Will the truth ever emerge?
The legacy of the outgoing Labour administration was so shocking, so intensely anti-libertarian, that it has not been difficult for the new Tory-LibDem coalition to shine by comparison.
In the first few weeks, Cameron and Clegg have announced an inquiry into torture allegations and other measures (to review the extradition of Gary McKinnon and to cancel the ID card scheme) which I can only applaud.
I find myself in the unnerving position of approving and welcoming the activities of a new Conservative Government.
(If only they will take the axe to Trident as well.)
Inquiries in Britain have a habit of taking a long time, costing a lot of money and obfuscating (rather than clarifying) the issues and background of controversial matters of policy.
I hope very much that the proposed inquiry into the well documented activities of MI5 and MI6 operatives who condoned and may even have encouraged the agents of other government to torture Britsh citizens will be different.
On 20th. May, the Guardian listed its own repeated accounts of British intelligence agents involved in torture and summarised the need for the inquiry to fulfill the following objectives:
To establish the full truth, the inquiry will need to discover:
• Who authorised the bilateral agreements with the US, signed three weeks after the 9/11 attacks under article V of the North Atlantic treaty, that led to the UK offering logistic support for the CIA's rendition programme of kidnap and torture.
• Whether any other such bilateral agreements were signed that led to human rights abuses during the so-called war on terror.
• Who drew up, and who authorised, the secret interrogation policy, transmitted in January 2002 to all MI5 and MI6 agents in Afghanistan, telling them they could interrogate people who were being tortured, as long as they did not participate and were not "seen to condone it".
• How was that policy further developed in mid-2004, why and by whom.
• Which ministers authorised these policies.
• What Downing Street knew about the torture of the British resident Binyam Mohamed, and about the torture in Pakistan and elsewhere of several British citizens suspected of planning terrorist attacks since 2001.
• What the last foreign and home secretaries, David Miliband and Alan Johnson, knew about the UK's involvement in torture and rendition, what they did – and critically, what they may not have done – in an attempt to bring it to an end.
The inquiry will also be under pressure to publish the interrogation policy as it has stood since mid-2004 – even though Miliband said last year that this could never be done as it would "give succour" to the country's enemies.
The Guardian also included the following:
Philippe Sands QC, professor of law at University College London, said the inquiry should have happened long ago. "To restore trust in government, both here and abroad, and to get to the truth the inquiry needs to be deep and broad and as open as possible," he said.
"It should address in particular who authorised what and when and why, what the relevant legal advice said, and how it related to any change in US practice in 2002 and 2003."
Monday, May 24, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Whatever happened to probity?
Whatever happened to probity? And are you free, can you ever be free if you live in a society where morality, honesty, probity seem of no value? Where the law is not respected by the lawyers or the rights of little children by corrupt priests and a warped and wicked priestly hierarchy?
The Pope has issued a pastoral letter this week. It concerns child abuse by Catholic priests. How can anyone take this letter seriously when the Vatican has sheltered Cardinal Bernard Law from accusations that he actively concealed child abusing priests when he was in charge in Boston, Massachusetts? When the Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, played an active role, as a young man, in making sure that ten year old children were prevailed upon and frightened into swearing oaths to keep silent for ever about the fact that they had been sexually abused by a priest called Brendan Smyth?
Is it possible to feel anything but disgust not just for these criminal priests and their crimes but for the poisonous hypocrisy of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in covering them up?
It seems now to be normal in Britain for the guardians of public order to lie, to dissimulate, to prevaricate, to conceal their misdeeds without shame, hesitation or any need to explain or excuse their actions.
"Scotland Yard has not disciplined a single police officer for failing to display a badge number at least year's G20 protest" wrote the Guardian on 19th. March, despite the Met Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, promising that officers caught deliberately covering their badge numbers would be sacked.
As for Lord Ashcroft, words almost fail me. Ten years ago, he seems to have assured William Hague, the Leader of the Opposition, that he would become resident in the U.K. and pay tax here on all his earnings and he then re-negotiated the deal (with the apparent help of the Conservative Chief Whip) so that he gained all the benefits of a peerage without conforming to the assurances and meeting the obligations that he had accepted.
Is Lord Ashcroft contrite?
Are he and Mr. Hague in sackcloth and ashes together?
Not a bit of it.
"The intricacies of the (Ashcroft) affair," wrote the Guardian in a leader on 18th. March , "will leave many people lost. No rules, it seems were broken - only carefully walked around. No outright lies were told - only whole truths not spoken."
How very, superbly, British.
It makes me almost embarrassed to accuse Rome and the Pope of hypocrisy. Whitehall and Westminster could teach the Vatican more than a thing or two about concealing the truth and covering things up.
Another example from the Guardian, 17th. March, of the British talent for breaking the law whilst not admitting it, for penalising the whistleblower and not the wrong-doer:-
Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Mercer, a lawyer and professional soldier, drew the attention of the commanding officer of a British regiment serving in Iraq to what his soldiers were doing to their prisoners, which appeared to this senior soldier-lawyer to be illegal under the terms of the Geneva conventions and the European Convention on Human Rights.
This resulted in a "massive" row.
Later, the Lieutenant Colonel "walked out of a meeting between British officials and the International Committee of the Red Cross after being told by a "political adviser" to keep his mouth shut."
"Mercer's protests about the unlawful treatment of Iraqis in British custody were so unwelcome within the Ministry of Defence that his boss, Martin Hemming, head of its legal service, threatened to report him to the Law Society," claimed the Guardian, summarising his evidence to the Baha Mousa inquiry.
How could a senior lawyer like Martin Hemmings set aside his over-riding obligation to probity, to rectitude, to the law itself, seemingly acting as if honesty and morality were simply negotiable commodities, to be used (or misused) in any way that might be convenient to those in charge?
Martin Hemming prepared statements for the Commons human rights committee which Mercer and General Robin Brims, commander of British troops in southern Iraw actually refused to sign because (it seems) they concealed the facts about the unlawful treatment to which Iraqi detainees were being subjected.
(Lieutenant Colonel Mercer is still serving in the Army.
I wonder what his prospects are now of making full Colonel?)
As another Guardian article suggested (also 17th. March), whistleblowers at Lehman Brothers (Matthew Lee) and at British Biotech (Andrew Millar) and at HBOS (Paul Moore) all lost their jobs when they advised their bosses that their respective companies might be guilty of false accounting, unethical behaviour and reckless lending.
Being right (as these three were) is no defence.
Being wrong allows complacency without compunction.
The more wrong you are, the more brass face you seem able to muster.
In this spirit, let us turn to Dame Eliza Manningham Buller, the former head of MI5.
She wrote to the Guardian on 15th. March stating carefully and precisely and very guardedly that she "did not know exactly what had been done specifically to Khalid Sheik Mohammed until after I retired."
In this way, she attempted to rebut the suggestion implied by the Guardian's careful research (published on 11th. March) that evidence of the Americans torturing prisoners (or outsourcing the torture of rendered prisoners) was available five years before Manningham Buller left MI5 in 2007.
Much of this evidence was published in very reputable newspapers, notably the New York Times.
Many of these accounts also suggested the MI5 or MI6 staff were close at hand when such torture occurred and had fed questions they wanted answered to the torturers or collaborated with torturers in other ways.
If Dame Eliza did not know about these accusations and these reports, she had kept herself in ignorance with extraordinary dedication.
The Pope has issued a pastoral letter this week. It concerns child abuse by Catholic priests. How can anyone take this letter seriously when the Vatican has sheltered Cardinal Bernard Law from accusations that he actively concealed child abusing priests when he was in charge in Boston, Massachusetts? When the Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, played an active role, as a young man, in making sure that ten year old children were prevailed upon and frightened into swearing oaths to keep silent for ever about the fact that they had been sexually abused by a priest called Brendan Smyth?
Is it possible to feel anything but disgust not just for these criminal priests and their crimes but for the poisonous hypocrisy of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in covering them up?
It seems now to be normal in Britain for the guardians of public order to lie, to dissimulate, to prevaricate, to conceal their misdeeds without shame, hesitation or any need to explain or excuse their actions.
"Scotland Yard has not disciplined a single police officer for failing to display a badge number at least year's G20 protest" wrote the Guardian on 19th. March, despite the Met Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, promising that officers caught deliberately covering their badge numbers would be sacked.
As for Lord Ashcroft, words almost fail me. Ten years ago, he seems to have assured William Hague, the Leader of the Opposition, that he would become resident in the U.K. and pay tax here on all his earnings and he then re-negotiated the deal (with the apparent help of the Conservative Chief Whip) so that he gained all the benefits of a peerage without conforming to the assurances and meeting the obligations that he had accepted.
Is Lord Ashcroft contrite?
Are he and Mr. Hague in sackcloth and ashes together?
Not a bit of it.
"The intricacies of the (Ashcroft) affair," wrote the Guardian in a leader on 18th. March , "will leave many people lost. No rules, it seems were broken - only carefully walked around. No outright lies were told - only whole truths not spoken."
How very, superbly, British.
It makes me almost embarrassed to accuse Rome and the Pope of hypocrisy. Whitehall and Westminster could teach the Vatican more than a thing or two about concealing the truth and covering things up.
Another example from the Guardian, 17th. March, of the British talent for breaking the law whilst not admitting it, for penalising the whistleblower and not the wrong-doer:-
Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Mercer, a lawyer and professional soldier, drew the attention of the commanding officer of a British regiment serving in Iraq to what his soldiers were doing to their prisoners, which appeared to this senior soldier-lawyer to be illegal under the terms of the Geneva conventions and the European Convention on Human Rights.
This resulted in a "massive" row.
Later, the Lieutenant Colonel "walked out of a meeting between British officials and the International Committee of the Red Cross after being told by a "political adviser" to keep his mouth shut."
"Mercer's protests about the unlawful treatment of Iraqis in British custody were so unwelcome within the Ministry of Defence that his boss, Martin Hemming, head of its legal service, threatened to report him to the Law Society," claimed the Guardian, summarising his evidence to the Baha Mousa inquiry.
How could a senior lawyer like Martin Hemmings set aside his over-riding obligation to probity, to rectitude, to the law itself, seemingly acting as if honesty and morality were simply negotiable commodities, to be used (or misused) in any way that might be convenient to those in charge?
Martin Hemming prepared statements for the Commons human rights committee which Mercer and General Robin Brims, commander of British troops in southern Iraw actually refused to sign because (it seems) they concealed the facts about the unlawful treatment to which Iraqi detainees were being subjected.
(Lieutenant Colonel Mercer is still serving in the Army.
I wonder what his prospects are now of making full Colonel?)
As another Guardian article suggested (also 17th. March), whistleblowers at Lehman Brothers (Matthew Lee) and at British Biotech (Andrew Millar) and at HBOS (Paul Moore) all lost their jobs when they advised their bosses that their respective companies might be guilty of false accounting, unethical behaviour and reckless lending.
Being right (as these three were) is no defence.
Being wrong allows complacency without compunction.
The more wrong you are, the more brass face you seem able to muster.
In this spirit, let us turn to Dame Eliza Manningham Buller, the former head of MI5.
She wrote to the Guardian on 15th. March stating carefully and precisely and very guardedly that she "did not know exactly what had been done specifically to Khalid Sheik Mohammed until after I retired."
In this way, she attempted to rebut the suggestion implied by the Guardian's careful research (published on 11th. March) that evidence of the Americans torturing prisoners (or outsourcing the torture of rendered prisoners) was available five years before Manningham Buller left MI5 in 2007.
Much of this evidence was published in very reputable newspapers, notably the New York Times.
Many of these accounts also suggested the MI5 or MI6 staff were close at hand when such torture occurred and had fed questions they wanted answered to the torturers or collaborated with torturers in other ways.
If Dame Eliza did not know about these accusations and these reports, she had kept herself in ignorance with extraordinary dedication.
Did she not read any newspapers at all while she was in charge of a major British security agency?
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Lies, misdeeds and mistrust - the MI5 achievment
The British Government has shot itself in the foot again. Not only that, but MI5 has been shown to be a lying, deceitful and untrustworthy organization which demeans the democracy that it claims to serve.
1) Determined and lengthy British Government legal initiatives have failed to stop the courts allowing publication of a seven paragraph summary prepared by the Americans that proves that MI5 knew that a UK resident called Binyam Mohamed was being tortured by the Americans and their associates and continued to interrogate him in that knowledge, in clear breach of international obligations and of a government ruling dating from 1972.
2) In an attempt to water down a judicial ruling that criticised MI5 and its behaviour, the lawyer acting on behalf of the government wrote to the courts and asked the court not to publish the following allegations which form a summary of just what the judge thought that MI5 gets up to:
"The Master of the Rolls' observations .... will read as statements by the Court (i) that the Security Service does not in fact operate a culture that respects human rights or abjures participation in coercive interrogation techniques ..... (iii) that officials of the Service deliberately misled the Intelligence and Security Committee (of the House of Commons) on this point ...."
The lawyer continues:
"The Master of the Rolls' observations .... constitute an exceptionally damaging criticism of the good faith of the Security Service as a whole. In particular, the suggestion that the Court should distrust any UK government assurance based on the Service's advice ....."
Full details are in reports in the Guardian and other newspapers today.
It is likely that the full text of the Master of the Rolls' observations will become public shortly and I look forward to reading paragraph 168 of the Master's judgement in full and gory detail and adding its text to this post.
1) Determined and lengthy British Government legal initiatives have failed to stop the courts allowing publication of a seven paragraph summary prepared by the Americans that proves that MI5 knew that a UK resident called Binyam Mohamed was being tortured by the Americans and their associates and continued to interrogate him in that knowledge, in clear breach of international obligations and of a government ruling dating from 1972.
2) In an attempt to water down a judicial ruling that criticised MI5 and its behaviour, the lawyer acting on behalf of the government wrote to the courts and asked the court not to publish the following allegations which form a summary of just what the judge thought that MI5 gets up to:
"The Master of the Rolls' observations .... will read as statements by the Court (i) that the Security Service does not in fact operate a culture that respects human rights or abjures participation in coercive interrogation techniques ..... (iii) that officials of the Service deliberately misled the Intelligence and Security Committee (of the House of Commons) on this point ...."
The lawyer continues:
"The Master of the Rolls' observations .... constitute an exceptionally damaging criticism of the good faith of the Security Service as a whole. In particular, the suggestion that the Court should distrust any UK government assurance based on the Service's advice ....."
Full details are in reports in the Guardian and other newspapers today.
It is likely that the full text of the Master of the Rolls' observations will become public shortly and I look forward to reading paragraph 168 of the Master's judgement in full and gory detail and adding its text to this post.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Lord Bingham on Liberty and its diminution
Lord Bingham, Baron Bingham of Cornhill, was Lord Chief Justice and the Senior Law Lord, before his retirement in 2008.
These extracts are from an interview with Stephen Moss in the Guardian, 8th. February, 2010.
Bingham is .... forthright on the way in which the government is using the threat of terrorism to erode fundamental freedoms. He quotes with approval Benjamin Franklin's dictum that "he who would put security before liberty deserves neither"
.....
Bingham believes we are getting the delicate balance between liberty and security wrong. "Liberty is losing out at the moment. Extraordinary inroads are being made into principles that would once have been regarded as completely inviolate, such as the growing practice of putting material before some decision-making tribunal or judge that the defendant never sees." He worries that the culture of the law, and indeed society, is changing. "When I talk to the young, I'm struck by how, even when they have impeccably liberal instincts on things like torture and the death penalty, they tend to make an exception for terrorists. They've grown up in a world post-9/11 in which terrorism has been seen as this colossally potent threat." The danger is real, but so is the threat to hard-won liberties.
Just before we met, the story that the police were considering the use of unmanned drones had been in the press. He is not a fan. "We are already plotted almost every single inch of our lives. I have a rather bolshie approach to this. Why is it necessary? I was going through customs at Heathrow the other day, presented a perfectly innocent British passport, the lady takes it and puts it into a machine to photograph it. I said to her, 'What –happens to the photograph you've just made?' She said, 'You're not allowed to know.' Why should the citizen not be allowed to know? We have a very noble tradition, and have to battle to protect our rights."
These extracts are from an interview with Stephen Moss in the Guardian, 8th. February, 2010.
Bingham is .... forthright on the way in which the government is using the threat of terrorism to erode fundamental freedoms. He quotes with approval Benjamin Franklin's dictum that "he who would put security before liberty deserves neither"
.....
Bingham believes we are getting the delicate balance between liberty and security wrong. "Liberty is losing out at the moment. Extraordinary inroads are being made into principles that would once have been regarded as completely inviolate, such as the growing practice of putting material before some decision-making tribunal or judge that the defendant never sees." He worries that the culture of the law, and indeed society, is changing. "When I talk to the young, I'm struck by how, even when they have impeccably liberal instincts on things like torture and the death penalty, they tend to make an exception for terrorists. They've grown up in a world post-9/11 in which terrorism has been seen as this colossally potent threat." The danger is real, but so is the threat to hard-won liberties.
Just before we met, the story that the police were considering the use of unmanned drones had been in the press. He is not a fan. "We are already plotted almost every single inch of our lives. I have a rather bolshie approach to this. Why is it necessary? I was going through customs at Heathrow the other day, presented a perfectly innocent British passport, the lady takes it and puts it into a machine to photograph it. I said to her, 'What –happens to the photograph you've just made?' She said, 'You're not allowed to know.' Why should the citizen not be allowed to know? We have a very noble tradition, and have to battle to protect our rights."
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Spooks and Suspicions
Christopher Andrews recently published an 'authorised history' of MI5. I rather thought, in my naive and trusting way, that this might be a good thing. After all, when I was young, the British Government did not admit that MI5 and MI6 existed, still less that their functions included spying on British people who supported Trades Unions, political reform and/or the Labour Party.
At least now we know we have secret policemen and something about what they do to us and pretend to do for us. And from Peter Wright's celebrated book 'Spy Catcher', we also know that MI5 officers sometimes used to be lawless, corrupt and devotedly fascistic and that the Government (attempting to conceal these truths) would not hesitate to be 'economical with the actualite' as a very senior Civil Servant admitted, under cross examination, in an Australian court.
So far so good - an official and authorised history of a body like MI5 could only throw a little light on secret matters, however discreetly the book was constructed, however many documents in MI5's files had been 'redacted', (the bureacrats' word for concealed, censored, suppressed.)
In a long letter to the London Review of Books, (3rd. December, 2009), Mr. A. W. Brian Simpson writes about Mr. Andrews' book.
Mr. Simpson has written about the detention of aliens and citizens in time of war, both during the First World War and during the Second. These topics are almost wholly omitted from Mr. Andrews' book, although it is known that MI5 was the prime mover in making arbitrary imprisonment normal in Britain.
Some 30,000 aliens and 1,700 citizens were detained without trial in the early years of the Second World War and many remained in prison throughout hostilities. This was almost certainly a pointless exercise in messing up people's lives. "Only one of the aliens, Klaus Fuchs, later - after release - became a spy."
MI5 also contributed to government policy and has successfully influenced successive governments in favour of trials in camera and other impositions on British subjects. "There is not a mention (of this) in the official history."
"Since MI5 was invented, there is no doubt that there has been a steady erosion of civil liberties in Britain, much of it in the name of security ... MI5's input into the evolving policy remains concealed."
MI5 came into being before the First World War so it has exercised influence in Britain throughout the Twentieth Century. It is appalling that the official, authorised history, should not describe at least some of the policies and policy initiatives which it has espoused in the last hundred years.
NB: 'Redacted' is a word I had never heard until five or six years ago and is, I think, a fine example of what George Orwell imagined and categorised as 'NewSpeak'.
'Suppressed' or 'censored' are so much more precise - the advantage of using the word 'redacted' is that very few people understand what it means.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Human Rights against Security - a false juxtaposition
comments by Gary Younge
extracted from his article in the Guardian, 4th. January 2010
"To galvanise the nation for war abroad and sedate it for repression at home, the previous (Bush) administration constructed a terror threat that was ubiquitous in character, apocalyptic in scale and imminent in nature. Only then could they counterpose human rights against security as though they were not only contradictory but mutually exclusive.
Al-Qaida was only too happy to oblige. In such a state of perpetual crisis both terrorists and reactionaries thrive. Terrorists successfully create a climate of fear; governments successfully exploit that fear to extend their own powers.
"I'm absolutely convinced that the threat we face now, the idea of a terrorist in the middle of one of our cities with a nuclear weapon, is very real and that we have to use extraordinary measures to deal with it," said former vice-president Dick Cheney.
The trouble is that even by their own shabby standards, none of these "extraordinary measures" have ever worked. No new laws were necessary to stop 9/11. If the immigration services, the FBI and the CIA had been doing their jobs properly, the attacks could have been prevented.
Nonetheless, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 the US government undertook the "preventative detention" of about 5,000 men on the basis of their birthplace and later sought a further 19,000 "voluntary interviews". Over the next year, more than 170,000 men from 24 predominantly Muslim countries and North Korea were fingerprinted and interviewed in a programme of "special registration". None of these (measures) produced a single terrorism conviction.
This set the pattern for the years to come: wiretapping, rendition, torture, secrecy. Those who otherwise rail against the inefficiency of government argued for more extensive, intrusive state power even as it produced little in the way of results. When confronted with this lamentable record, their only defence was the threat of the next attack. "The next time, the smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud" said Condoleezza Rice, adding. "They only have to be right once. We have to be right every time." Over the last week even once in a while would have looked good."
Thursday, November 26, 2009
UK Government Torturing UK Citizens
Extract from the Guardian, 25th. November, 2009 - by Ian Cobain
"After an investigation spanning more than a year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) today condemned Britain's role in the torture of terror suspects detained in Pakistan as cruel, counter-productive and in clear breach of international law ..... a report published today by HRW – entitled Cruel Britannia: British Complicity in the Torture and Ill-treatment of Terror Suspects – draws upon corroborative evidence received from the Pakistani torturers themselves.
Researchers at the New York-based NGO spoke to Pakistani intelligence agents directly involved in the torture who say their British counterparts knew they were mistreating British terrorism suspects. These agents said British officials were "breathing down their necks for information" while they were torturing a medical student from London, and that British intelligence officers were "grateful" they were "using all means possible" to extract information from a man from Luton being beaten, whipped, deprived of sleep and threatened with an electric drill.
"UK complicity is clear," the report says, adding that it had put the government in a "legally, morally and politically invidious position""
Monday, November 9, 2009
You Couldn't Make It Up! (2)
from:
guardian.co.uk, Friday 6th. November, 2009 22 04 GMT
'Culture of impunity' at police unit
guardian.co.uk, Friday 6th. November, 2009 22 04 GMT
'Culture of impunity' at police unit
by Paul Lewis, Matthew Taylor
(Headlined as above in Saturday edition of the newspaper, filed with slightly different heading on the net on Friday night)
Of more than 5,000 complaints against squad, less than 0.18% were upheld
Scotland Yard faced calls for an "ethical audit" of all officers in its controversial riot squad tonight after figures revealed that they had received more than 5,000 complaint allegations, mostly for "oppressive behaviour".
Details of all allegations lodged against the Metropolitan police territorial support group (TSG) over the last four years reveal that only nine – less than 0.18% – were "substantiated" after an investigation by the force's complaints department.
The figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, were described as evidence of a "culture of impunity" that makes it almost impossible for members of the public to lodge successful complaints against the Met's 730 TSG officers.
The TSG is a specialist squad that responds to outbreaks of disorder anywhere in the capital. It is under investigation for the most high-profile cases of alleged brutality at the G20 protests, including the death of Ian Tomlinson.
The unit came under renewed criticism this week after one of its officers was identified as a member of a team implicated in a "serious, gratuitous and prolonged" attack on a Muslim man.
PC Mark Jones, 42, was one of six officers involved in an attack on Babar Ahmad, 34, who was punched, kicked, stamped on and strangled during his arrest at his home in Tooting, south London. The Met paid Ahmad £60,000 in damages earlier this year and accepted its officers were responsible for the attack, during which Ahmad, a terror suspect, was forced into the Muslim prayer position and told: "Where is your God now? Pray to him."
A former Royal Marine, Jones has had 31 complaints lodged against him since 1993. Twenty-six were assault allegations, most of which had been lodged by black or Asian men, but none were substantiated.
........
The TSG has been the subject of 5,241 allegations since August 2005. They include 376 allegations of discrimination and 977 complaints of "incivility". More than 1,100 of the allegations concerned what members of the public said were "failures in duty". However by far the largest number of complaints – 2,280 – were categorised as "oppressive behaviour".
Just over 2,000 (38%) were "unsubstantiated" by the Met's department for professional standards, while the rest were resolved at the police station, dismissed, discontinued or dealt with in other ways.
.........
(original article continues)
(original article continues)
Sunday, August 30, 2009
You Couldn't Make It Up!
from:
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 18 August 2009 19.43 BST
by:
Vikram Dodd
(Published in full, without abridgement or amendment)
Metropolitan police used anti-terror laws to stop and search 58 children under 10
• Terrorism Act used on 2,331 children last year
• Police abusing powers, says Muslim group chair
The official reviewer of terrorism legislation today criticised the Metropolitan police after it emerged that the force had stopped and searched 58 children aged nine or younger using terrorism powers designed to fight al-Qaida.
The children were stopped in 2008 and all were under the criminal age of responsibility, which is 10. None are believed to have been found to have been involved in terrorism.
According to figures from the Metropolitan Police Authority, in 2008 the Met used terrorism laws to stop and search 10 girls aged nine or under, and 48 boys. A total of 2,331 children aged 15 or under were stopped by Met officers using terrorism powers. (my italics)
Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 gives police the power to stop and search people in areas deemed by senior officers to be at risk of terrorism. A constable does not need to have reasonable suspicion, and use of the power has been controversial.
Lord Carlile, the independent official reviewer of terrorism legislation, said: "I find these figures uncomfortable. There is absolutely no evidence of children in this country being involved in acts of terrorism." He described the fact that more than 2000 children aged 15 or under had been stopped under section 44 as a "very high figure" and added: "It shows some evidence that section 44 stops may have been used as an instrument of general policing rather than for the special purpose for which they were designed, which is not acceptable."
Carlile, a barrister by profession, said the only "reasonable justification" an officer could have to search a child under terrorism powers was if it was suspected an accompanying adult had concealed something on the juvenile.
He added: "I have consistently urged the Met to decrease the number of section 44 stops and searches. I hope we will see a dramatic reduction of section 44 procedures on adults, juveniles and children."
Last year the Met carried out 175,000 searches using section 44 and earlier this year the Guardian revealed it would scale back use of the power after conceding that hundreds of thousands of stops had damaged community relations and reversed fundamental principles of civil rights.
Corinna Ferguson, legal officer for Liberty, said: "We have always said that the powers given to the police under section 44 are so broad that they are bound to be misused. First it was octogenarian Walter Wolfgang; now children who have not even reached the age of criminal responsibility are being searched.
"It's difficult to see how it could ever be justified to subject a young child to what is inevitably a frightening experience, under the guise of combating terrorism."
Abdurahman Jafar, who chairs the Muslim Safety Forum, which tried to improve police and community relations, said the figures showed that some officers were abusing their powers and that this could damage children.
"Overarching powers are always going to be abused. If I had a child and they were stopped I would be absolutely disgusted.
"It's such a young age and the child is going to fear he or she is being treated as a suspect and that will damage the child."
Scotland Yard said: "Stop and search legislation covers people, not ages, there is no upper age limit and no lower age limit. … There are a number of scenarios in which a child could be searched under section 44, ie if they were with an adult who is also stopped under this power. We recognise the sensitivity surrounding these powers and are constantly looking to improve our use of the tactic.
"The threat to London from terrorism is real and serious and these powers are an important tactic in our counter-terrorism strategy."
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 18 August 2009 19.43 BST
by:
Vikram Dodd
(Published in full, without abridgement or amendment)
Metropolitan police used anti-terror laws to stop and search 58 children under 10
• Terrorism Act used on 2,331 children last year
• Police abusing powers, says Muslim group chair
The official reviewer of terrorism legislation today criticised the Metropolitan police after it emerged that the force had stopped and searched 58 children aged nine or younger using terrorism powers designed to fight al-Qaida.
The children were stopped in 2008 and all were under the criminal age of responsibility, which is 10. None are believed to have been found to have been involved in terrorism.
According to figures from the Metropolitan Police Authority, in 2008 the Met used terrorism laws to stop and search 10 girls aged nine or under, and 48 boys. A total of 2,331 children aged 15 or under were stopped by Met officers using terrorism powers. (my italics)
Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 gives police the power to stop and search people in areas deemed by senior officers to be at risk of terrorism. A constable does not need to have reasonable suspicion, and use of the power has been controversial.
Lord Carlile, the independent official reviewer of terrorism legislation, said: "I find these figures uncomfortable. There is absolutely no evidence of children in this country being involved in acts of terrorism." He described the fact that more than 2000 children aged 15 or under had been stopped under section 44 as a "very high figure" and added: "It shows some evidence that section 44 stops may have been used as an instrument of general policing rather than for the special purpose for which they were designed, which is not acceptable."
Carlile, a barrister by profession, said the only "reasonable justification" an officer could have to search a child under terrorism powers was if it was suspected an accompanying adult had concealed something on the juvenile.
He added: "I have consistently urged the Met to decrease the number of section 44 stops and searches. I hope we will see a dramatic reduction of section 44 procedures on adults, juveniles and children."
Last year the Met carried out 175,000 searches using section 44 and earlier this year the Guardian revealed it would scale back use of the power after conceding that hundreds of thousands of stops had damaged community relations and reversed fundamental principles of civil rights.
Corinna Ferguson, legal officer for Liberty, said: "We have always said that the powers given to the police under section 44 are so broad that they are bound to be misused. First it was octogenarian Walter Wolfgang; now children who have not even reached the age of criminal responsibility are being searched.
"It's difficult to see how it could ever be justified to subject a young child to what is inevitably a frightening experience, under the guise of combating terrorism."
Abdurahman Jafar, who chairs the Muslim Safety Forum, which tried to improve police and community relations, said the figures showed that some officers were abusing their powers and that this could damage children.
"Overarching powers are always going to be abused. If I had a child and they were stopped I would be absolutely disgusted.
"It's such a young age and the child is going to fear he or she is being treated as a suspect and that will damage the child."
Scotland Yard said: "Stop and search legislation covers people, not ages, there is no upper age limit and no lower age limit. … There are a number of scenarios in which a child could be searched under section 44, ie if they were with an adult who is also stopped under this power. We recognise the sensitivity surrounding these powers and are constantly looking to improve our use of the tactic.
"The threat to London from terrorism is real and serious and these powers are an important tactic in our counter-terrorism strategy."
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
MI5 and the Outsourcing of Torture
On 14th. May, 2009, The London Review of Books published Gareth Peirce's long lecture about the British Government and its apparent 'out-sourcing' of torture in the period between 2002 and 2009.
Two years before that article appeared, in 2007, Peter Kosminsky raised these issues in fictional form in a major two part television dramatisation called "Britz" which took an extremely thorough look at Muslim life in Britain and the tensions which drive some young Muslims to become suicide bombers, others to become MI5 agents. A young British Muslim was shown being tortured to the point of death on a remote airport, by un-named foreign agents, while MI5 agents stood by and discussed what he had revealed and what they still wanted to know.
Afterwards, a London-based MI5 agent complained to Kosminsky of these scenes - 'none of us would never do that', said the agent.
He or she was quite wrong.
MI5 agents often did exactly that, as now appears clear.
On 8th. July, 2009, the Guardian published a survey focusing on the fate of individual British Muslims tortured all over the world at the behest or with the apparent participation of British government agents. This is a summary, which takes in many of the points which Gareth Peirce was also raising:-
"Today ... there is mounting evidence that torture is still regarded by some agents of the British state as a useful and legitimate investigative tool. There is evidence too that in the post 9/11 world, government officials have been prepared to look the other way while British citizens, and others, have been tortured in secret prisons around the world. It is also clear that an official policy, devised to govern British intelligence officers while interrogating people held overseas, resulted in people being tortured .... Tony Blair, when prime minister, was aware of the existence of this policy ...."
After 9/11, as US and British forces went into Afghanistan and, later, Iraq, officers from a section of MI5 known as 'the international terrorism-related agent running section' were advised that interrogating captured detainees abroad would not impede future prosecutions in Britain but were not warned about the terms of the Geneva convention which ought to be applied to POWs or that, in 1972, the British government had specifically banned five 'techniques of mistreatment' that had been used in Ulster, ie: hooding, stress positions, loud noise, sleep deprivation or food and drink deprivation.
Michael Wood, the FO's senior legal advisor, concluded that it was not an offence in international law to receive or possess information extracted under torture, although it would not be admissible as evidence in court. Instructions to MI5 and 6 officers in January 2002 fell "far short of what is required in international law" according to Philippe Sands, QC, the professor of international law at University College, London, and author of the book 'Torture Team' who has detailed the ways in which the instructions to British intelligence acts implied or implicitly authorised complicity in torture.
"Sir Nigel Rodley, a former UN special rapporteur on torture, says that only 'wilful ignorance' could prevent MI5 from knowing what would happen to individuals picked up by the ISI (the Pakistani Secret Service)."
"Despite this, MI5 repeatedly asked the ISI to detail and question British citizens in Pakistan .... In some instances, MI5 would tell ISI agents where they could find the suspect, and would even ... draw up a list of questions it wanted the ISI to put to the detainee .... there is clear and growing evidence that British citizens, and others, suffered the most appalling torture as a result."
Two years before that article appeared, in 2007, Peter Kosminsky raised these issues in fictional form in a major two part television dramatisation called "Britz" which took an extremely thorough look at Muslim life in Britain and the tensions which drive some young Muslims to become suicide bombers, others to become MI5 agents. A young British Muslim was shown being tortured to the point of death on a remote airport, by un-named foreign agents, while MI5 agents stood by and discussed what he had revealed and what they still wanted to know.
Afterwards, a London-based MI5 agent complained to Kosminsky of these scenes - 'none of us would never do that', said the agent.
He or she was quite wrong.
MI5 agents often did exactly that, as now appears clear.
On 8th. July, 2009, the Guardian published a survey focusing on the fate of individual British Muslims tortured all over the world at the behest or with the apparent participation of British government agents. This is a summary, which takes in many of the points which Gareth Peirce was also raising:-
"Today ... there is mounting evidence that torture is still regarded by some agents of the British state as a useful and legitimate investigative tool. There is evidence too that in the post 9/11 world, government officials have been prepared to look the other way while British citizens, and others, have been tortured in secret prisons around the world. It is also clear that an official policy, devised to govern British intelligence officers while interrogating people held overseas, resulted in people being tortured .... Tony Blair, when prime minister, was aware of the existence of this policy ...."
After 9/11, as US and British forces went into Afghanistan and, later, Iraq, officers from a section of MI5 known as 'the international terrorism-related agent running section' were advised that interrogating captured detainees abroad would not impede future prosecutions in Britain but were not warned about the terms of the Geneva convention which ought to be applied to POWs or that, in 1972, the British government had specifically banned five 'techniques of mistreatment' that had been used in Ulster, ie: hooding, stress positions, loud noise, sleep deprivation or food and drink deprivation.
Michael Wood, the FO's senior legal advisor, concluded that it was not an offence in international law to receive or possess information extracted under torture, although it would not be admissible as evidence in court. Instructions to MI5 and 6 officers in January 2002 fell "far short of what is required in international law" according to Philippe Sands, QC, the professor of international law at University College, London, and author of the book 'Torture Team' who has detailed the ways in which the instructions to British intelligence acts implied or implicitly authorised complicity in torture.
"Sir Nigel Rodley, a former UN special rapporteur on torture, says that only 'wilful ignorance' could prevent MI5 from knowing what would happen to individuals picked up by the ISI (the Pakistani Secret Service)."
"Despite this, MI5 repeatedly asked the ISI to detail and question British citizens in Pakistan .... In some instances, MI5 would tell ISI agents where they could find the suspect, and would even ... draw up a list of questions it wanted the ISI to put to the detainee .... there is clear and growing evidence that British citizens, and others, suffered the most appalling torture as a result."
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Too Much
Much too much about freedom, recently, to cover comprehensively - about the sordid and terrible history of the Bush administration in America, about the shocking plans for 24 hour surveillance of all UK electronic communications, about the down-grading of the Titan prison plan (NOT), which will produce five huge prisons instead of three monstrous prisons and is probably what the bureaucrats and politicians wanted in the first place.
Who was it wrote recently that there had been the equivalent of an arms race about prisons and imprisonment, about the punishment of crime in the UK?
'I am tougher on crime than you can ever be' has become the favourite boast of politicians of every party as if more repression, rather than more freedom, is what the UK requires.
Real freedom includes the possibility of considering, discussing, planning, advocating, voting for, social, economic and political provisions outside the extraordinarily limited range of options which current UK parties (and political parties in all the Western countries) represent.
It is repressive not to be able to consider revolution, especially when the collapse of banks and the appalling crimes that have recently been committed in the name of our current 'civilization' proves that everything that we care about most deeply is at risk.
Torture is everywhere.
America debates torture as if it were just another weapon in democracy's armour, instead of a poison which subverts all our ambitions and destroys all our hopes.
Naomi Wolf wrote the comments quoted below in the Guardian a few weeks ago and they summarise and encapsulate many of the writings and opinions and the evidence which have recently surfaced.
It is to the shame of all of us, commentators and the public, that so very little was said about these horrific abuses during the 8 years when they were openly perpetrated.
And have the abuses stopped? And will they stop for ever?
No chance.
There will always be thugs within the police and within the security forces, there will always be ruthlessness amongst their controllers, a willingness to use torture to achieve 'a greater purpose' (defined, no doubt, by those same anonymous controllers) and an apparent inabilty to realise that the 'greater purpose' is so suborned if criminal tactics are employed that it fails to be valuable even if achieved.
Great Britain survived Hitler and the Provisional IRA without regularly or officially employing the techniques of the torturer.
How come we cannot survive Al Qaida with the same sang froid?
But let us be aware of one crucial consideration.
If policemen and spooks brutalise the innocent (or even the guilty) in darkness and in secret, if they surreptitiously sub-contract torture to other regimes, they do not do it in my name or yours - not with my implied sanction or (I hope) yours either. They are criminals when they do it and they must remain criminals, outside the acceptable boundaries of western democratic behaviour.
Like capital punishment, torture destroys what it purports to protect, our liberty, simply by being put into practice.
It can never be sanctioned within a democracy, especially within a country like Britain that claims not just a democratic heritage but to lead the world on these issues.
Naomi Wolf, Guardian, 28th. April, 2009
"Since 2003 it has been fully documented .... that direct US policy for prisoners included electrodes on genitals, suffocation, hanging prisoners from bars by the wrists, beatings, concealed murders, sexual assault threats, sexual humiliation and forced nudity ......., Did our leaders call for investigations? They barely even called for a moment's consideration; tolerating torture ..... made them look tough .... (it) polled well ..... it was overwhelmingly OK with them."
Who was it wrote recently that there had been the equivalent of an arms race about prisons and imprisonment, about the punishment of crime in the UK?
'I am tougher on crime than you can ever be' has become the favourite boast of politicians of every party as if more repression, rather than more freedom, is what the UK requires.
Real freedom includes the possibility of considering, discussing, planning, advocating, voting for, social, economic and political provisions outside the extraordinarily limited range of options which current UK parties (and political parties in all the Western countries) represent.
It is repressive not to be able to consider revolution, especially when the collapse of banks and the appalling crimes that have recently been committed in the name of our current 'civilization' proves that everything that we care about most deeply is at risk.
Torture is everywhere.
America debates torture as if it were just another weapon in democracy's armour, instead of a poison which subverts all our ambitions and destroys all our hopes.
Naomi Wolf wrote the comments quoted below in the Guardian a few weeks ago and they summarise and encapsulate many of the writings and opinions and the evidence which have recently surfaced.
It is to the shame of all of us, commentators and the public, that so very little was said about these horrific abuses during the 8 years when they were openly perpetrated.
And have the abuses stopped? And will they stop for ever?
No chance.
There will always be thugs within the police and within the security forces, there will always be ruthlessness amongst their controllers, a willingness to use torture to achieve 'a greater purpose' (defined, no doubt, by those same anonymous controllers) and an apparent inabilty to realise that the 'greater purpose' is so suborned if criminal tactics are employed that it fails to be valuable even if achieved.
Great Britain survived Hitler and the Provisional IRA without regularly or officially employing the techniques of the torturer.
How come we cannot survive Al Qaida with the same sang froid?
But let us be aware of one crucial consideration.
If policemen and spooks brutalise the innocent (or even the guilty) in darkness and in secret, if they surreptitiously sub-contract torture to other regimes, they do not do it in my name or yours - not with my implied sanction or (I hope) yours either. They are criminals when they do it and they must remain criminals, outside the acceptable boundaries of western democratic behaviour.
Like capital punishment, torture destroys what it purports to protect, our liberty, simply by being put into practice.
It can never be sanctioned within a democracy, especially within a country like Britain that claims not just a democratic heritage but to lead the world on these issues.
Naomi Wolf, Guardian, 28th. April, 2009
"Since 2003 it has been fully documented .... that direct US policy for prisoners included electrodes on genitals, suffocation, hanging prisoners from bars by the wrists, beatings, concealed murders, sexual assault threats, sexual humiliation and forced nudity ......., Did our leaders call for investigations? They barely even called for a moment's consideration; tolerating torture ..... made them look tough .... (it) polled well ..... it was overwhelmingly OK with them."
Me and the Guardian
Every post that I complete seems to begin or end with a citation or a quotation from the Guardian. I am sorry about that. I do read other newspapers, journals, magazines etc. But the Guardian is a libertarian newspaper with a fine tradition of fighting for and discussing the issues to which this blog is dedicated. It provokes thought at the same time that it offers judgements, considerations and facts.
I apologize (but not very profusely) if the continual references to the Guardian get on anyone's nerves.
I apologize (but not very profusely) if the continual references to the Guardian get on anyone's nerves.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Erwin James
Erwin James
A little while ago, exchanges with the writer and former criminal, Erwin James Monahan, were included in this blog.
Since then, there has been a lot of discussion on the net and in the press about his real name, the crimes for which he served twenty years in prison and whether he had falsified details of his experience with the French Foreign Legion in articles published in the Guardian.
Nothing that has been published invalidates or calls into question his comments reproduced in this blog. (or, indeed, most of what he has ever written about criminals, criminology and his own past.)
An article in the Guardian (24/4/9) explained Erwin James' own point of view.
The Guardian Readers' Editor (Siobhain Butterworth) comments in the following terms this morning (29/4/9) and I entirely agree with her conclusions:
"It is never acceptable to lie to - or deliberately mislead - readers, but a sense or proportion about this incident is needed. Monahan is not a trained journalist who falsified news reports; he is a writer who, having pulled himself out of the most dreadful mire, went on to make the mistake of lying about his past to protect an identity he had been concealing for years. He has caused damage to the reputation of the Guardian and given some people reason to doubt his work. He will have to re-earn their trust. I wish him luck."
A little while ago, exchanges with the writer and former criminal, Erwin James Monahan, were included in this blog.
Since then, there has been a lot of discussion on the net and in the press about his real name, the crimes for which he served twenty years in prison and whether he had falsified details of his experience with the French Foreign Legion in articles published in the Guardian.
Nothing that has been published invalidates or calls into question his comments reproduced in this blog. (or, indeed, most of what he has ever written about criminals, criminology and his own past.)
An article in the Guardian (24/4/9) explained Erwin James' own point of view.
The Guardian Readers' Editor (Siobhain Butterworth) comments in the following terms this morning (29/4/9) and I entirely agree with her conclusions:
"It is never acceptable to lie to - or deliberately mislead - readers, but a sense or proportion about this incident is needed. Monahan is not a trained journalist who falsified news reports; he is a writer who, having pulled himself out of the most dreadful mire, went on to make the mistake of lying about his past to protect an identity he had been concealing for years. He has caused damage to the reputation of the Guardian and given some people reason to doubt his work. He will have to re-earn their trust. I wish him luck."
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
A personal account
22 Feb. 2009
So much is currently being written about surveillance, security and the consequences of the British and American governments' approach to terrorism that it is impossible for me to keep up.
As for making sense of all of it here, in these notes, it is impossible.
Anyway, that is not my role. This is a personal account (I almost said a personal 'meditation') on freedom and what it means to me, at this time.
The less comprehensive and the more ideosyncratic, personal, tentative and thoughful this blog becomes, the better and more useful it will be.
Maybe.
Probably.
Perhaps.
Somewhat.
'Up to a point, Lord Copper.'
I am, as you can see, a touch conflicted about these issues.
Anyway, that is how I feel this particular morning in this particular, rather beautiful, place in Scotland at this particular time of day, before I have had my porridge and raspberries for breakfast.
Let me summarise, as briefly as possible, a recent article in the Guardian newspaper.
Seamus Milne was the author and it was published on the 19th. February.
The headline is: "Rimington is right. This is a recipe for creating terrorists."
The article points out, with incredulity, that Dame Stella Rimington, who used to be head of MI5, "has warned that the government has given terrorists the chance to find 'greater justification' by making people feel that they 'live in fear and under a police state.'"
"Rimington went further, denouncing the US for Guantanamo and torture, but reverted to type by insisting MI5 'doesn't do that'"
Milne refutes the idea that MI5's hands are clean and refers to the "chilling" conclusions of the recent report of the International Commission of Jurists:
"The framework of international law is being undermined .... the US and the UK have led that undermining."
Milne goes on to discuss un-published details of new anti-terrorist measures planned by the British government and leaked to the Guardian.
These include "the extraordinary proposal to label 'extremist' any British Muslim who supports armed resistance anywhere ...."
Come again?
" .... supports armed resistance ANYWHERE .... "
Even in other Arab countries with which they may have social, family or religious connections?
This is grossly unjust. In fact, it ought to be a ridiculous suggestion.
Britain and America invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and have lavished immense resources on changing the governments of those countries to models which favour British and American interests, especially British and American oil interests.
These recent anti-Muslim wars (because that is how they are perceived) are as rapacious as any medieval Crusade and it would be astonishing if most or many Iraqis and Afghan citizens did not support resistance to the invaders in some form.
How can the British government express either surprise, disappointment or disaproval when British Muslims also feel sympathy for fellow Muslims who have been attacked?
Did not most British people feel sympathy when Hitler marched into Austria and Czechoslovakia and attacked Poland?
Would most British people not have supported armed resistance to Hitler, in those territories and (if he had invaded) in Britain?
Would that not have been very much the right thing to do?
If Hitler had invaded Britain in 1940 a brave few of us, would have fought on, ineffectually throwing petrol bombs at fire-proofed vehicles from behind demure Home Counties pillar boxes and living rough in the Highlands of Scotland to prove our Iron Man credentials.
Many, perhaps most of us, would have sympathised with these hopelessly idealistic Resistance fighters, secretly supporting a plucky British fight back against the oppressors and all the odds. I can hear the stirring music now.
Many more (and sometimes the same people) would have collaborated with the German occupiers, to keep jobs and families safe, to keep themselves and their nearest and dearest secure, to try to survive in a desperate position.
Is the Iraqi or Afghan situation any different from the situation that might have happened in Britain?
Do Iraqi and Afghan loyalties and intellectual freedoms matter less than ours and those of our immediate forefathers?
My father was not a natural military man. He was small, slight, perhaps with something of the air of a Professor about him when he was young. He was also a professional musician.
He volunteered to fight Hitler in 1939 and joined the Coldstream Guards as a private soldier in spite of the fact that his first child, my sister, had just been born.
I am not at all sure that my mother approved - she got very tight lipped when the subject came up - but there was no arguing with him. Hitler had to be stopped, at whatever cost to him and his dependents.
If Germany had invaded and my father had survived, he might have been imprisoned for a while but he would eventually have found his way back into the civilian population, shattered, demoralised, saddened and physically weakened by his experiences.
By that time, the war would have been over but, from the security of Canada, Winston Churchill would have started to transform himself into a British Charles de Gaulle, calling for resistance and for undying loyalty to the British Crown.
My father was never a monarchist but he would have answered that call in his heart and so will the Iraqis.
Every time an Iraqi unlaces his shoes, he wishes he were brave enough (like Muntadar al-Zaidi) to throw them in the face of an American President and call him a dog, a cur, which is a great, great insult in the Arab World.
Every time an Iraqi sees fellow countrymen (and woman, and children) murdered by alien invaders he must feel sympathy or something stronger for those who practise armed resistance and who believe it necessary. That is no crime, that is the only reasonable thing to feel and think and believe when you see strangers killing your own people, apparently unjustly.
Freedom cannot be rationed, it does not belong merely to people of whose aims we approve. It is our birthright, the birthright of every human being - man, woman or child.
The freedom to think wrong thoughts, to be, silly, subversive, even frankly wicked in our thoughts - provided that (as Lord Mansfield laid down in the eighteenth century) these are not transformed into terrorist acts, is very fundamental.
Perhaps I can quote what I put in an earlier entry on this blog, because it is absolutely crucial to my continuing argument:
Lord Mansfield, in the eighteenth century, defended Britons' rights to think or even to intend anything - however horrible or wicked - without penalty. He considered that you shouldn't be sent to prison for having naughty thoughts. But Muslims now are being sent to prison merely because they talk about jihad, they talk about violent revolution and war against Western secularism and capitalism and they even go on the net and inform themselves about what they could do if they had the resources and the nerve to fight these forces. These are not (should not be) imprisonable offences and I find it very frightening to think that they are so. What it would do to any of our lives, to be held with out charge for 28 or 42 days or even more while the police rummaged our homes, dismantled our computers, frightened off our customers or suppliers, lost us our jobs and then took us to court and convicted us because of what we had chatted about, imagined or hoped. Or even - like that silly girl who worked at Heathrow - because we had written verses about glorious martyrs. Anyway, I have made my point. If you do not protest or object or even notice when the Muslims (like the Jews in pre-war Germany) are bullied by state authorities in your name, when are you going to protest or try to defend your remaining civil liberties? And when will the police come for you or yours instead of just for the people who have different colour skins and different habits and very different ideas?
So much is currently being written about surveillance, security and the consequences of the British and American governments' approach to terrorism that it is impossible for me to keep up.
As for making sense of all of it here, in these notes, it is impossible.
Anyway, that is not my role. This is a personal account (I almost said a personal 'meditation') on freedom and what it means to me, at this time.
The less comprehensive and the more ideosyncratic, personal, tentative and thoughful this blog becomes, the better and more useful it will be.
Maybe.
Probably.
Perhaps.
Somewhat.
'Up to a point, Lord Copper.'
I am, as you can see, a touch conflicted about these issues.
Anyway, that is how I feel this particular morning in this particular, rather beautiful, place in Scotland at this particular time of day, before I have had my porridge and raspberries for breakfast.
Let me summarise, as briefly as possible, a recent article in the Guardian newspaper.
Seamus Milne was the author and it was published on the 19th. February.
The headline is: "Rimington is right. This is a recipe for creating terrorists."
The article points out, with incredulity, that Dame Stella Rimington, who used to be head of MI5, "has warned that the government has given terrorists the chance to find 'greater justification' by making people feel that they 'live in fear and under a police state.'"
"Rimington went further, denouncing the US for Guantanamo and torture, but reverted to type by insisting MI5 'doesn't do that'"
Milne refutes the idea that MI5's hands are clean and refers to the "chilling" conclusions of the recent report of the International Commission of Jurists:
"The framework of international law is being undermined .... the US and the UK have led that undermining."
Milne goes on to discuss un-published details of new anti-terrorist measures planned by the British government and leaked to the Guardian.
These include "the extraordinary proposal to label 'extremist' any British Muslim who supports armed resistance anywhere ...."
Come again?
" .... supports armed resistance ANYWHERE .... "
Even in other Arab countries with which they may have social, family or religious connections?
This is grossly unjust. In fact, it ought to be a ridiculous suggestion.
Britain and America invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and have lavished immense resources on changing the governments of those countries to models which favour British and American interests, especially British and American oil interests.
These recent anti-Muslim wars (because that is how they are perceived) are as rapacious as any medieval Crusade and it would be astonishing if most or many Iraqis and Afghan citizens did not support resistance to the invaders in some form.
How can the British government express either surprise, disappointment or disaproval when British Muslims also feel sympathy for fellow Muslims who have been attacked?
Did not most British people feel sympathy when Hitler marched into Austria and Czechoslovakia and attacked Poland?
Would most British people not have supported armed resistance to Hitler, in those territories and (if he had invaded) in Britain?
Would that not have been very much the right thing to do?
If Hitler had invaded Britain in 1940 a brave few of us, would have fought on, ineffectually throwing petrol bombs at fire-proofed vehicles from behind demure Home Counties pillar boxes and living rough in the Highlands of Scotland to prove our Iron Man credentials.
Many, perhaps most of us, would have sympathised with these hopelessly idealistic Resistance fighters, secretly supporting a plucky British fight back against the oppressors and all the odds. I can hear the stirring music now.
Many more (and sometimes the same people) would have collaborated with the German occupiers, to keep jobs and families safe, to keep themselves and their nearest and dearest secure, to try to survive in a desperate position.
Is the Iraqi or Afghan situation any different from the situation that might have happened in Britain?
Do Iraqi and Afghan loyalties and intellectual freedoms matter less than ours and those of our immediate forefathers?
My father was not a natural military man. He was small, slight, perhaps with something of the air of a Professor about him when he was young. He was also a professional musician.
He volunteered to fight Hitler in 1939 and joined the Coldstream Guards as a private soldier in spite of the fact that his first child, my sister, had just been born.
I am not at all sure that my mother approved - she got very tight lipped when the subject came up - but there was no arguing with him. Hitler had to be stopped, at whatever cost to him and his dependents.
If Germany had invaded and my father had survived, he might have been imprisoned for a while but he would eventually have found his way back into the civilian population, shattered, demoralised, saddened and physically weakened by his experiences.
By that time, the war would have been over but, from the security of Canada, Winston Churchill would have started to transform himself into a British Charles de Gaulle, calling for resistance and for undying loyalty to the British Crown.
My father was never a monarchist but he would have answered that call in his heart and so will the Iraqis.
Every time an Iraqi unlaces his shoes, he wishes he were brave enough (like Muntadar al-Zaidi) to throw them in the face of an American President and call him a dog, a cur, which is a great, great insult in the Arab World.
Every time an Iraqi sees fellow countrymen (and woman, and children) murdered by alien invaders he must feel sympathy or something stronger for those who practise armed resistance and who believe it necessary. That is no crime, that is the only reasonable thing to feel and think and believe when you see strangers killing your own people, apparently unjustly.
Freedom cannot be rationed, it does not belong merely to people of whose aims we approve. It is our birthright, the birthright of every human being - man, woman or child.
The freedom to think wrong thoughts, to be, silly, subversive, even frankly wicked in our thoughts - provided that (as Lord Mansfield laid down in the eighteenth century) these are not transformed into terrorist acts, is very fundamental.
Perhaps I can quote what I put in an earlier entry on this blog, because it is absolutely crucial to my continuing argument:
Lord Mansfield, in the eighteenth century, defended Britons' rights to think or even to intend anything - however horrible or wicked - without penalty. He considered that you shouldn't be sent to prison for having naughty thoughts. But Muslims now are being sent to prison merely because they talk about jihad, they talk about violent revolution and war against Western secularism and capitalism and they even go on the net and inform themselves about what they could do if they had the resources and the nerve to fight these forces. These are not (should not be) imprisonable offences and I find it very frightening to think that they are so. What it would do to any of our lives, to be held with out charge for 28 or 42 days or even more while the police rummaged our homes, dismantled our computers, frightened off our customers or suppliers, lost us our jobs and then took us to court and convicted us because of what we had chatted about, imagined or hoped. Or even - like that silly girl who worked at Heathrow - because we had written verses about glorious martyrs. Anyway, I have made my point. If you do not protest or object or even notice when the Muslims (like the Jews in pre-war Germany) are bullied by state authorities in your name, when are you going to protest or try to defend your remaining civil liberties? And when will the police come for you or yours instead of just for the people who have different colour skins and different habits and very different ideas?
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
So Many Questions
'Freedom Matters' is the title of this blog and before Christmas, 2008, there were so many things that raised questions about freedom that I didn't write about any of them. I was overwhelmed.
My list of topics read:
How did America become a country where torture is debated instead of outlawed?
Is the right to commit suicide a necessary freedom?
Is Christianity the most prescriptive religion?
Are current advances in technology, changes in the law or people's attitudes the most frightening and most threatening developments?
What does the virtual collapse of Western capitalism mean for personal and societal freedom?
Each one of these questions could almost justify a short book. I doubt very much if I can deal with all of them adequately.
But the great advantage of blogging (as against writing a book) is that comments are temporary, of their time - some of them may have permanent or long term validity but they are very much of the moment.
I want to start by considering three of the topics together with another great historical question. My headline summary will be rather long and very daunting:
Torture, the technology of repression, the collapse of capitalism and the re-invention of America under Barack Obama
Before I write about these issues, I need to listen to a lecture by a British human rights lawyer called Gareth Peirce who is speaking at the Institute of Psychology in London on the coming Friday (Jan 30th.)
She has a lot of worthwhile things to say about these huge and threatening questions and especially about how what has happened in America relates to Britain and British law.
Watch this space, what else can I say?
My list of topics read:
How did America become a country where torture is debated instead of outlawed?
Is the right to commit suicide a necessary freedom?
Is Christianity the most prescriptive religion?
Are current advances in technology, changes in the law or people's attitudes the most frightening and most threatening developments?
What does the virtual collapse of Western capitalism mean for personal and societal freedom?
Each one of these questions could almost justify a short book. I doubt very much if I can deal with all of them adequately.
But the great advantage of blogging (as against writing a book) is that comments are temporary, of their time - some of them may have permanent or long term validity but they are very much of the moment.
I want to start by considering three of the topics together with another great historical question. My headline summary will be rather long and very daunting:
Torture, the technology of repression, the collapse of capitalism and the re-invention of America under Barack Obama
Before I write about these issues, I need to listen to a lecture by a British human rights lawyer called Gareth Peirce who is speaking at the Institute of Psychology in London on the coming Friday (Jan 30th.)
She has a lot of worthwhile things to say about these huge and threatening questions and especially about how what has happened in America relates to Britain and British law.
Watch this space, what else can I say?
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Inauguration Day
Note to a 12 year old this morning.
Hi, Sasha, what an exciting day! You will never forget today because if Obama achieves one hundredth of what he has made us all hope for, he will be a great great President. Every so often, America re-invents itself and this is one of those occasions. And you are a witness, you will want to tell your grand-children about it. What a day!
I wonder if Sasha will start to keep a diary.
Hi, Sasha, what an exciting day! You will never forget today because if Obama achieves one hundredth of what he has made us all hope for, he will be a great great President. Every so often, America re-invents itself and this is one of those occasions. And you are a witness, you will want to tell your grand-children about it. What a day!
I wonder if Sasha will start to keep a diary.
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