The London Blasts: Media Review

DAY 89: 4 October 2005

Contents

Bali - Denial

Repression - Police Doubts, New Laws, Monbiot

BALI - DENIAL

Two letters in the Independent and the Guardian along the same lines:

'Sir: I watched with horror as more terrorist explosions are reported on Bali and then waited for the efforts to explain the causes and "justify" Islamic concerns in articles and editorials and letters pages.'

'When will reality hit home? This spate of terrorist attacks by " fundamentalist" Islamic groups has one aim - to destabilise western democracy and lifestyles as a means of re-establishing an Islamic hold on the peoples of the world. Using the same Koran that "moderate" muslims pore over they justify terror and stifle what little debate does go on in Islamic circles.'

'Islamic terrorism will not be successfully tackled until Muslims tackle the basis of their beliefs and the terrors contained therein. I have lived my 52 years as a white male and shouldn't feel threatened, but as a gay atheist democrat I have often felt very threatened by even the most "moderate" Muslim because of the inherent threat contained in their beliefs against not only my sexuality and heresy but also for their stance on women's and individual rights.'

J Brackenbury, Beeston, Norfolk (Independent)

'I'm sure it won't be long before we are told that the latest act of Islamic murder (Bali bombings, October 3) is all due to the west. If it is not Iraq, then it's Afghanistan; and if it is not either, since many terrorist acts go back before those two events, then clearly the blame must be on the policies or the depravity of the democracies. There is a particular endemic British disease that always finds excuse for tyranny.'

David Winnick MP, Lab, Walsall North (Guardian)

What is this 'spate' of terrorist attacks - does this just refer to Bali or does J Brackenbury include 7/7, 21/7, and other recent atrocities? If he is addressing several of these incidents, how does J Brackenbury know that this 'spate' of attacks proceeds from the same cause? How does he know what motivated these particular attacks? How does he know that the motive was to 'destabilise western democracy and lifestyles'?

What we know about the previous Bali bombings, and the rise of 'extremism' in Indonesia, is that one potent factor has been US/UK foreign policy, especially the war in Iraq (see the Media Review for 2 October for some brief remarks). This doesn't mean that US/UK foreign policy (and Australian participation in it) is the determining factor in bombings such as the ones we've just seen, but it does mean that what we do in the world is increasing the political temperature, and 'heightening' the risk of al-Qaeda terrorism against 'Western interests', as the Joint Intelligence Committee warned Tony Blair before the invasion of Iraq.

What experts in the field are telling us (such as Michael Scheuer, former CIA bin Laden expert) is that 'Islamic terrorism will not be successfully tackled', to use J Brackenbury's words, until US/UK foreign policy is changed.

Scheuer says:

'we need a shot of democracy inside the United States... If... the decision is to keep those policies kind of as they are - well, I think that might be a mistake. But... at least the country would be going into the war against Islamic militancy with its eyes open, knowing that those policies, more than anything else, motivate our enemy. We would go into it with our eyes open. We'd be expecting a very long war, and a very bloody and costly war.'

J Brackenbury and David Winnick may want us to keep our eyes closed, but that is not going to stop the loss of life. Keeping our eyes closed is more of an 'endemic British disease' than appeasement of tyrants (such as Saddam Hussein (in the 1980s), the Saudi royals, Putin, and so on).

PS One cannot leap from mainstream Islam's hostility to lesbian and gay rights (and atheism) to al-Qaeda's determination to kill Western civilians indiscriminately.

REPRESSION

DEPORTATION - POLICE DOUBTS

The Times says some senior police and immigration officials are not happy with the current deportation strategy: 'Police doubt over terror policy'. Do they doubt that these arrests (five more suspects were detained yesterday) actually improve national security? Do they doubt that deporting people for thought crimes is a morally-justifiable thing to do? Do they doubt that free speech still exists?

No, they doubt that the right people are being arrested for deportation:

'The names of high-profile foreign clerics and prominent dissidents are reported to have been at the top of a list of deportees drawn up by immigration and security staff but their arrest warrants are understood to have been cancelled.'

'A senior immigration source said: "We have gone for a lot of small fry when figures who are accused of stirring up hatred and recruiting young men to join jihad are still walking the streets and mocking us." '

In the paper version (page 12), there is also a pointed question from civil liberties groups:

'All [22 men arrested] have been detained on the ground of national security rather than new criteria of unacceptable behaviour...'

'Civil liberties groups want Mr Clarke to explain why he is introducing draconian new laws when he is still using his present powers.'

The paper version of The Times also says that 'it is understood that among the five arrested yesterday are at least two who have appeared in court in the UK' - and presumably found not guilty. This is on top of the six Algerians acquitted in the 'ricin' (or 'no-ricin') case.

British justice now means you can get taken to court, found not guilty, then either get deported to a torture state or detained without charge for an indefinite period while lawyers discover whether or not you can legally be deported to a torture state.

DEPORTATION - NEW LAWS?

'Ministers are considering rushing through a change to human rights legislation rather than waiting to see if the courts block the deportation of foreign extremists.'

'An amendment to the Human Rights Act, which incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law, could be included in the forthcoming anti-terrorism bill, according to senior Labour figures.'

'The government yesterday revealed it had won permission to intervene in a case already before the European Court of Human Rights, brought by an Algerian man against the Netherlands.'

'Ministers hope to use the case to persuade the Strasbourg court to allow national government and courts to take more account of national security concerns in deportation cases. Intervening in the Dutch case could offer the UK a faster route to the Strasbourg judges than pursuing a new deportation case all the way through the British courts.'

'But one senior minister said the government was also considering a "belt and braces" approach of changing the human rights act without delay. An immediate change is likely to meet fierce resistance from human rights groups.' (FT, page 2)

The change would be to try to get the law back to where it used to be, so that courts could 'balance the risks', in judging whether the risk to the individual of harm (if deported) was greater or less than the risk to British society (if the person is not deported). (Roughly speaking.)

In the Chahal case (a Sikh militant under threat of deportation to India):

'In 1993, the court of appeal had concluded in the Chahal case that "there may be occasions when the individual poses such a threat to this country and its inhabitants that considerations of his personal safety are virtually irrelevant".'

'Three years later the Strasbourg judges ruled by a majority 12 to seven that there was no room to balance risks in cases where the deportee faced a risk of harm.'

Because of Article 3 of the European Convention, which offers absolute protection against torture or inhuman treatment.

So what is the alleged basis for the change in law? Charles Clarke, Home Secretary, and Lord Falconer, Lord Chancellor, say:

'We face a threat from terrorism not envisaged 50 or even 10 years ago.'

So the generation which survived the horrors of the Second World War (Auschwitz, Hiroshima, the Russian Front and so on), which in 1955 faced brutal wars in Algeria, Cyprus, Kenya, Malaya, and so on, could not have envisaged the kind of threat that we now face. How very innocent they were.

REPRESSION - MONBIOT

There's a very useful article on state repression by George Monbiot in the Guardian today, covering the different kinds of laws that are being used to bear down on activists, agitators, demonstrators (and T-shirt wearers).

One odd omission:

'What is most remarkable is that until Mr Wolfgang was held, neither parliamentarians nor the press were interested. The pressure group Liberty, the Green party, a couple of alternative comedians, the Indymedia network and the alternative magazine Schnews have been left to defend our civil liberties almost unassisted.'

All those named are worthy of great respect, but what about the esteemed Campaign against Criminalising Communities, who have a meeting next Tuesday, 11 October, 7-9pm, Grand Committee Room, House of Commons (hosted by Hywel Williams MP)?

JNV welcomes feedback.