The London Blasts: Media Review

ONE MONTH ON

DAY 34: Wednesday 10 August 2005

Contents:

Just How Long?

Why 21/7?

US To Pay Off Terrorists

Hate Speech

Not Benign

Lord Hoffman

Threatening The Life Of The Nation?

SNIPPETS

JUST HOW LONG?

The Independent editorial on the proposed new laws says: 'The question of how long terror suspects should be held for questioning is a valid one. The police probably require longer than the two weeks presently permitted, after which suspects must be released or charged. There is a case for extending this by a week - two at the most. But the figure of three months that has been floated is ridiculous.'

Why is the figure of three months 'ridiculous', but the figure of three weeks perfectly sensible?

The matter under discussion is how long suspects should be detained by the police when there is insufficient evidence to charge them with an offence. Even when there is sufficient evidence to charge them with an offence, this may be radically insufficient to secure a conviction, as we see on a regular basis (most notably the recent 'ricin' case).

Why should this period of insufficient evidence be two weeks rather than two days? Why should it be extended beyond two weeks? We are not given any arguments for extension, we are merely told that 'probably' the police need longer.

Two or three weeks of detention without trial, after which someone may be released without a legal blemish on their character, is enough to ruin someone's life: to lose them their job, their home, and acceptance in their community.

The current authoritarian atmosphere is demonstrated by the easy acceptance of three- or four-week detention without charge.

WHY 21/7?

Interestingly, the Independent reports that the Rome suspect Hussain Osman (aka Hamdi Issac) has been questioned by British police officers, who "concentrated on the circumstances of the act and the reasons for it" (Osman's lawyer Antonietta Sonnessa). (10 August, page 4, not available online)

When will we learn their assessment of the motivation for the attempted bombings? We know what Mr Osman himself says - he has linked the plot directly to the continuing war in Iraq.

US TO PAY OFF TERRORISTS

The Times carries a Reuters report in a sidebar that 'A secret legal opinion has cleared the way for the Bush Administration to help Colombia to fund the disbanding of a far-right paramilitary army despite a US ban on "material support" to groups on the State Department's terrorism list. The Justice Department's legal opinion could also set a precedent allowing the US to participate in future efforts to disarm other banned terrorist organisations.' (10 August, page 35, not available online)

According to Reuters, this involves 'the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia', and the initial commitment to the demobilization effort is expected to be nearly $48 million and could grow to as much as $200 million over several years.

According to then US Attorney General John Ashcroft, the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia or AUC 'directed cocaine production and distribution activities in AUC-controlled regions of Colombia, including protecting coca processing laboratories, setting quality and price controls for cocaine, and arranging for and protecting cocaine shipments both within and outside of Colombia.' AUC leaders 'used violence, force and intimidation to maintain this authority over cocaine trafficking activities', including kidnapping, threats, and murder.

According to the Israeli International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, 'The AUC is believed to be responsible for most of the atrocities committed in Colombia, in particular against the country’s civilian population. According to the Center for International Policy in Washington, “The paramilitaries are responsible for about 75 percent of all politically motivated killings and the vast majority of forced displacements in Colombia.” It’s targets include supporters or perceived supporters of left-wing groups, as well as political activists, police officials and judges.'

The IPICT continues: 'According to human rights sources, in 2001 alone, the AUC killed more than one thousand civilians (for comparison, the largest Marxist guerilla group, the FARC, killed 197 civilians.). The AUC is notorious for carrying out wholesale massacres of remote villages, with the intention of frightening residents into leaving their homes and farms. By displacing large portions of the peasant population the AUC gains control over major coca-growing territories. The U.S. State Department noted that the AUC was responsible for about 43 percent of Colombia’s internally displaced people in 2001.'

The Patriot Act, approved shortly after 9/11, increased US penalties against anyone who provides "material support or resources" to a declared "foreign terrorist organization." Violators can be subject to a prison sentence of up to 15 years.

So in the UK, those who say words praising terrorists may be deported to their deaths, but in the US, officials who violate the law of the nation in order to furnish millions of dollars of material support to mass-murdering drug-trafficking terrorists are to be excused any legal consequences for their actions.

Media reaction here? Guess.

HATE SPEECH

Another sidebar item ('Editor charged') in The Times today (page 2) has a larger report online:

Editor charged over 'inflammatory' article by Shirley English

'A Scottish newspaper editor has been charged over a “potentially racially inflamatory” article in which he suggested that immigration centres turned neighbouring communities into “cesspools” where murder, rape and robbery were common. Alan Buchan, 46, a former fisherman who edits the Peterhead-based North East Weekly, confirmed yesterday that he had been charged by police under Section 19 of the Public Order Act 1968 after a complaint.'

'In a front-page article, which was published in June under the headline “Perverts & Refugees”, Mr Buchan responded to Scottish Executive plans to close Aberdeen’s Craiginches prison and to construct a new “superprison” in Peterhead. The paper claimed that the site could be turned into an “immigration centre” for more than 5,000 refugees.'

'He wrote: “The people of rural England have been in massive rebellion over the establishment of refugee centres holding upwards of 5,000 immigrants because they were fully aware that their communities would be swamped and turned into cesspools. The reason that the people of rural England have rejected this is that they know their communities would be turned into ghettos where murder, rape, robbery, assault, break-ins and numerous other crimes become prevalent.” '

'Yesterday he claimed there “isn’t a racist word in the article. We’re surprised by police action in this matter.” '

The 'preachers of hatred' face deportation to torture and possible death for creating a climate of violence encouraging extremists to take their own brutal action. New laws are being created, medieval laws may be revived, to deal with this form of 'hate speech'.

Meanwhile, other 'preachers of hatred' contribute to a climate of violence which encourages extremists to take brutal action, and in considerably larger media organisations than the North East Weekly. Mr Buchan is the exception in that legal action is being taken - but he is not threatened with new laws, control orders or other draconian punishment for his hate speech.

Media reaction? Guess.

NOT BENIGN

A letter in the Guardian from Dr Denis MacEoin, Newcastle upon Tyne:

'As another scholar (in Islamic studies), I would challenge Nick Megoran's almost benign view of [the Islamist political party] Hizb ut-Tahrir (Letters, August 9). It may not encourage immediate violence, but it certainly creates an ideology that must inevitably lead to it. It expressly argues that offensive jihad is a duty for Muslims, it derides democracy as a western evil, rejects interfaith dialogue as a conspiracy against Islam, describes compromise as un-Islamic, advocates an all-or-nothing solution to conflicts, speaks of the inevitably of a clash of civilisations, justifies the execution of apostates, recommends war against Jews, Christians and polytheists until the world is a single Islamic state, and says that "a bloody struggle [will continue] alongside the intellectual struggle". Is it so hard to see how a young radical might move from their extremism to acts of violence?'

To which it might be possible to reply:

'There are media organizations in this country, including The Daily Telegraph, and mainstream politicians, including Shadow Defence Minister Gerald Howarth, who may not encourage immediate violence against Muslims and people of Asian or Hispanic appearance, but who certainly create or sustain an ideology that must inevitably lead to it. They expressly argue that brutality and oppression is characteristic of Muslims, they deride human rights as a European evil, reject interfaith dialogue as a conspiracy against the West, describe compromise as 'appeasement', advocate an all-or-nothing solution to conflicts, speak of the inevitability of a clash of civilisations, justify the deportation to torture or death of 'traitors', recommend war against militant Muslims and other troublesome people until the world is a homogenized Western dominion, and say that "a bloody struggle/military action will continue alongside the intellectual struggle/winning hearts and minds".'

'Is it so hard to see how a young patriot might move from this kind of extremism to acts of violence?

LORD HOFFMAN

Tony Blair, leader of the Labour government, and Michael Howard, leader of the Conservatives, are ganging up on Britain's judges (hardly the most radical element in society).

Michael Howard has condemned what he calls 'aggressive judicial activism', which can undermine public confidence in the judiciary and which 'could also put our security at risk'. He calls for the judiciary to exercise its powers under the Human Rights act 'with self-restraint'.

In other words, human rights are not fundamental rights at all, but needless obstructions to the efficient and safe running of the state. The laws (partially) embodying these rights should be ignored. Courts should serve governments rather than the law.

There is a word for this kind of attitude.

Incidentally, it should hardly need saying that courts very largely do serve governments, and the powerful generally, rather than the law. What is at dispute here is an inadequate degree of subservience on the part of the judiciary, in the view of extremist reactionaries.

In his tirade, Michael Howard refers to the House of Lords ruling that it was illegal to detain foreign nationals without trial in Belmarsh prison. He writes:

'Summing up, Lord Hoffman made the following claim: "The real threat to the life of the nation … comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these." As Tony Blair has said, it is doubtful whether those words would be uttered today.'

Tony Blair did indeed say this:

'... I hope that recent events have created a situation where people can understand that it is important that we do protect ourselves and that in a sense if we can take measures to protect ourselves, it then becomes easier in a sense to protect our own way of life and our democracy and I doubt those words that you were quoting from one of those judgements would be uttered now, so I think the mood on this thing does change.'

Let's go back to Lord Hoffman himself, and judge whether his remarks are still appropriate.

THREATENING THE LIFE OF THE NATION?

Lord Hoffmann argued vigorously that there was no emergency threatening the 'life' of 'the British nation':

‘What is meant by “threatening the life of the nation”? The “nation” is a social organism, living in its territory (in this case, the United Kingdom) under its own form of government and subject to a system of laws which expresses its own political and moral values.’

He continued, 'The Attorney General's submissions and the judgment of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission treated a threat of serious physical damage and loss of life as necessarily involving a threat to the life of the nation. But in my opinion this shows a misunderstanding of what is meant by "threatening the life of the nation". Of course the government has a duty to protect the lives and property of its citizens. But that is a duty which it owes all the time and which it must discharge without destroying our constitutional freedoms. There may be some nations too fragile or fissiparous to withstand a serious act of violence. But that is not the case in the United Kingdom.'

‘When one speaks of a threat to the “life” of the nation, the word life is being used in a metaphorical sense. The life of the nation is not coterminous with the lives of its people. The nation, its institutions and values, endure through generations. In many important respects, England is the same nation as it was at the time of the first Elizabeth or the Glorious Revolution. The Armada threatened to destroy the life of the nation, not by loss of life in battle, but by subjecting English institutions to the rule of Spain and the Inquisition. The same was true of the threat posed to the United Kingdom by Nazi Germany in the Second World War.’

‘This is a nation which has been tested in adversity, which has survived physical destruction and catastrophic loss of life. I do not underestimate the ability of fanatical groups of terrorists to kill and destroy, but they do not threaten the life of the nation. Whether we would survive Hitler hung in the balance, but there is no doubt that we shall survive Al-Qaeda.’

‘The Spanish people have not said that what happened in Madrid, hideous crime as it was, threatened the life of their nation. Their legendary pride would not allow it. Terrorist violence, serious as it is, does not threaten our institutions of government or our existence as a civil community.’

In fact, Lord Hoffmann said, ‘The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these.’

The case of the Belmarsh detainees ‘calls into question the very existence of an ancient liberty of which this country has until now been very proud: freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention. The power which the Home Secretary seeks to uphold is a power to detain people indefinitely without charge or trial. Nothing could be more antithetical to the instincts and traditions of the people of the United Kingdom.’

Contrary to the leaders' consensus, these are words that might still be uttered today.

They are words that must be uttered today. Shouted.

JNV welcomes feedback.