HUMAN RIGHTS - AND WRONGS

25-05-2007

John Reid’s suggestion that Britain might have to declare a “state of emergency” to opt out of human rights legislation is another frightening indicator of the government’s willingness to sacrifice the liberties it is supposed to be defending in the “War on Terror”.

Of course he’s hugely embarrassed by the news that three people subject to anti-terrorist control orders in London have disappeared. Which Home Secretary wouldn’t be?

But instead of re-dedicating himself to securing the evidence needed to bring about convictions, Reid simply wants to make it easier to lock up suspects on the say-so of the security forces and the police.

By Reid’s own admission, the three missing men Lamine Adam, Ibrahim Adam and Cerie Bullivant represented no immediate threat to the British public but were forced to make regular visits to the cop shop and had restrictions placed on their movements.

Lamine and Ibrahim Adams are brothers of Anthony Garcia who was jailed for life last month for his involvment in a fertiliser bomb plot - and Lamine has been banned from working on London Underground.

Yet none of the three who’ve broken their control orders has been convicted of any terrorist offence. The strongest the Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair can come up with is that “Nobody can be perfectly satisfied that they are not a risk to the public here.”

Indeed not - and nobody can be entirely sure that that Brazilian bloke walking into Stockwell tube station isn’t a terrorist either, so should we shoot him just in case? Whoops! We already have.

The reality is that on the information available to the public, the “Control Order Three” are guilty by association. Nothing more, nothing less.

Possibly the authorities know more than they are letting on. Fine. Then let themlay their evidence before a court, where it can be tested on a jury.

Such are the fundamentals of the democratic freedoms we are supposed to be protecting.

The principal allegation against the trio is that they might be heading to Iraq to fight with insurgents killing British troops. If this isn’t a crime, it should be. But so far as we are aware, it isn’t, highlighting the need to frame appropriate laws, which would have the backing of parliament and the people.

Let’s make one thing clear here; after the 7/7 bombing in London, few of us seriously doubt that there is a terrorist threat to Britain; that’s why the police have been granted 28 days to hold terrorist suspects and winkle vital information out of them.

But how much further does Reid want to go? We have a pretty good idea.

The control orders (which can effectively impose house arrest) were only introduced after the previous policy of holding suspects indefinitely in Belmarsh Prison was declared illegal. It was internment by another name.

We also know that the government wanted to detain terror suspects for 90 days.

What we can’t understand is why they aren’t embracing the much simpler and arguably more effective counter-terrorist measure of making phone-tap evidence admissible in court.

By seeking to lock up or “control” people who have been convicted of no crime the government is not only turning its back on the international community, it is betraying centuries of British tradition.

And will it make us any safer? We doubt it. Committed terrorists will only bury themselves deeper underground, having been granted a new grievance to fuel their noxious anger.

The rest of us will wonder if merely writing or speaking out of turn could be construed in the wrong way by a heavy-handed, authoritarian government.

Either way, it will do nothing to help us sleep any sounder at night.

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