The London Blasts: Media Review

DAY 49: 25 August 2005

SNIPPETS

ID Problems - National Address System Shelved

Pat Robertson Apologises

7/7 PERPETRATORS

Bomber's Last Phone Calls

No Mastermind Found

REPRESSION

One Change

Dissent - Well-Feigned

Free Speech - No Concern

Torture - Some Concern

The Guardian Of Our Values

SNIPPETS

ID PROBLEMS - NATIONAL ADDRESS SYSTEM SHELVED

This has almost nothing to do with the current terror crisis, but it is a piece of Good News. There seems to be bizarrely little coverage of this, but the FT reports that 'Plans for national address register [have been] shelved'. The national address register is a critical element in the national identity database that underpins the proposed national identity card in Britain.

One feature of the national identity system legislation that has received almost no coverage is the proposed new legal responsibility of registering your address (and change of address) to the Government. The proposed penalty for forgetting/refusing to do so is a £1000 fine. (See Section 12, especially paragraph 6 of the Bill.)

It's possible that "You have nothing to fear if you are innocent". But they are also making up new crimes which means you are less likely to be innocent. At the moment, everyone is "guilty" of failing to inform the Government every time they change their address. We all have something to fear.

But the address register may not be on schedule! Excellent news.

PAT ROBERTSON APOLOGISES

So says The Times. That's alright then.

For a record of his evasions under questioning (Panorama anyone?) see CNN's report. For the official withdrawal of Pat Robertson's fatwa, see here.

7/7 PERPETRATORS

7/7 BOMBER'S LAST PHONE CALLS

The bus bomber Hasib Hussain phoned other members of his cell after he failed to board a north-bound Northern train as planned.

The paper version of The Times today (page 7) reports that 'Hussain is believed to have first called Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, the alleged leader of the group, saying: “I can’t get on a train. What should I do ?” Then in quick succession he left the same message for Shehzad Tanweer and Jermaine Lindsay as, clearly agitated about his next move, he hurried away from the station.'

'A police source who has heard the telephone calls said: “His voice was getting more and more frantic with each call.” Investigators could tell from his breathless voice that Hussain was walking fast as he made these calls.'

By the time he made these calls (just before 9am), the others were dead. Shortly afterwards, he boarded the No 30 bus, setting off the explosion an hour after the others.

'The frantic last messages of Hasib Hussain, 18, are seen by Scotland Yard as vivid proof that the British-born Muslim extremists intended to die in the attacks.'

The Times online reports a new twist in the story: 'Did the 7/7 bus bomber lose his nerve for train blast mission?'

'Bus bomber Hasib Hussain lost his nerve and decided not to go through with his mission to blow himself up on a London Tube train, according to a new theory last night.'

'After having second thoughts, Hussain then took refuge at McDonald’s, in King’s Cross, and tried to contact his fellow bombers to find out if they too had failed to go through with their suicide and murder pact.'

'But Hussain, the youngest of the bombers, aged 18, received no replies. At the same time, he would have seen the first of the hundreds of commuters streaming out of King’s Cross as the system ground to a halt when the three other bombs detonated.'

'Realising then that he was completely alone, he steeled himself to go through with his attack after all. There was by then no possibility of boarding any trains, so Hussain got onto a diverted bus packed with commuters and finally detonated his bomb.'

'The explosion on the number 30 bus in Tavistock Square killed 13 people.'

'The theory emerged last night after it was revealed that, contrary to earlier reports, there were no problems on the north-bound section of the Northern Line.'

 

NO MASTERMIND FOUND

The Times also reports that:

'The Yard has failed to find any of the support network who helped the 7/7 bombers though they accept that the men’s families knew nothing of their plans.'

The Independent (page 5) puts things a little more accurately:

'As The Independent revealed almost two weeks ago they [the police] now confirm that the bombers were not being guided by a so-called mastermind and were not part of a larger organised group.'

'There appears to be no evidence, as yet, that people came into the country from abroad to help with the planning or execution of the attacks.'

There are no signs of an organisational link between the 7/7 and 21/7 bombers.

REPRESSION

Charles Clarke, British Home Secretary has published details of the new powers he has given himself to expel or exclude foreign nationals who 'glorify' or 'justify' terrorist acts. The list of 'unacceptable behaviours' is almost exactly identical to the list he put out to consultation two weeks ago.

ONE CHANGE

However, in an act of extraordinary and perhaps even dangerous liberalism and tolerance, Mr Clarke dropped one of the proposed 'unacceptable behaviours':

‘the expression of views that the Government considers to be extreme and that conflict with the UK’s culture of tolerance’

(This was the test which US right-wingers feared they might fall foul of, because of their homophobic outbursts.)

It's not clear whether we can emerge from our bunkers under the stairs now that the Government is allowing foreign nationals to express views that Ministers believe are extreme, as well as views that conflict with the UK's well-known culture of tolerance, as demonstrated in the country's biggest selling newspaper.

DISSENT - WELL-FEIGNED

There are two serious kinds of objections one can make to the new powers: principled, and tactical.

Principled objections would be focused on the erosion of free speech and the effective incorporation of torture into British justice, in violation of international conventions. Tactical objections would be focused on the ineffectiveness or counter-productive nature of the new powers.

There are plenty of tactical objections in the British papers today. The FT (which interestingly has held back from commenting on the proposals since they were first floated) made two basic points:

'while the deportation of so-called "hate preachers" may be a visible way for the government to signal its resolve, it must avoid pandering to outdated assumptions about the nature of the terrorist threat facing Britain.'

'The home secretary's announcement that he is to consult on the creation of new powers to close places of worship used to foment extremism should also be greeted with disquiet. Closing down mosques is likely to alienate the very Muslim communities whose co-operation is desperately needed, while also impinging on religious freedom.'

'More broadly, while deporting foreign imams may be a highly visible way for the government to signal its resolve, it may also hark back to outdated assumptions about the nature of terrorist recruitment. It is important to recall that the "hate preachers" giving interviews to tabloid newspapers are likely to be less dangerous than their covert counterparts.'

'As David Cameron MP pointed out in a speech to the Foreign Policy Centre yesterday, the problem may lie with young Muslims who have rejected the leadership of moderate imams inside the mosque, and are instead being radicalised outside - be it in living rooms in private homes, or on trips abroad. These phenomena will not be addressed by the measures announced yesterday, although they are arguably more pressing.' (page 14)

The Guardian approach is summed up in the title of the editorial: 'Safety is the test'. Not human rights. Not freedom of expression.

FREE SPEECH - NO CONCERN

We haven't been able to find any expression of concern over the threat to freedom of speech in the mainstream press - apart from this comment by the Islamic Human Rights Commission reported in the Telegraph (page 10):

'The Islamic Human Rights Commission voiced concern that the proposed grounds for deportation amounted to the "criminalisation of thought, conscience and belief".'

 

TORTURE - SOME CONCERN

There are voices detectable on the torture issue. The Guardian carries statements by human rights lawyer Louise Christian and Shami Chakrabati of Liberty:

Louise Christian, human rights solicitor

"These proposals are a bit of window dressing as the government already has these powers and they have been used for precisely the sort of things in Charles Clarke's list. What is new is the proposal to try to return people to countries practising torture. If people have been allowed to settle here for a long time, we should not remove them for vague reasons. [It] makes me concerned there will be a purge, attempts to deport based on religious views."

Shami Chakrabati, director of Liberty

"The great big elephant in the room is where are people going to be deported to? We fear people will be deported, in breach of our international obligations, to places where they run serious risk of being tortured. If someone is not going to face torture then nobody can argue with the basic principle that someone who isn't British can be deported, but the vagueness of the concept of terrorism is even more worrying when talking about deportation. We are not talking about a prosecution to the criminal standard of proof, we are talking about sending back maybe dissidents from Saddam Hussein's Iraq a few years ago who called for the violent overthrow of a brutal dictator. We have to be clear about what terrorism means ... there is not sufficient clarity about who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter. This should be aiding clarity, which I am not convinced it is. This is not a desperately helpful exercise."

Outrage is confined to these rather cautious remarks at the margins.

THE GUARDIAN OF OUR VALUES

The UN has intervened again. Professor Manfred Novak, the UN human rights commission's special investigator on torture said the new powers are illegal:

"The UN is strongly concerned about terrorism and counter-terrorism. But there are certain standards that have to be observed in the context of counter-terrorism. We in the western democratic countries, in the fight against terrorism, should not step over these limits by violating international law."

The Guardian's comment on this criticism from the UN:

'That [the power to deport to torture states] has dragged the government into a damaging conflict with the United Nations over its international obligations.'

'The government's plan is to gather assurances from several north African and Middle Eastern states that they would not use torture or inhumane treatment against anyone deported from the UK under anti-terrorism legislation... The nagging question is how the UK government is going to be able to rely on such assurances. The Lib Dems are right to insist that some form of independent scrutiny is required to guard against deportees being sent abroad to rot in jail out of sight.'

'In any case, it would be much better for such terror suspects to be tried under British law for offences they may have committed in this country.'

No ringing denunciation of torture: qualms over the row with the UN, not with the breach of international law which caused the row; 'nagging questions' about paper promises which have been denounced by everyone with a serious concern for human rights; and a weakly-expressed preference for British trials rather than foreign torture.

This is the liberal-left. This is the independent media. Servile service to power.

JNV welcomes feedback.