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Victory for Liberty's Charge or Release Campaign

Ellie Keen — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:11:50 +0000

PRESS RELEASE

The Government has dropped plans for 42 days detention. Last night saw a resounding victory for Liberty’s long running Charge or Release campaign. Common sense and common decency prevailed as the Government dropped plans to detain terror suspects for 42 days without charge, following an overwhelming defeat in the House of Lords. The Upper House rejected the proposal by a devastating 191 votes.

In an emergency statement to MPs shortly afterwards, the Home Secretary said that the counter-terrorism bill would continue its journey through parliament without the 42 day measure. The government will publish a bill containing the 42 day plan; this bill will be held in reserve to be introduced should there be a terrorist emergency.

Highlights from the House of Lords debate

The vote followed a three-hour debate dominated by opponents of 42 days from all quarters of the Lords. There were 24 Labour rebels including two former Lord Chancellors, Lord Irvine of Lairg and Lord Falconer of Thoroton, as well as Baroness Manningham-Buller, former head of MI5, Justice Lord Woolf, former Lord Chief Justice and Lord Condon, former Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

Lord Falconer, dismissed the government’s arguments as “fanciful”, telling peers he had changed his mind after supporting plans to detain terror suspects without charge for 90 days in 2005. He said:

“The idea that extending [the detention period] from 28 days to 42 days is going to make a difference is utterly fanciful.”

Lord Dear, a former West Midlands chief constable, told peers:

“There is almost universal opposition to what the Government proposes.

“It almost beggars belief that any administration could embark on such a course.”

Lady Neville-Jones, the shadow security minister and former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, condemned the plans as “unnecessary, undesirable and unworkable’‘.

And Baroness Mallalieu, a Labour peer, said that while she was in the “uncomfortable” position of being forced to vote against her party, the plan was: “dangerous, wrong and completely and wholly unnecessary in practice.”

A cross-party political and public campaign

With your help and support, Liberty’s award winning Charge or Release campaign has been running for over a year. We have consistently urged the Government to drop these damaging proposals and have condemned the measures as wrong in principle, unnecessary and counter-productive.

Liberty has been overwhelmed by public and parliamentary support for Charge or Release, a true cross-party political and public campaign against this unnecessary and divisive policy.

Support for Charge or Release has come all corners and from across the globe. Supporters have included Archbishop Desmond Tutu, political activist Noam Chomsky, Pakistan’s Human Rights Commissioner Asma Jahangir, designer Vivienne Westwood, former Chief Constable Geoffrey Dear, UNITE, UNISON, CWU, National Union of Journalists, the General Synod, journalists and columnists from a wide range of newspapers, senior legal opinion, the four London Mayoral candidates, the UN Human Rights Committee, the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner, the two main opposition parties and a large number of Labour MPs and peers.

Freedom Reading

On the eve of the vote in the House of Lords, forty-two leading writers added their support for Charge or Release, displaying their opposition to the plans through forty-two poignant pieces of writing. ’42 Writers for Liberty’ showcases new works by leading writers including Philip Pullman, Monica Ali, Julian Barnes, Mohsin Hamid, Ian Rankin, Sadie Jones, Ali Smith and A.L. Kennedy. Visit www.42writers.com to read these wonderful works.

Thank you – we did it with your support.

With your help now and into the future, should this or any future government try again, they can rest assured that Liberty will be ready and waiting.

Thank you for supporting Charge or Release and please continue to support Liberty’s campaigns.

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

Ministry of Defence Admits Human Rights Violation

Ellie Keen — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:20:00 +0000

Press Release from Liberty

The Ministry of Defence today admitted violating the human rights of Iraqi Baha Mousa, a hotel receptionist who died in 2003 after sustaining 93 injuries while in UK detention in Iraq.

In the case of Mousa and eight other Iraqis, the Government acknowledged “substantive breaches” of the European Convention on Human Rights which protects the right to life and prohibits torture.

The immediate implication of the MoD’s statement is that there must be a full independent inquiry into systemic problems whenever detainees suffer inhuman treatment, torture or death whilst detained in UK military establishments anywhere in the world.

While welcoming the MoD’s disclosure, Liberty Director Shami Chakrabarti said:

“A direct legal and moral consequence of today’s admission that Mousa and others were unlawfully tortured and killed in British custody is that there must be a wholesale independent inquiry into what went wrong. British soldiers should never be sent into post-conflict situations without adequate training and advice. Baha Mousa is the Stephen Lawrence of Iraq.”

Liberty pointed out that the families of the Iraqi dead who brought their case to the Ministry of Defence were seeking justice for their loved ones and rejected arguments that the families are merely seeking financial compensation.

In the landmark Al-Skeini decision handed down in June 2007, the House of Lords Appellate Committee ruled that those held in UK detention facilities in Iraq are protected by the Human Rights Act. In the leading speech, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry dealt with the Government’s argument that bereaved families of those who die in UK detention should have to seek redress in the European Court of Human Rights:

“…the Secretary of State…says that sections 6 and 7 [of the Human Rights Act] are to be interpreted in such a way that, in these exceptional cases, a victim is left remediless in the British courts. Contrary to the central policy of the Act, the victim must resort to Strasbourg. My Lords, I am unable to accept that submission. It involves reading into sections 6 and 7 a qualification which the words do not contain and which runs counter to the central purpose of the Act.”

CONTACT: Liberty Press Office: 0207 378 3656 or 07973 831 128

NOTES

1. Baha Mousa, [digital post mortem photos available] aged 26, was arrested during a raid by UK Armed forces at Haitham Hotel, detained and allegedly beaten to death by UK soldiers. He had been taken with eight others to the UK’s Temporary Detention Facility. The individuals were allegedly subjected to prolonged hooding with sandbags, prolonged stress positions such as sitting on an imaginary chair, prolonged sleep deprivation, ritualised abuse through kickboxing games where soldiers apparently competed to kick the detainees further across the room and prolonged beatings including kicking. On 13 March 2007 a military court martial at Camp Bulford found Corporal Payne of the Queen’s Lancashire regiment guilty of inhumane treatment and found not guilty the remaining officers and soldiers charged with various offences relating to the incident.

2. Lawyers Phil Shiner and others representing the Iraqi dead expressed concern that “conditioning” tactics such as hooding, handcuffing, sleep deprivation and using stress positions during interrogation, which were outlawed in 1972 by Edward Heath’s Government, had been used on Iraqi detainees held in UK custody.

3. In Al-Skeini v Secretary of State for Defence, the appellants argued that the six Iraqi civilians killed during the occupation of Iraq had their rights breached under Article 2 (the right to life) and/or Article 3 (the prohibition against torture) of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Government is therefore obliged to hold an independent inquiry into their treatment. The High Court and the Court of Appeal found that the Human Rights Act applies in situations where an individual is detained by a British authority, in this case, the military. The House of Lords (by a margin of 4 to 1) upheld this view. Interveners in the case included Liberty, the Aire Centre, Amnesty International, the Association for the Prevention of Torture, the Bar Human Rights Committee, British Irish Rights Watch, Interights, Justice, Kurdish Human Rights Project, the Law Society of England and Wales and the Redress Trust.

Turning the Screw on Protest

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 14:32:19 +0000

The right to peaceful protest is a crucial part of political life. The British have a long tradition of exercising this, from the Peasants Revolt, the Tolpuddle martyrs and Suffragettes through to anti-war protests and campaigns against animal abuse.

When the Human Rights Act was passed, the future looked bright. It enshrined important unwritten rights into statute, particularly Article 10 (Freedom of Expression) and Article 11 (Freedom of Assembly and Association).

However, since then, increasingly draconian legislation has been passed to negate public fear of a terrorist attack. This is sometimes used in ways not originally envisaged by Parliament.

A classic example is the Stop and Search powers under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Before this provision, the police could only stop and search individuals if they had reasonable grounds and certain criteria were met.

The police can now stop and search anyone in a specific geographical area. These powers must not be used for reasons unconnected with terrorism, yet were invoked against protestors travelling to anti-war protests at RAF Fairborn, arms fair protestors in Docklands and the anticapitalist protest on May Day in London.

The Anti-Social Behaviour Act was a civil measure designed to reduce antisocial behaviour. An Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) can be sought by police, a local authority or prosecution lawyers on conviction of a related offence. There is no need for live witnesses to attend or for witnesses identity to be divulged, and hearsay evidence can be used. The burden of proof is lower than for criminal offences. All this makes obtaining an ASBO easier. Breaching an ASBO is a criminal offence and can result in imprisonment.

This legislation has been used against protestors.

In January, our firm acted for three animal rights activists who were prosecuted for aggravated trespass after protesting peacefully on the roof of an animal research laboratory. The defendants were found not guilty, but the prosecution had sought an ASBO, as well as court penalty, if conviction ensued. The conditions they sought included not entering the street where the laboratory was situated.

It has also been used by the police to widen powers of arrest. An example is the arrest of an individual who is acting in an apparently anti-social manner. The police can ask for the persons details and, if refused, can arrest.

One client was arrested for holding a placard outside an animal research lab (the anti-social act!). She was asked for her details, said she was leaving, yet was arrested anyway.

Clients performing a piece of street theatre, (portraying an Israeli military check point, outside the Caterpillar HQ in Birmingham) were asked for names and addresses for participating in an anti-social act. When they queried this, the whole group were arrested.

During subsequent court proceedings, to prevent further protests the individuals were threatened with ASBOs. However, this case was ultimately dropped and the group are seeking advice on suing the police.

The Government now intends to pass the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill containing a proposal to make all offences arrestable.

Police currently have limited powers of arrest for key minor offences which are often invoked against protestors, eg. obstructing a police officer and disorderly conduct. People are often summonsed but, under the new Bill, they would be arrested and taken to a police station. These individuals would lose their liberty and the State would gain information on them, through the fingerprints, photos and DNA taken.

Part 4 of this Bill contains a power to arrest demonstrators outside someones home (Home Visits) so the police would no longer have to give directions, including warnings to leave the area.

The Bill creates a new criminal offence of trespass on a designated site on grounds of national security. National security is not defined, which risks the new offence being used against protestors, effectively criminalising the law of trespass by the back door.

There are also somewhat ludicrous proposals on protesting outside Parliament. A senior police officer will have the power to remove someone if they are spoiling the view¹!

The Bill also widens ASBOs, allowing unaccountable public or private bodies to seek them against individuals. Companies like Huntingdon Life Sciences, which currently use civil proceedings to obtain injunctions, may well prefer this cheaper, simpler option.

After significant pressure from commercial interests, economic sabotage will also become a criminal offence. This is clearly aimed at animal rights protestors, after the Montpellier Group pulled out of the contract to build the new animal research laboratory at Oxford University, and after successful campaigns against businesses involved in, and linked to, animal experimentation. Such protestors are increasingly being branded as domestic terrorists.

The police will also be able to monitor individuals e-mails to gather evidence. Whilst this is aimed at perceived extremists, it will inevitably make further inroads into the right to protest and civil liberties.

Despite parliaments intentions, this new sort of legislation undermines the right to protest, criminalises new sections of society and extends information held by the State on individuals. Maybe the future for protestors is not so bright after all.

Note:

¹ Since this article was written, the offence of spoiling the view has been removed from the Bill. It now proposes making it an offence to take part inn any unauthorised protest within 1 kilometre of Parliament.

The authors of this article Lydia Dagostino, Teresa Blades and Sue Lenier are lawyers at Kellys Solicitors in Brighton.