Sensitive material about how and why a person was killed by the police or army would be hidden away; they would never be held properly to account.

Ask your MP to oppose those proposals of the Counter-Terrorism Bill. Support the due process rights of all ‘suspects’.

Model letter to send your MP can be downloaded at http://www.campacc.org.uk/Library/MP_letterCTB08_260208.doc
DEMONSTRATE against the Counter-Terrorism Bill on Monday 12 May 2008, 5-7pm 10 Downing Street. Details available at www.cacc.org.uk

Oppose yet more ‘Anti-Terror’ Powers!

Ellie Keen — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:57:21 +0000

The government has again proposed a sweeping extension of ‘counter-terrorism’ and ‘security’ measures in the Counter-Terrorism Bill 2007, being drafted to go before Parliament in November. These measures include the power to detain ‘terror suspects’ without charge for up to 56 days (double the current 28-day limit), post-charge questioning, and more severe sentences for any ‘terrorist-related’ crime. Also proposed is a new criminal offence of seeking information which could be useful for terrorism, whether or not the seeker intends such a use. For mere suspicion of involvement in terrorism, anyone could face travel restrictions and be deprived of their passport.

Even worse, all these special powers relate to a broad definition of ‘terrorism’. Under the Terrorism Act 2000, terrorism includes any activity which simply poses a threat of damage to property in pursuit of a political cause. Any suspicion of a political motive can trigger and justify special powers. They can and have been used against peaceful protest which posed no threat to anyone – for example, people standing outside the arms fair in Docklands or residents opposing the loss of their homes for a third runway at Heathrow airport.

A recent prosecution illustrates the vague crime of ‘terrorist’ association. Four university students and a schoolboy from Bradford were jailed for possessing DVDs of radical Imams – officially labelled as material ‘for terrorist purposes’ (The Guardian, 27.07.07). The defendants were charged under the Terrorism Act 2000, which was supposedly aimed at people who possess detonators and combustible chemicals. That a court now considers DVDs to be as dangerous as Semtex says much about the way in which security laws are being used politically.

To justify detention without trial, in 2001 the government claimed that we faced a national emergency, as a basis to claim exemption from the European Convention on Human Rights. When the Law Lords declared those powers illegal in 2004, the government soon got Parliament to authorise ‘control orders’, a form of house arrest which turns homes into prisons. In 2005 Parliament also authorised 28-day detention without charge, under the pretext that the police sometimes need the extra time to investigate terrorist threats. Yet the political logic is just the opposite: such powers encourage lengthy detention on the basis of scant evidence or disinformation, as in many recent cases. Of the thousands arrested under anti-terror laws, only a tiny number have been convicted for doing or planning violent activities; meanwhile personal reputations are destroyed, jobs are lost and families suffer.

All those ‘anti-terror’ powers amount to punishment without trial. They are well suited for harassing, punishing and criminalising political protest of all kinds. The authorities can readily create more ‘terror suspects’ and treat them as guilty, while promoting a politics of fear. Now ongoing terrorist threats are supposed to justify more severe powers than during the violent conflict in Northern Ireland.

The government’s new proposals extend the injustice of measures already in force. Longer pre-charge detention periods, along with post-charge questioning, will further encourage arbitrary arrests and put psychological pressure on prisoners. Information ‘which could be useful for terrorism’ can mean nearly anything, e.g. having maps or researching companies, and would be used for speculative charges to harass or criminalise political activists. Restrictions could also be imposed on travellers to international demonstrations.

The ordinary criminal law would be adequate to protect the public from violent threats. The state wants special ‘anti-terror’ powers for political reasons – to stigmatise and persecute individuals as ‘terror suspects’. These aims are clearly demonstrated by special powers regarding mere suspicion or association with ‘terrorism’ – defined so broadly as to include any threat of force or damage to property anywhere in the world. Such powers are inherently unjust.

Using terrorist threats as a pretext, the government tries to establish a permanent state of emergency. This trend towards a police state can be stopped only by claiming the rights that would be taken away from us. We need to deter the use of ‘anti-terror’ powers and to dissuade Parliament from voting for their extension. Towards those aims, there will be a broad campaign featuring a Month of Action during 15 October –15 November (see the CAMPACC site for more details).

Forest Gate Invasion

eddie — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 20:20:18 +0000

Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC) statement, 9 June 2006

The 2nd June police invasion of Forest Gate has set a new precedent for a so-called anti-terror raid. A neighbourhood was invaded by more than 200 police, many of them wearing chemical protection suits, and accompanied by MI5 agents. They blocked off streets around a suspect house and even imposed an exclusion zone for any flights overhead. With a gun ready for firing, police entered a house and quickly shot a man, Mohammed Abdul Kahar.

According to police, their raid was based on specific intelligence about equipment for a suicide bombing. Afterwards Prime Minister Tony Blair said, I support the police 101% – and the security services. The shooting intensified arguments about whether the specific intelligence was wrong and so whether the police should apologise. Eventually they did apologise for causing disruption and inconvenience to many residents − though not for the raid or shooting, which they justified as necessary for public safety (Met Police statement, 8th June).

Of course, the Forest Gate raid made us no safer. This was no mistake. The raid cannot be explained by advance information about a terror suspect.

Rather, it was a propaganda show, in the latest stage of psychological warfare. The show depended upon collusion by an eager mass media. Immediately after the shooting, enthusiastic radio journalists deduced that the raid must be significant for counter-terror because so many police were involved. The next days newspapers reinforced this strange logic. On its front page, the Daily Mail screamed, Hunt for the Poison Bomb. Likewise The Times headline read: Police hunt for lethal chemical suicide vest. The hypothetical item was pictured with a caption: It is thought that the vest the police are searching for could be similar The Guardian headline read: Fears of chemical or biological attack triggered terror raid.

What threat does this signify? As Stephen Dorril said in his history of the British intelligence services, a primary role has been to create public fear. Indeed, our security services have a long history of psychological warfare, inventing or exaggerating threats to justify special powers. And journalists have a long history of reproducing scare stories as if they were truth.

Such stories today draw links between Al-Qaeda, Islamic terrorism, asylum seekers and disaffected young Muslims in Britain. As Martin Bright of The Observer documented back in 2003, MI5 officers discretely brief journalists who then publish the briefing as reality. These scares were intensified in the run-up to the March 2003 attack on Iraq, when the government desperately invented Iraqi WMD and links with terrorist threats here. The invention continues apace: twenty major conspiracies have been uncovered, claims the Home Secretary.

Many such claims have had insufficient evidence for a criminal prosecution, much less for a conviction. A few years ago, we supposedly faced cyanide attacks on the London tube and ricin attacks in the street. In reality, the only conspiracy was fear-mongering by government agents. Now they create more scares to perpetuate their politics of fear and war on terror.

After the July 2005 bomb attack on the London tube, the Prime Minister said, The rules of the game have changed. Now we see more clearly what he meant: If the price of thorough police investigation is that occasionally they get it wrong, that is a price worth paying (Shahid Malik MP, speaking for the government on 5th June). Such excuses for the Forest Gate raid send out clear messages:

that a thorough police investigation can legitimately mean invading an entire neighbourhood and holding it hostage;

that terror suspects will be treated pre-emptively as guilty; and

that the police may shoot anyone they regard as a terror suspect, even in their own home.

Moreover, according to the official logic, failure to find terrorist threats means that the police have not looked hard enough, and that terrorists conceal their activities in the guise of normality. According to one journalist, echoing an MI5 view:

This new generation of terrorists is more discreet than its predecessors. They no longer gather at mosques, where clerics rant against Western governments, or congregate with known militants. Instead they prefer to set up their own youth clubs, using back rooms in their parents houses to devise their schemes (Daniel McGrory, The Times, 3 June 2006)

This diagnosis justifies government efforts at pervasive, endless intelligence-gathering, which creates more and more terror suspects. Information is sought on entire communities, especially on extremist politics. Such extremism includes sympathy for any resistance to British military activity abroad or to oppressive regimes allied with Britain. For a long time, refugees here have been blackmailed into acting as police informants; now this pressure is being extended to all migrant and Muslim communities. Some elected representatives actively justify police surveillance and terror in the name of security or safety.

Through both overt repression and covert surveillance, then, the state is turning many communities into internal colonies. This recolonisation draws upon the experience of British colonial rule, where counter-insurgency strategies blurred any distinction between violent and non-violent resistance. Such blurring demonised all resistance and so justified terror tactics in the name of self-defence. By analogy, suspect communities in Britain today are seen as concealing terror suspects. The British state carries out psychological warfare to frighten them and the wider society, as we saw in the Forest Gate invasion.

We are all terror suspects now. Better safe than sorry means that we all become less safe and less free.

In response, we say:

Oppose all anti-terror laws and their use !

Everyone must be treated as innocent until proven guilty !

No punishment without trial !

Stop psychological warfare !

What you can do

Join and organise protests against political terror

Keep informed by joining our mailing list

All are welcome to attend our monthly meetings, next on Monday 19th June 7-9pm at Camden Town Hall, Judd St WC1 (Kings Cross station)

'Domestic Prison' Regime

eddie — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 15:08:20 +0000

On Friday 3rd December Lord Carlile published his report supporting the governments use of control orders(under the PTA 2005), as measures supposedly necessary to protect us all from suicide bombings. Thus he justified punishment without trial, even without public evidence against those punished.

The same day was the deadline for submissions to the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) inquiry into control orders. CAMPACCs submission attacked the domestic prison regime which results from control orders and from bail conditions under the Immigration Act 1971. All these restrictions create a domestic prison for anyone who acts as a host, e.g. the persons family, friend or volunteer. These measures violate basic human rights, yet the government acts as if no derogation from the ECHR is necessary.

To read our submission, click here.

On 14th February the JCHR published its report, appending submissions from several opponents of control orders (CAMPACC, SACC, Liberty, Justice, etc.). The solicitors Tyndallwoods quote their client Mr X as follows: I was in prison before on my own, but now my whole family is in prison. (p.92).

In its main report, the JCHR regards control orders as so restrictive of liberty as to require a derogation from the ECHR. Moreover, argues the JCHR, control order proceedings amount to determination of a criminal charge and so warrant the full protections of a criminal trial. The Committee opposes the governments plan to renew the control order powers without any derogation and without Parliamentary debate (before the current powers lapse on 11th March). The report can be downloaded here.

Control Orders

eddie — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 15:10:18 +0000

The following is a submission to the Joint Committee on Human Rights regarding their inquiry into control orders.

We welcome your inquiry into powers to impose control orders.
By way of background to our submission, our campaign was set up in early 2001 to oppose
the Terrorism Act 2000. We are a non-party organisation supported by a number of lawyers,
advocates for refugee and migrant communities,and civil liberties campaigners. We opposed
the 2000 Act and subsequent anti-terrorism legislation of 2001 and 2005 on several grounds,
as argued in documents which can be seen on our web site, www.campacc.org.uk . Of
particular relevance to the current submission, we opposed internment powers under the
Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, and later the power to impose control orders, as
well as the current proposal for extending the maximum detention period without charge.
Our campaign links human rights campaigners with people targeted by the anti-terror powers
and provides practical support for them, e.g. protest events, letters, bail surety and home
visits to persons under control orders. From that experience we have special expertise in the
human effects of anti-terror powers, as well as insights into how they are used.

By a coincidence of timing, your deadline comes a day after publication of Lord Carliles
report on control orders. His report warrants at least a brief comment,as a contrast to our
submission. Overall his report reinforces the emergency mentality by which the government
warns about further suicide bombings, labels individuals as terror suspects and so justifies
the use of control orders − with no need for evidence in court. He asks that police chiefs
should explain why there is not enough evidence for prosecutions rather than ask the
government to demonstrate why control orders are necessary to protect the public from
violence. Lord Carlile acknowledges concerns about potential psychological effects of
control orders, and about family and other arrangements for the suspects. He suggests the
restrictions have been extremely restrictive and close to what would need an opt-out from
European human rights laws. As we will argue, his euphemisms sanitise gross abuses of
human rights − indeed, punishment without trial − and downplays a great inconsistency with
the ECHR.
When the governments proposal for control orders was going through Parliament about a
year ago, CAMPACC denounced this new power to impose punishment on those not proven
guilty. As we further said:-

Under the Home Secretarys proposals, people could be subject to a civil control order without
any criminal charge. They would not necessarily be told of the evidence against them. Like the
internment power which the Law Lords have rejected, such orders impose punishment without
conviction through a proper jury trial. This would violate a fundamental principle of justice; the
right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Such powers would impose a criminal-type
sentence without trial, in the name of preventing hypothetical crimes (CAMPACC statement,7
February 2005).

Our ominous prediction has been more than vindicated in practice, for the following reasons:

Control orders have been used to isolate individuals and their families, including
children, from the wider society, even from friends or relatives. In some cases, detainees relatives have not been given permission to visit even several months after
applying. The punishment without trial extends to wives and children, and even to
those providing accommodation, since visitors to the whole household are restricted by
Home Office vetting arrangements. This is a form of collective punishment which
violates natural justice and international law.

Considerable mental distress has been caused by the requirement that the detainees
accommodation can be searched by the police, or by a monitoring company checking
tagging apparatus, at any time. Distress to the entire family is apparent in the testimony
of Mahmoud Abu Rideh to journalists. For example, My kids worry that when they
get back from school I will be gone and they might not find me again. My wife cant
sleep. She is asking me not to go out again (Control order flaws exposed, The
Guardian, 24 March 2005). A month later he visited a police station, asking for a
return to prison custody rather than having an electronic tag re-fitted (Tagged terror
suspect sent back to jail, The Guardian, 29 April 2005; copies to be included with our
letter). Similar distress is documented in a statement from the bail-accommodation
provider for Mr S (Appendix A). Likewise the distress and social isolation of an entire
family as well as the person put under restrictions (Appendix B).

Anyone applying for permission to host or visit individuals under control orders − as
well as some persons detained and bailed under the 1971 Immigration Act − is
officially classified as a known associate of a terror suspect (Independent, 15
December 2005, pp.1-2, copy to be posted with our letter). As volunteers to visit and
support people who are victims of a law we oppose, we proudly defy that ridiculous
stigma. But many other people are intimidated, especially friends or relatives who do
not hold UK citizenship and so rightly feel more vulnerable to persecution. All this
illustrates the more general role of anti-terror laws in terrorising Muslim and migrant
communities.

Although your committees investigation presently concerns only control orders, the 1971
Immigration Act has been used for similar purposes. That is, certain Immigration Act
detainees have been bailed under conditions similar to control orders or even under greater
restrictions. As we detail below, in effect it has been used to create a parallel regime to that
of control orders. Under their bail conditions, for example, they must speak to no one who
has not been authorised by the Home Office. Some even undergo full house arrest, which
should require a `derogation from Article 5 of the ECHR unless it can be shown that
deportation will take place within a reasonable period. Bail has been granted precisely
because it seems doubtful that this is the case. Whatever changes may be made to the control
orders regime, those changes (hopefully, improvements) will not touch the parallel regime
under the 1971 Immigration Act, which remains.

Regardless of which law is used to impose special conditions, they may amount to virtual
house arrest. In this way the government in effect re-creates internment, pending a judicial
process which could last for many years.

Moreover, they create a domestic prison for anyone who acts as a host, e.g.the persons
family, friend or volunteer (e.g.supporters of our campaign). All such people are subject to
impromptu searches and removal of property including computers. The household is
prohibited from having visitors not approved by the Home Office. All this amounts to
punishment without trial for the host, as well as for the person directly under restrictions. Thus the government extends punishment to the detainees associates. In this way, the
system deters people from acting as host and so makes bail more difficult to obtain.

Those patterns illustrate how the government is using a variety of powers to circumvent
normal judicial procedures, even to circumvent the Law Lords ruling that internment
violated the ECHR. According to the governments own account of the Prevention of
Terrorism Act 2005, no derogation from the ECHR would be necessary unless control orders
impose house arrest. Yet in practice it has imposed virtual house arrest without the overt
shame or burden of such derogation (see Appendix C).

Impracticability of control order regimes for single men using rented accommodation

Lastly, the viability of control orders as an alternative to the (completely unacceptable)
practice of internment depends on it being practical for persons subject to these orders to live
in the community outside of prison. This is not the case for control orders, nor for the
parallel regime under the Immigration Act 1971 (see Appendix C). These regimes have been
operated in such a way as to make it impractical to expect detainees without families and
family homes to be released from prison or detention centres to live under control orders,
even where their house arrest is only partial. If detainees friends, supporters and lawyers try
to rent them a self-contained flat which can be proposed as bail accommodation, the need for
access and equipment installations by the tagging company makes landlords unwilling to let,
especially if informed by the police of the nature of their proposed tenant. If accommodation
with a resident landlord is proposed, then the conditions of life for the host are made
impossible. The host may not receive his or her friends as visitors, since they are not vetted
to visit the detainee, and must accept searches and inspections by the tagging company and
police at any time. These issues mean that finding accommodation where the conditions of a
control order can be met is extraordinarily difficult for single detainees, so that there is
nowhere they can stay outside of a prison. For this reason alone, the regime of both control
orders and the parallel regime of bail under the 1971 Act needs to be made less strict, even
if it were not for the overwhelming concerns about the injustice and inhumanity of any
system of punishment without trial.

Conclusion

Drawing on our direct experience, this letter has outlined gross abuses of human rights under
both the PTA 2005 and the Immigration Act 1971. Do these practices conform to the
intention of Parliament when enacting those laws? Do these practices comply with human
rights law, especially the ECHR? We urge your committee to investigate those abuses.
Our supporters would be pleased to send further information or to present oral evidence at
any hearings.

Estella Schmid

On behalf of

Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC)

Appendix A: Mr Qavi s personal account as a bail-accommodation provider

I came in contact with Mr S for the first time, on 19th April, 2005, when, before Asylum and
Immigration Tribunal, I undertook to provide a bail address for him. He stayed with me in
my flat for about 4 weeks, after which he moved to a NASS-provided accommodation
elsewhere.
On the morning of 15th September 2005 he was, in a highly publicised raid, arrested and
taken to Long Lartin. He was ordered released by SIAC [Special Immigration Appeals
Commission ] on 17th January, 2006 on bail conditions which are more restrictive than the
control orders system. The bail conditions of his release oblige Mr S to wear a tag at
all times, to report to the police station every day between 12 noon to 2 pm, not to leave the
bail address at all times save for the period from 10.00 am to 4.00 pm etc. His movements
are restricted to a marked area which he is required not to leave. He is forbidden to receive
any visitor other than his solicitor while staying at my place. The police and Immigration
personnel and others working on behalf of Home Secretary can call at any time and without
prior notice to enter the bail residence to check on him.

I offered to stand surety and provide him a bail address early in December 2005. On this
occasion, the Home Office chose to impose “surety conditions” in drips, seemingly designed
to prolong the process and to dissuade me from providing a bail address by sheer
unreasonableness of the conditions they initially sought to impose. The result being that Mr
S’s release on bail was delayed for weeks.
The “surety conditions” require me not to permit my friends, neighbours and acquaintances
to enter my residence unless I provide the visitor’s name, address, date of birth and a
photograph at least 3 days beforehand to the Home Office and seek its approval as to the
time and date and the expected duration of the visit. My lap top can be inspected and taken
away for up to 48 hours. My residence can be entered by police and immigration officials at
any time without prior notice,etc.

The “surety conditions“are grossly restrictive and infringe
on my civil liberties as a British citizen. I have been obliged to place myself and my
residence under quarantine in order to seek the release of a friendless, young asylum seeker
from unjust and unlawful imprisonment.

Since 17th January 2006 my home has been visited by various police and immigration people
on three difference occasions – all without notice and at abrupt hours of their choosing. The
last visit took place on Saturday 28th January 2006 when 3 officials called at 6.30 pm, just as
I had sat down with my newspaper. They wanted to check the tagging equipment. For the
next 50 minutes they wandered around all over my place in their unclean shoes, checking
each and every corner over and over again. They tacked a lead of wire to one of the door
frames and fixed a portable antenna for their equipment to the top of the door. A hideous
sight which none of the “surety conditions” say they are allowed to do.

At odd hours and for no discernable reason, the tagging company telephones to enquire of
Mr S where he was 3 minutes or 7 minutes ago. At other times, the tagging company rings
and when Mr S picks up the telephone, there is no one on the line. When he calls back to ask
why the telephone rang, he is told we did not call you. All this is happening in my presence
and within my hearing.

During 4 months of incarceration, Mr S has lost some 20 kg in weight and looks a shadow of
himself. He is psychologically traumatised by the circumstances of his arrest on 15th September, 2005 when his front door was smashed and he was severely beaten up by
immigration and police personnel. He carries injuries to his knee and leg which require
medical attention.

Appendix B: Les Levidow s account as a visitor

When the solicitors Birnberg Peirce requested volunteers to visit individuals put under
control orders in spring 2005, I responded as a supporter of CAMPACC. Previously I had no
personal contact with such individuals, though I had actively campaigned for their release
from unjust detention. On my behalf, Birnberg Peirce applied to the Home Office for
permission for me to visit such individuals. By the time I was assigned to one, Mr G, he had
been re-arrested for deportation to Algeria and then placed under house arrest under the
Immigration Act 1971.

Mr G was released from prison on the basis that he had a family here who could host him.
His house has been effectively turned into a domestic prison, in many ways. Guests are
prohibited unless approved by the Home Office. It still had not given approval to some
friends and relatives, many months after they submitted a request. Great distress results from
the family s isolation, as well as from the constant apprehension about police raids, about
security companies checking the electronic tag, etc. The latter seems all the more absurd,
given that Mr G remains bound to a wheelchair, physically unable to move around without it.

When I have visited Mr G,he and his family were very appreciative because human rights
campaigners have become an important contact with the outside world. He explained to me
the difficulty of his bail conditions, which prohibit any conversation with anyone not
approved by the Home Office. Eventually the judge allowed him to go out to his back
garden for a couple of hours per day, but Mr G decided not to take up this opportunity.
Why? Probably neighbours in his housing co-operative would say hello. As a human being,
Mr G would find it unbearable to ignore them. If he simply says hello, then he could be
returned to prison for breaking his bail conditions. The dilemma well illustrates how these
conditions abuse human rights, as well as serving a political agenda of social isolation.

As I eventually learned from a newspaper article, when someone applies to the Home Office
for permission to visit such a person, s/he classified as a known associate of a terror suspect
(Independent ,15 December 2005,pp.1-2). Such a stigma is a primary political purpose of
the anti-terror laws. It effectively deters many people from such association.

*Appendix C: The parallel regime of control-order style bail conditions under the
Immigration Act 1971*

This issue has emerged in relation to some immigration detainees whom the government
wants to deport to Algeria, Libya and Jordan. These are countries notorious for torture, with
which the government has been seeking `no-torture agreements for some time. Some
individuals released from ACTSA internment to a control orders regime under the PTA 2005
were re-detained in prison under the Immigration Act 1971 in August 2005, apparently
because it was thought that such agreements would soon be concluded and the government
then intended to deport them. Other individuals who had been accused, but not convicted of
terrorism, in the well-known ricin trial and released as innocent men in spring 2005 were
also re-detained in August-September under the Immigration Act 1971.

When it became apparent that deportation would not be imminent because the agreements
with other governments had not yet been concluded, bail was granted to a few such people.
This immigration bail has been under conditions even stricter than those previously used or
envisaged under control orders. Four such cases were featured in an excellent article in The
Independent (15 December,pages 1-2). In one of these cases, which may not be the only
one, the detainee is not permitted to leave his accommodation at all, yet no derogation from
Article 5 of the ECHR has been sought from Parliament as laid down as necessary for those
control orders under the PTA 2005 which constitute full house arrest. Our supporters have
direct experience of hosting or visiting some of these individuals (see Appendix B).

When responding to the Law Lords ruling on internment under the ATCSA 2001,
Parliament sought an alternative which did not breach the ECHR. The spirit of their
judgement, which should surely be reflected in all subsequent treatment of terror suspects,
was that imprisonment without trial or charge is simply unacceptable. However, the scope of
their judgement related to people with a right to reside in the UK or those who could not be
deported due to a risk that they would be tortured if returned to their country of origin. Since
the summer of 2005, we have seen the emergence of a parallel regime of internment under
the Immigration Act 1971, using the excuse that those affected are being detained pending
deportation. At least one person (Detainee G) who was first interned under ATCSA 2001,
then released under a control order, then re-arrested and detained in prison under the
Immigration Act 1971, has now been bailed under complete house arrest under that Act.

Full house arrest under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 requires a decision to derogate
from the ECHR, justified by a `national emergency, yet this parallel regime somehow
escapes that requirement; no such derogation has been made or sought. The justification for
house arrest or detention without trial or charge under the Immigration Act 1971 is
apparently that deportation is imminent. Yet when G was placed under a control order, it was
precisely because he could not be deported due to the risk of torture. Nothing had changed
with regard to that question by the time he was re-arrested in August 2005 (with others in
somewhat similar circumstances,of whom more shortly). The UK government had merely
decided to negotiate with the Algerian government with a view to obtaining assurances that
returned persons would not be tortured. Here lies an important legal issue: whether someone
can be regarded as detained pending deportation when the agreement that is supposed to
make that deportation acceptable under Article 3 of the ECHR as a procedure for a whole
category of persons has not yet been tried and tested in the UK courts. It is illogical to
maintain that G s situation changed because a no torture agreement was under negotiation.
This argument is quite separate from our considerable scepticism that the Algerian
governments undertakings can be trusted.

A similar but slightly different argument can be applied to those who were re-arrested in
August under the Immigration Act 1971 having been acquitted (or had charges against them
dropped)in the so-called ricin trial. These men are still in Immigration Act detention or
have been bailed under partial house arrest. These are innocent men; to deny this would be to
reject the outcome of the normal and proper judicial procedure which they went through. Nor
was any new evidence put forward against them, nor were they subjected to control orders
under the procedure that Parliament (in our view unjustly) approved in 2005 for terror
suspects who cannot be prosecuted. Instead they have been subjected first to imprisonment
without trial or charge, virtually indistinguishable from ATCSA internment but for the
excuse that it is pending deportation. Following that ordeal, some have been bailed under
conditions which amount to a control orders regime − partial house arrest. Yet they are all
either persons who in law cannot be deported because of the risk of torture,until and unless that risk is deemed to have been eliminated,and/or persons whose asylum claim process was
unfinished according to normal procedures.

The label pending deportation which has been used to justify their internment and then
house arrest thus appears to have no justification. It is in fact being used to create a parallel
or alternative route to punishment without trial, without even the safeguards which
Parliament laid down in the PTA 2005. Whilst we opposed that Act as unjust, our point here
is that the intentions of Parliament in 2005 are being flouted by this dangerous, illogical
parallel regime. Even the detention regime for other asylum see ers, which we also oppose, is much less harsh than the conditions to which these men have been subjected.

We would, moreover, question whether the bail conditions which have actually been
imposed in the case of Mr S (see Appendix A) are justified by the Immigration Act 1971. It
does permits the Secretary of State to impose conditions with regard to residence and
reporting to the police, and (as later amended)permits tagging of detainees. As far as we
know, however, this Act has not previously been interpreted to justify restrictions on visitors
or constant searches of the accommodation. As reported above, the searches experienced by
one host (Appendix A) extend to the whole premises, not just to checking the tagging
apparatus. Moreover his computer may be removed for up to 48 hours for inspection,
according to the conditions which have been set a gross imposition on an innocent
volunteer who has offered to help a person already judged innocent in a British court. Again,
from the example of this case, the arrangements for detention and bail under the 1971 Act
are being transformed into a control order regime.

Notes for editors

1.The testimony referred to here – whether quoted or not – was prepared for
Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights, and is the Committee’s property. The
Committee allows people submitting material to publish and publicise their
submissions on condition that an indication that it was prepared for the Committee is
given. CAMPACC grants permission to re-publish, quote from, or otherwise make
use of material from the submission included in this press release only if the
requirement of the Committee is met.

Statement on Terrorism Bill

eddie — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 17:17:13 +0000

This document was submitted to the Joint Committee on human Rights on October 7, 2005

We regard the governments proposed anti-terror legislation as totally incompatible with basic
human rights, especially the rights to free association,free speech and liberty from unfair
detention.

These new proposals would extend the current powers based on the Terrorism Act 2000, which
redefined terrorism more broadly to include simply the threat of violence to property in an
attempt to influence a government, anywhere in the world. That broad definition encompasses
many normal political activities in this country and any resistance to oppressive regimes abroad.
The Terrorism Act 2000 and its two successors have been used to suppress domestic dissent
against oppression, by intimidating, detaining and even criminalizing many people as terror
suspects, sometimes simply for a vaguely defined association with so-called terrorism. The
current powers have already been designed and used for a political agenda − suppressing human
rights to free association, free speech and liberty from unfair detention.

The latest proposals would intensify and extend the injustice of the current powers. In particular:

1. Two new crimes:any statements which amount to the direct or indirect encouragement of terrorist acts or statements which glorify, exalt or celebrate such acts.

Reasons: The ordinary criminal law already prohibits efforts to incite violent crimes or
conspiracy to organize crimes. The new terrorist crimes would be used to intimidate,
silence and persecute merely verbal support for resistance against oppressive regimes
or even verbal support for domestic political activities which may fit the broad definition
of terrorism. Such statements may include, for example, mere expressions of support for
legal defence or solidarity statements for peace protestors accused of damage at
military bases.

2. Banning groups which glorify terrorist acts.

Reasons: The Terrorism Act 2000 has already been used in a politically biased way, by
banning many groups abroad which resist oppressive regimes, wherever those groups
activities fit the broad definition of terrorism. The new power would help extend the current bans to UK-based organizations which glorify terrorism as broadly defined
under the 2000 Act. Overall this would mean further criminalizing political dissent
against UK foreign policy, for example, opposition to the Iraq War or to the Israeli
occupation of Palestinian land. Of course, regimes allied to the UK government are
never classified as terrorist, much less UK military activities abroad.

3. A new crime of disseminating terrorist publications.

Reasons: Already the Terrorism Act 2000 has been used to prosecute a Turkish-
language magazine as terrorist property, even though it is legally sold in Turkey and
simply reports on political developments there. This prosecution illustrates how current
anti-terror powers are used to promote UK foreign policy objectives, not to protect us
from violence. The new crime would further suppress dissent, without needing to
demonstrate any link with a banned organization. It is a serious attack on freedom of
speech; even if unsuccessful in court, prosecutions could be highly disruptive to political
dissent.

4. Detention without charge (of terror suspects)would be extended from 14 days to 3
months.

Reasons: Already the 14-day maximum detention period has been used as a substitute
for a proper criminal investigation,instead intimidating and stigmatizing people as
terror suspects. An even longer period would amount to internment in all but name,
thus violating the principle of habeas corpus. Such long detention would be used to extract real or imaginary information to justify detention of yet more terror suspects.
For all those reasons,we oppose renewal or extension of any anti-terror powers, especially
those newly proposed by the government. The new powers would extend the already excessive
anti-terror laws and their inherent injustice. The ordinary criminal law is adequate to protect
us from violence. Anti-terror laws are designed and used mainly to protect oppressive regimes
abroad and UK foreign policy objectives.
If you would like more information on the use of earlier anti-terror powers during 2001—2003,
then please read our document:

Terrorising Minority Communities with Anti-Terrorism Powers: their Use and Abuse, Submission to
the Privy Council Review of the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001, July 2003,
www.campacc.org.uk/ATCSA_consult-final.pdf

If you would like more information on why to oppose the governments new proposals, then
please read the briefing document,Protect our Rights ,along with the petition United to
Protect our Rights, both available at www.campacc.org.uk

We would be pleased to send more detailed information and to answer your questions at a public
hearing.

Estella Schmid On behalf of Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC)

Embedded Experts in the 'War on Terror'

eddie — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 13:20:20 +0000

Embedded journalists have become notorious for partisan reportage in war, generally from the standpoint of the occupying forces. From their perspective, terrorist insurgents undermine US-UK efforts to promote peace, democracy and economic development in Iraq. Less obvious are embedded experts in the wider agenda of war on terror. Unlike journalists, many of those experts are able to conceal their partisan roles behind the façade and legitimacy of academic status. As policy analysts and commentators, they lend credence to scares about terrorist threats leading to mass public casualties in Britain. They reinforce US neoconservative propaganda about a global Al Qaeda organisation, ever ready to carry out military operations.

Such exaggerations create a climate of fear, whereby the public mind links the terrorist Other with vulnerable and oppressed communities resident in Britain, who then appear to threaten the very fabric of civil society (Fekete, 2004). Moreover, any radical resistance within Britain is portrayed as a contagion which will spread to entire communities and lead to violence: For example, This kind of terrorism has a kind of epidemiology that tends to lead back to various forms of extremist preaching or mentoring. It is generally practised by young men in their 20s, according to a former British intelligence agent (Black, 2004).

Embedded experts play a propaganda role which reinforces such exaggerations. This role can be illustrated by the ricin conspiracy case, which started with high-profile arrests in north London in the run-up to the US-UK attack on Iraq, and then continued for two years with mass-media scares about the threat of public poisoning. During the trial the jury heard no evidence of useable ricin, nor credible plans to poison anyone, nor an Al Qaeda link. The jury was not persuaded of any conspiracy to murder, though one defendant was convicted of plotting to cause disruption, fear and injury. He had no co-conspirators, except perhaps government Ministers who had encouraged public fears of poison attacks. The most specific evidence against him came from a detainee apparently tortured in Algeria.

Even though the prosecution case collapsed, acquitted defendants were widely portrayed as terror suspects. Terrorism expert Professor Paul Wilkinson commented:

The police inquiry obviously showed up a much wider network of people who had been plotting to use poison in other parts of Europe. We should take the threat seriously (Evening Standard, 14 April 2005, p.5)

Likewise, after the Home Office withdrew a warning over dirty bombs, Wilkinson suggested that the warning should be heeded, thereby perpetuating public fear (BBC, 2002).

Such academic terrorism experts or terrorologists are deeply embedded in the elite power structure. They conveniently blur distinctions between political dissent, resistance to oppressive regimes, and violent threats to populations. These experts advise governments on counter-terrorism, thus sanitising Western state terror as legitimate techniques for self-defence (George, 1991). Where did these terrorologists come from? How do they gain influence and credibility? How can they be countered?

Counter-insurgency school: total war

In the 1960s and 1970s the counter-insurgency school, which dominated academic and policy research on terrorism, aimed at influencing military strategy. Writers such as Richard Clutterbuck and Frank Kitson drew on their extensive experience in counter-insurgency campaigns, which set out to eradicate any resistance to Britains declining system of direct rule over its colonies. Backing up British rule, Clutterbuck and Kitson faced a sustained resistance which took the forms of both political and armed struggle. In response, their writings described a continuum of insurgency or spectrum of political conflict. With such language, popular protest, industrial action and terrorism were located on various points along a continuum of political violence.

In his book, Low Intensity Operations, Kitson (1971) argued that military forces must recognise that subversion and insurgency were now a part of one total war. Counter-insurgency theory provided a strategic framework for how a state should respond to insurgency, by treating political resistance as a military problem. According to Clutterbuck: history has shown that terrorism can be and has been eliminated by a ruthless response to it, for power does ultimately lie with the government and its security forces.

These military theorists played a hands-on role in suppressing anti-colonial insurgency. Militantly anti-Communist, they shared a view that most anti-colonial resistance was funded by the KGB. They conflated labour disputes, popular protest movements and terrorist activity. In particular they advocated greater support for special military forces. As Kevin Toolis has noted: The counter-terrorist solution to revolt was always the same: military repression, assassinations, torture programmes and state-licensed killing squads (2004: 26).

According to Kitson and Clutterbuck, infiltration of the local population can be achieved by covert operations, normally conducted by special forces rather than regular military units. At the heart of this was the strategy of turning. In the 1950s colonial war in Malaya, turning was described as follows:

The method of acquiring and using agents was to spy on the guerrillas contacts with the people, identify who those were in touch with them, persuade a number of those to turn traitor, and so disrupt the rest of the organisation so that the guerrillas were fairly sure to go on relying on at least some of those people that would in the end betray them by giving advance precise information (Clutterbuck, 1973: 212).

This technique would be used to facilitate the further surrender of enemy personnel and the murders of those who allied themselves with the insurgents. Local populations who did not conform could be manipulated by, for example, cutting off their food supplies until they withdrew support for insurgent groups. Influenced this strategy, British colonial campaigns were notoriously brutal, infringing the Geneva conventions (Curtis, 2003) as does low-intensity warfare today.

St Andrews-RAND nexus: redefining terrorism

Just as journalists who attach themselves to military units are now seen as embedded with the military, the counter-insurgency theorists are embedded as experts in universities and think tanks. Today an analogous network connects academics with militarist agendas, especially through the RAND Corporation, which has held numerous contracts to advise the US military. In 1993 Bruce Hoffman temporarily left RAND to found the Centre for Studies in Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV) at the University of St Andrews. Hoffman is currently an Honorary Senior Research Associate at the CSTPV. Brian Jenkins, a Senior Analyst at RAND who founded the corporations terrorism research programme in 1972, is currently a member of the CSTPV Advisory Council. The relationship is further strengthened through the collaborative establishment of the RAND-St Andrews database of international terrorism incidents.

The RAND-St Andrews nexus skews understandings of terrorism, especially through its pivotal role in the peer review and publishing of research. Members of the Centre and of RAND hold key editorial positions on the two foremost academic journals in the field: Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Terrorism and Political Violence. Those journals emphasise political violence directed against states, while largely ignoring violence by states, except those not allied to US or Western European countries i.e., those described as rogue states by the US government (Burnett and Whyte, 2005).

Embedded experts define terrorism selectively, with a bias towards US-led alliances and against any resistance. According to Prof. Paul Wilkinson, Director of the CSTPV, extra-judicial assassinations by Israel are ruthless acts of counter-terror, i.e. self defence (Wilkinson, 2002: 68). Within this perspective the USA, the UK and their client states never carry out terrorism.

In a mid-1990s government inquiry on terrorism, Wilkinson emphasised violence by oppressed groups, while ignoring state violence against them. In particular he problematised trans-national support for the weak:

‘ almost any prolonged and significant terrorist campaign is likely to have an international dimension: almost every terrorist group tends to look across the borders of the state where it is based, and further afield, not only for weapons, funds, training and safe-haven, but for any ideological, political or diplomatic support it can manage to obtain; sub-state terrorism is typically the weapon of the weak’ (Wilkinson, 1996: 4).

Such diagnoses justified permanent anti-terrorist legislation to target the weak.

That report led to the Terrorism Act 2000, which broadened the definition of terrorism. It blurred any distinction between political protest and organised violence, as well as any distinction between ideological and material support. This law redefined terrorism to include simply ‘the threat’ of ‘serious damage to property’, in ways ‘designed to influence the government’ for a ‘political cause’. Moreover, it banned organisations on the basis that their activities abroad fit that broad definition, and criminalised any association with such organisations in Britain. After the September 11 attacks, the EU Council redefined terrorism in even broader ways. Predictably, such powers have been used to intimidate (and sometimes prosecute) political opponents of oppressive regimes allied to the UK. These developments ominously bring home to Britain the counter-insurgency theory that was deployed in its colonies, and in Northern Ireland during the 1970s, to counter political revolt.

An associate of the CSTPV, Rohan Gunaratna (2003), has offered expert testimony in UK prosecutions for supposed membership in terrorist groups. In the court case of Meziane, several refugees in Leicester were accused of fund-raising for terrorist activities abroad. After Gunaratna claimed that they were Al Qaeda members, he was challenged by the defence to provide documentation, but he did not. Consequently, the allegations were dropped and he was not recalled as a witness. Neither did the prosecution take up his similar offer in another case against refugees for alleged membership of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Nevertheless Gunaratna is still quoted as an expert by journalists.

Embedded in the Iraq occupation

Beyond its academic roles, the RAND-St Andrews nexus has close professional links with key political and corporate players in the war against terror. An important example is Bruce Hoffman, founder member of the CSTPV and currently RAND Corporations key expert on terrorism. In 2004 he was appointed as senior advisor on counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency to the Constitutional Provisional Authority in Iraq. Hoffman argued that the occupation strategy can be successful only if it adopts a British colonial model of counter-insurgency, comparable to perspectives in Kitsons Low Intensity Operations.

The CSTPV also has institutional ties to the private military industry. One example involves founder member of the CSTPV and current Honorary Senior Research Fellow, David Claridge. In 2001 Claridge established Janusian Security Risk Management Limited, a private military intelligence and security company, as a subsidiary of the political risk firm The Risk Advisory Group. The company claimed to be the first Western security firm with an independent operational office and a country manager permanently based in Iraq. In the press statement accompanying its launch, Janusian acknowledges their link with the CSTPV in this collaboration, which includes shared access to research, intelligence sources and databases, and the expertise of the Centres staff, as well as the development of sector-specific studies into areas of political risk.

Like their antecedents in counter-insurgency theory, present-day embedded experts emphasise techniques for total war against both political and military resistance. Hoffman blames the USAs inadequate planning for the insurgency problem in Iraq. According to him, a critical window of opportunity was lost because we failed to anticipate the widespread civil disorder and looting that followed the capture of Baghdad; this key mistake breathed life into the insurgency. In his analysis, the insurgency originated independently of the invasion; it has no link with the occupiers activities there.

Conclusion: the threat of terrorology

Terrorology is the theoretical arm of counter-insurgency, both at home and abroad. Counter-insurgency theory provides a basis for homogenising all resistance, protest and dissent as terror threats. Subversion is understood as all tactics that attempt to force governments to take a particular course of action (or to refrain from some action). Such a broad definition could include political and economic pressure, strikes, protest marches and counter-hegemonic propaganda.

Moreover, by locating terrorist threats within entire communities, todays counter-insurgency theory legitimises a low-intensity total war at home and abroad. Strategies for containing terrorist threats involve counter-insurgency methods against entire populations, which then conveniently become targets for state persecution in their own right. Its anti-terror weapons include bans on organisations, exemplary prosecutions, stop-and-search powers, freezing the bank accounts of Muslim charities, blackmail against refugees to act as police informers, etc. (CAMPACC, 2003).

Terrorology has become a political basis for anti-democratic agendas built into anti-terror laws. In response, we can systematically challenge terrorology its neutral façade and claim to independence. Still better, critical voices should be heard in their own right as terrorism experts, emphasising the role of multinational companies and occupation forces (e.g. in Palestine, Iraq, Chechnya, etc.) as obstacles to a peaceful world. In countering the partisan expertise of terrorology, we all have a role to play political activists, academics, lawyers, journalists and many others especially by supporting each other and working together.

References

BBC (2002) Dirty bomb threat possible expert, BBC News Online, 8 December, www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics

Black, C. (2004) Never say inevitable, The Guardian G2, 8 April.
Burnett, J. and Whyte, D. (2005) Embedded expertise and the War on Terror, Journal for Crime, Conflict and the Media 1(4): 1-18, www.jc2m.co.uk

CAMPACC (2003) Terrorising Minority Communities with Anti-Terrorism Powers: their Use and Abuse, Submission to the Privy Council Review of the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001, www.campacc.org.uk/ATCSA_consult-final.pdf

Clutterbuck, R. (1973) Riot and Revolution in Singapore and Malaya 1945-1963. London: Faber and Faber.

Curtis, M. (2003) Web of Deceit: Britains Real Role in the World. London: Vintage.

Fekete, L. (2004) Anti-Muslim racism and the European security state, Race and Class, 46(1): 3-29.

Gunaratna, R. (2003) Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror, Second Edition. London: Hurst & Company.

George, A. (1991) The discipline of terrorology, in A. George (ed.), Western State Terrorism, Routledge.

Toolis, K. (2004) Rise of the terrorist professsors, New Statesman 17 (811).

Wilkinson, P. (1996) Inquiry into Legislation against Terrorism, Vol. 2, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, Cm 3420.

Wilkinson, P. (2002) Terrorism Versus Democracy: the Liberal State Response. London: Frank Cass

This document is published in July 2005 by the Campaign against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC), www.campacc.org.uk, email estella24@tiscali.co.uk. The text draws on talks at an April 2005 seminar organised by CAMPACC and the Network of Activist Scholars in Politics and International Relations (NASPIR),