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Interview with Hicham Yezza’s defence campaign

tim — Fri, 30 May 2008 19:05:50 +0000

Hicham was arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 a couple weeks ago for getting a copy of the Al Queda training manual sent to him by a friend, Rizawaan Sabir, who was doing research on terrorism. He was forwarded a copy and it was suggested to him that he print it out. The training manual is available on the Internet and can be bought on Amazon and is on government web sites.

He just had the document on his computer. He never actually printed it. Somebody saw it on his computer and alerted the University of Nottingham. The university didn’t think of looking on Google and seeing that it was a document that was widely available.

He was detained for six days and released without charge. Then Hicham was rearrested on immigration grounds and he was kept in detention centres and moved every day or so.

He was talking to his solicitor and thought he had a really good case to stay here. The immigration charges were quite limited, but then suddenly the Home Office issued a removal notice. He had a trial date scheduled, but they said on condition of removal we will drop all the charges. We just want to get rid of you essentially.

That’s when the whole campaign started, because Hicham has been here for 13 years; he’s been on the student’s union executive, editor of a political magazine, etc. He is very well known here and has done undergraduate and post-graduate degrees.

Now suddenly the Home Office are saying they want to deport him. He has been in contact with the Home Office about his visa application before the arrest and it was all being sorted out. The Home Office hadn’t had any problems. After he was arrested under the Terrorism Act they suddenly decided they had a problem with his immigration status and wanted to remove him.

So most people think this is related to the initial arrest and that the Home Office want to pin him down on something. The Home Office has an interest in getting convictions for terrorism charges.

So that is the situation so far. An appeal has been lodged against his removal. Now we are seeing what happens with the legal process and are campaigning hard with the Home Office and other influential people who can try to help.

Our local Member of Parliament, Alan Simpson, has taken a really keen interest in the case and has been writing letters to Ian Byrne and talking to Hicham’s solicitor. Another MP, Nick Palmer, has also taken an interest in the case. We have had loads of support from organisations such as the University and College Union, who recently passed a motion supporting Hicham. Most student unions we have contacted have given their support.

Bettina Renz is Rizwaan’s personal tutor. In the school of politics we do a lot of research related to international security and terrorism. Right from the start the tutors knew what this was about. They talked to the police and said this is for legitimate research purposes, freely available and in the public domain. They were concerned about the implications of these arrests. Obviously once the university starts vetting that, this is very concerning to the academics in those fields.

One of the police officers told one of the academics that this would never have happened if they had been blond-haired Swedish PhD students.

It is a very dangerous situation where a university calls the police on a very flimsy suspicion. And there was clearly no reason for the police to take so long and to hold them in detention for so long. Six days in police custody is punishment in itself.

The Home Office’s actions are indicative of a dangerous attitude. It is that it picks on certain people and decides to remove them. The Home Office acts like a faceless machine. It just treats him like a common criminal, which is not the case.

We are very concerned that the university bureaucracy has decided to take a position where they fully cooperated with the police action and implicitly assumed the guilt of their own students.

When Sabir and Yezza were released without charge they didn’t apologise and said this was necessary for the safety of the community. At first when the arrests took place they were saying there is no threat to the community. We thought that already there was Orwellian language involved here.

Then when Hicham was rearrested they made no attempt to support him. This is the university bureaucracy, not the academics and staff. All I have encountered from them is 100 percent support. The bureaucracy has decided to distance themselves from him. They have refused to admit that he was a student here for so long. They have tried to paint him as a clerical assistant, which is not really the case. They also said he was an illegal immigrant and while the case is ongoing it is not really their place to say.

When we demonstrated at the university, we got a call from Hicham. He relayed a message of thanks and goodwill to everyone and expressed his gratitude. He thanked everyone for their solidarity. We want the Home Office to reconsider what they are doing and we are hopeful about his case. We are hopeful that he will be able to stay.

Airline Terror Plot

Alex Doherty — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 13:58:01 +0000

This article is available as a PDF leaflet to download and distribute.

The claim that American and British security forces have thwarted a terrorist plot to blow up commercial flights between Britain and the United States should not be accepted uncritically. It is impossible to determine at this point whether or not such an attack was in the offing, although the mass media have, as usual, reported the assertions of the British and American governments as indisputable fact, without bothering to ask for any specific information that would substantiate the official story.

The British police statement that the alleged plotters aimed to create mass murder on an unimaginable scale by blowing up mid-flight an unspecified number of aircraft is chilling. The far-reaching security measures that have been implementedincluding the shutdown of Londons Heathrow Airport and an indefinite ban on carry-on luggageadd to the climate of fear and apprehension.

At a time such as thisin the midst of spectacular claims from London and Washington, a media barrage supporting them, and a massive disruption of commercial flights resulting from extreme security measuresit is all the more imperative that people not suspend their capacity for critical thought and political judgement.

Raids in the early hours of Thursday morning on homes and business premises in London and the West Midlands resulted in 21 arrests. Spokesmen for the US and British governments asserted that those arrested were involved in the most significant terrorist plot since 9/11.

Later reports said that 24 people had been arrested in Britain and more had been detained in Pakistan. Among those arrested were a Muslim charity worker and a Heathrow Airport employee with an all-area access pass, according to Britains Channel 4 News. Five suspects in the plot are still at large, according to ABC News, which cited US sources.

BBC News reported Thursday evening that the arrests were the result of a long-standing investigation coordinated between the US, British and Pakistani governments. British Home Secretary John Reid in a press conference earlier on Thursday said Prime Minister Tony Blair had briefed President George Bush on the impending arrests and security measures over the weekend.

Subsequent reports claimed the plotters had planned to target simultaneously up to ten aircraft from three US carriers by smuggling onboard liquid chemical explosives disguised as beverages or electronic devices.

US intelligence officials said the plotters hoped to stage a dry run today (Friday) and the actual attack would have followed days later. A senior congressional source claimed the plotters planned to mix a sports drink with a peroxide-based paste to make an explosive cocktail that could be triggered by an MP3 player or cell phone.

President George Bush made a brief statement mid-day Thursday that was calculated to heighten public anxieties and exploit the alleged terror plot to justify the panoply of reactionary policies his administration has pursued since 9/11 in the name of the war on terror.

Speaking on an airport runway in Green Bay, Wisconsin, he said that the thwarted plot was a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom. He suggested that the plot vindicated the measuresmassive domestic spying, military tribunals, detentions without trialtaken by his administration to protect the American people, and went on to warn that it is a mistake to believe there is no threat to the United States of America.

The World Socialist Web Site has no information that allows us to make a definitive judgement on the existence or non-existence of a terrorist plot on the scale claimed. However, it is the responsibility of the US and British governments to produce the facts that would substantiate their allegations and justify the extreme security measures they have taken, and to present these facts to the public in a clear and concise manner.

They have produced no such factual account or substantiation.

Neither the White House nor Downing Street has any right to expect people to accept their claims at face value, or place confidence in any of their statements. The war against Iraq was legitimised on the basis of false claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. These lies have destroyed forever the credibility of Bush and Blair.

If it is true that such a heinous crime was being planned, the responsibility for this ultimately rests with the policies pursued by Washington and London. Ever since 9/11, both Bush and Blair have employed the mantra of the war on terror as a cover for their predatory war aims in the Middle East, immensely intensifying anti-American and anti-British sentiment within the Muslim world. At the same time, the war on terror has been used domestically as the pretext for an unprecedented assault on democratic rights.

Faced with a worsening debacle in Afghanistan and Iraq, and massive international opposition to their support for Israels devastation of Lebanon, both governments have an interest in perpetuating an atmosphere of hysteria. Such a climate serves to intimidate their opponents and justify ever more draconian measures at home and abroad.

In point of fact, the official accounts in Britain of the alleged terror plot lack any specific or verifiable facts and are remarkably short on detail. The statements by American officials are no better when it comes to serious substantiation. They are, however, more detailed in their claims.

US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a televised news conference that the plot was a very sophisticated plan and operation and was close to fruition. It was not a circle with a handful of people sitting around and dreaming, he said. They had accumulated the capability necessary and they were well on their way.

The plot appeared to have been aimed at US carriers flying out of Heathrow, he continued. It was international in scope and suggestive of Al Qaeda.

He did not give a specific date for the timing of the plan, but said it may have been before the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I cant tell you they had a particular date in mind, he said. Nor can I tell you that they would have waited that long. This was quite close to the execution date.

Chertoff offered no explanation of how security services knew that a terror attack was imminent when they didnt know the target date for its execution.

This is by no means the only question mark hanging over official accounts.

Britains Home Secretary Reid gave the impression in his press conference that the evidence prompting the arrests came from the UK, and CNN reported that information gathered after recent arrests in Pakistan convinced British investigators they had to act urgently to stop the plot. However, Britains Channel 4 reported that UK authorities had acted based on intelligence provided by the CIA.

Moreover, if Blair was in discussions with Bush over the weekend about an imminent terrorist attack, why did he still leave for his holiday in Barbados on Tuesday? And given that the plot is said to have targeted planes, why did the security services allow him to do so?

And if the threat posed by the plot was considered dangerous enough to warrant raising the terror alert in the UK from severe to critical and to code red in the US, why were no arrests made for five days? And why was the terror alert only raised after the arrests were made and not before?

No such questions have been asked by the media. And yet recent months have seen a number of alleged terrorist plotsin the US, Canada and Australiathat were supposedly thwarted by the security services. In each case, mass arrests were made of people who, according to the indictments, had merely discussed terrorist acts. No concrete plans were discovered, no weapons or explosives seized. And in most of these cases, the supposed plots were initiated and encouraged by government informers who acted as agent provocateurs and entrapped the alleged conspirators.

In the case of Julys so-called tunnel bomb plot in New York, the purported conspirators were foreign nationals who had never set foot in the US.

As for the political utility of the current terror scare, it should be noted that only hours before Thursdays raids, British Home Secretary Reid gave a major speech in London in which he accused opponents of the governments anti-democratic legislation of undermining the war on terror.

In the face of what he called probably the most sustained period of severe threat since the end of the second world war, Reid decried those who dont get it, blaming them for the fact that we remain unable to adapt our institutions and legal orthodoxy as fast as we need to.

Making it clear that the required adaptation meant the gutting of traditional democratic rights, he added: Sometimes we may have to modify some of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse and abuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our freedoms in the modern world.

Forest Gate Lessons

Alex Doherty — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 14:27:19 +0000

The freeing of two innocent men arrested in the June 2 police raid in Forest Gate, London underscores the dubious character of all of the claims made by the government, the police and security services in pursuit of the war on terror.

Some 250 police officers were mobilised for the dawn raid on the poor immigrant neighbourhood in east London. Two houses were targeted based on intelligence that they were the location for a chemical bomb factory run by two brothers, Mohammed Abdul Kahar and Abdul Koyair.

The raid was brutal. Fifty of the officers, some armed and dressed in black and wearing balaclavas, broke down the front door and ran into the house without warning those inside that they were police. Shortly afterwards, Koyair was shot in the shoulder in circumstances that remain shrouded in mystery. He was rushed to hospital and his brother was taken to Paddington Green high security police station.

Members of another family who occupied the adjoining property stated that they were physically assaulted during the raid, with one man receiving serious head injuries that required hospital treatment.

Only hours after the raid, questions began to emerge as to its conduct: Why were so many officers involved? Why had a no-fly zone been established over the area and police given protective clothing whilst no effort had been made to evacuate residents?

Twelve hours after being detained the neighbours were all released without charge.

Within 24 hours it was clear that police had found no trace of chemicals, much less the suicide belt that some claimed they had been searching for. It also transpired that the raid had been mounted based on allegations from a single source. Despite this, on June 7 the police were given permission to hold the two brothers for an additional 48 hours after the initial warrant for their detention had passed.

Political expediency

Following the brothers release without charge late on Friday June 9, more evidence emerged regarding events leading up to the raid.

A number of reports have stated that the initial tip-off was a call to the anti-terror hotline claiming that the house was a production site for a chemical vest that, when detonated, would spray cyanide or sarin gas over a wide area. The claim is frankly bizarre, given that an explosion would serve to destroy any chemicals present, and there is no precedent for the existence of such a device.

The most damning report was made in the Observer June 11, which stated that the government had insisted the raid go ahead despite Scotland Yard having warned MI5 that it had serious reservation about the credibility of the intelligence source.

Whitehall sources told The Observer last night the reservations were passed up the chain of command to senior officials in the office of Sir Richard Mottram, the governments security and intelligence co-ordinator, but despite the concerns the police were ordered to go in.

It wasnt the fact that the information was based on a single source, it was more that the police doubted the credibility of that source, said a Whitehall official. The intelligence was doubtful. On the Thursday night [hours before the raid] there were contradictions about how strong the intelligence was.

There came a point when officials in the Cabinet Office were made aware that the police believed they were being placed in difficulty because of the quality of this intelligence.

The Observer report contained another important admission: It has emerged that the police had only expected to find a trigger or mechanism, not all the components to make a chemical weapon. It would be unique for bomb-makers to make entire bombs in a family house, said one person familiar with the situation.

If this was the case, then there was no justification other than political expediency for deploying 250 officers or imposing a no-fly zone.

The government clearly believed something relatively unthreatening would be found, and wanted it to be the occasion for a high-profile and successful anti-terror raid. Not only would this vindicate the general war on terror rhetoric, but it would also detract from very real and growing political difficulties facing the government.

For weeks the government has been under sustained attack by the media, claiming that the Home Office is soft on law and order, especially foreign nationals convicted of criminal offences. The Home Office was keen to demonstrate its effectiveness. Only days before the Forest Gate operation, newly appointed Home Secretary John Reid took part in an immigration raid in London, dressed in a Kevlar jacket.

Additionally, the government and the police are concerned over the imminent release of a report into the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, the innocent Brazilian gunned down by police on the London subway last July. The Independent Police Complaints Commission report has been leaked to the News of the World. It makes a series of criticisms of the operation mounted on July 21 that could lead to the resignation of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, and the prosecution of several police officers for murder.

Media justifies antidemocratic measures

Throughout these events the media has functioned as an apologist for the governments offensive against democratic rights and a conduit for its propaganda.

According to Home Office figures, up to September 30, 2005, 895 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000, of which just 23 have been convicted of terrorism-related offences. On June 12 the Guardian drew attention to a series of raids in January 2002, leading to the arrest of six men on suspicion of manufacturing chemical devices. Within days all six had been freed without charge, the allegations made against them by a single informant having been discredited.

The media know all this very well. Yet, even after the experience of de Menezes, for the most part the press has parroted uncritically the claims of the government and police on the Forest Gate raid. And when things began to unravel, misinformation supposedly emanating from official sources, such as the notorious claim that one brother had shot the other, was regurgitated and elaborated upon by the media. Slander and character assassination became the order of the day.

Even now that the raid is publicly acknowledged to have been a failure, newspapers across the political spectrum continue to justify it.

The right-wing Daily Mail has published comments by Richard Littlejohn urging readers to look at things from the polices point of view…. What the hell are they supposed to do? Steer clear for fear of upsetting the community? Melanie Phillips took a novel angle, suggesting that the tip-off was possibly part of an Al Qaeda strategy to use dissimulation and false trails to confuse its terrorist targets…. MI5 sources are reportedly concerned that they may have been set up.

For its part, the line of the liberal Observer was summarised by its headline, Better a bungled raid than another terrorist outrage.

A balance sheet of the war on terror

Such claims dovetail with the position taken by the government and the security services.

Prime Minister Tony Blair defended the raid on the grounds that if the police have a reasonable piece of intelligence and they believe they have got to investigatetake action onthey should…. Part of the modern world, Im afraid, is that you have to live with a greater degree of precaution on the part of our security services and our police.

A senior counter-terrorism official also insisted that operations similar to Forest Gate would continue: There are dozens of mass casualty attacks being planned against … the UK, and when we have what we believe is genuine intelligence that life is at risk, we have to act.

What is the balance sheet of the so-called war on terror? Internationally, it has provided the justification for a bloody war of colonial conquest that has destabilized world politics and provided the main recruiting ground for terrorism.

Within Britain it has resulted in the arrest of hundreds of innocent people and adoption of a shoot to kill policy that has left one innocent man dead and another seriously injured.

The list of alleged terrorist threats that have proven to be entirely fictional grows longer by the day. In contrast, when an actual terrorist attack was planned the security services failed to prevent it despite having several of the bombers under surveillance. Moreover, despite regular exercises by the police and emergency services in the capital, the governments contingency plans were found wanting.

The report by the London Assembly into the July 7 London bombings was largely eclipsed by the Forest Gate raid. But its findings demonstrated how the government does not even take its own warnings of a terrorist attack seriously.

Notwithstanding incredible acts of courage by emergency staff, subway workers and ordinary people, the report notes that the rescue operation was compromised by a grave lack of resources and failures of communication between the emergency services. The Fire Brigade even had to use people running up and down escalators to get information. Eighteen years after being recommended by the report into the 1987 Kings Cross fire, there were still no digital communications that would have enabled communication below ground level. The London Ambulance Service was overwhelmed, leading to a lack of stretchers and other basic equipment. One paramedic described running to a department store to get bandages.

A fundamental political lesson must be drawn from the Forest Gate raid.

The standard rationale for every encroachment by the government on fundamental democratic rights is that the civil liberties of a few must be sacrificed to protect the majority and that the government should be trusted not to abuse the license it has been granted.

Those who portray Forest Gate as merely an unfortunate error that should not detract from the necessity to respond to the terrorist threat are seeking to perpetuate this lie. In reality the raid has once again proven the government to be more concerned with justifying its predatory foreign policy and antidemocratic domestic agenda than ensuring the actual safety of the British population.

Terror Bill

Alex Doherty — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 11:10:53 +0000

The provisions of the latest anti-terrorism bill, which applies to individuals and to corporations and their administrators, are vast in scope, adding to 200 pieces of existing legislation.

Terrorism is defined to include serious damage to persons or property with the aim of influencing or intimidating the government (including international institutions of government) or public to an ideological, political or religious end.

The most high-profile change proposed is to extend the period in which a suspect may be held without charge from 14 days to three months. But of equal import is the bills proposal to make it an offence punishable by up to seven years imprisonment to publish a statement or cause another to publish a statement, whilst knowing, believing, or having reasonable grounds for believing that members of the public are likely to understand it as a direct or indirect encouragement or another inducement to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. To make a statement glorifying terrorism constitutes a similar offense.

There is no definition of glorification, and there is no need to prove intent. It is irrelevant whether the statement relates to commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism or whether any terrorist act in fact takes place.

How it is to be determined what members of the public are likely to understand is not spelled out.

The original draft legislation proposed to exempt glorification of any event over 20 years ago from prosecution, unless it was specifically listed in an order by the Home Secretarya provision denounced by civil rights organisation Liberty as state censorship of history.

This has been dropped. However, the bill still covers the glorification of past acts of terror with no cut-off point, and the Home Secretary still decides what statement regarding a historical event can be said to encourage terrorist activity today.

The bills provisions are so loosely defined that anyone who opposes Britains occupation of Iraq and supports the right of the Iraqi people to resist foreign troops could be charged. Even if no mention is made of terrorism, if an expressed opinion is considered to have influenced another to commit or participate in the preparation of an act of terror, prosecution is possible.

The dissemination of terrorist publications by any medium will also carry a maximum sentence of seven years imprisonment. A terrorist publication covers all material that any person to whom it is available may consider to provide direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement to possible terrorist acts, or information of assistance in the preparation or commission of such actsirrespective of whether any act is carried out. Such publications include apparently authoritative tracts wrapped in a religious or quasi-religious context.

As regards Internet activity, a police officer may serve notice that a statement, article, or record is unlawfully terrorism-related. Failure to comply with this notice within two days by ensuring that the relevant material is not available to the public or is modified so as no longer to be so related will be prosecuted.

The offence of preparing terrorist acts has been broadened to include engaging in any conduct in preparation for giving effect to the intention to commit terrorism or assisting others to do so. This means that a person providing accommodation or funds to anyone considered to be involved in terrorist activity could face life imprisonment.

The bills definition of support for terrorism does not depend on establishing any connection with Britain. Support for any struggle against any major power or repressive regime, supported by British imperialism, may be declared illegal. Not only Iraqis in Britain opposed to the occupation of their country, but Saudi dissidents, Chechen nationalists and numerous others could face prosecution.

Those providing instruction or training in any skills relevant to terrorism, or receiving any such instruction with the intention of using them for terrorism, can be jailed for up to 10 years. This includes not only the making, handling or use of a noxious substance, but the use of any method or technique for doing anything else that is capable of being used in relation to terrorist activity.

Individuals will be guilty of an offence if they attend any place, anywhere in the world where instruction or training in terrorist activity is being conducted, regardless of whether they receive instruction or whether a terrorist offence is committed.

It will be an offence to make or possess a radioactive or fissile devices and/or material. Damaging a nuclear facility or vehicle transporting nuclear material will be punishable by life imprisonment. Threatening to damage a nuclear facility or trespassing on a protected site will be a criminal offence.

The bill expands the Home Secretarys powers to proscribe organisations if they are considered to promote or encourage terrorism. An organisation can be banned regardless of whether it is directly involved in terrorism, if it is considered to be involved in the glorification of the commission or preparation of such acts, whether in the past or future, and whether this glorification is verbal or written.

It will be an offence to wear an item of clothing or to wear or display any article that can give rise to reasonable suspicion of membership or support of a proscribed group.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke has announced a further 15 groups that are to be proscribed by the government. Already, 25 foreign and 14 Irish groups are banned. Clarkes announcement applied to Islamic organisations with links to Iraq, Uzbekistan, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Morocco. They include organisations Ansar al Islam and Jaish Ansar al-Sunna, which aim to expel US and foreign forces from Iraq.

The bill allows the Home Secretary to remove British citizenship from any person with dual nationality whose presence he considers to be not conducive to the public good. Those facing deportation on anti-terror grounds will not be able to challenge the charge against them until after their removal from the country.