The Nether-World

Ihre Papieren, Bitte!

2007-05-28T07:51:00.000+01:00

Warning: Swear blogging alert

So, here I am trying to recover from this awful flu bug which has incapacitated me somewhat, and thinking that as it's a bank holiday weekend it might just be possible to get through it without without Blair or any of his minions managing to enrage me to the point where I have to write something. Fat chance! Anyway, this has pissed me off enough to go into swear blogging mode so apologies for the language, normal service will resume once I calm down.

Before we have digested John Reid's latest attack on the European convention on human rights (ECHR) the stupid cunt has to go even further and try to bring back the racist Sus law. It didn't work then why should it work now?

And as if that wasn't bad enough, Blair has to put his ten pence worth in, turning my incandescence into apoplexy. Look guys, I'm not feeling well and it's supposed to be a holiday. Is it really too much to ask for both of you political has-beens to shut the fuck up at least until Tuesday? Apparently it is. It's hard to know where to start, but seeing as the return of the Sus law has been covered very well here, here and here we may as well move on to the insane rantings of Blair. Before we do though I'd just like to repeat an important point that Devil's Kitchen rightly makes:

Er... Does anyone remember that Identity Cards were not going to be compulsory to carry? You know, various Home office ministers pooh-poohed the idea that Britain was going to become some kind of jack-booted, totalitarian police state because you wouldn't actually have to carry your ID Card with you?

I think this is what DK is referring to:

The bill made no difference to police stop and search powers, he [Charles Clarke] said, and there would be no requirement for people to carry ID cards at all times.

Right, moving on to Blair:

The absconding of three people on control orders because of suspicion of their involvement in terrorism has, once again, thrown into sharp relief the debate about terrorism and civil liberty. Within the next few weeks we will publish new proposals on anti-terror laws. Our aim is to reach a consensus across the main political parties.

Well, if they had been tried for their alleged connections with terrorism using phone tap and other currently disallowed evidence, they would, if found guilty, be behind bars now. The debate about terrorism and civil liberty exists because you are doing the terrorist's job for them by removing the civil liberties we want to defend. Your aim is to push through even more Draconian legislation with the minimum of debate as usual using a relatively minor event as an excuse.

But at the heart of these new proposals will lie the same debate: the balance between protecting the safety of the public and the rights of the individual suspected of being involved with terrorism.

And where exactly is the "balance" here if everyone is now a suspect?

First let us clear away some of the absurd criticism of the police and security service over the three individuals who absconded.

As far as I'm aware no one is criticising the police and security services over this incident. The criticism has been leveled at you and your government for these ridiculous control orders.

After September 11, 2001, in common with many other nations, we passed new antiterror laws. In the aftermath of such an outrage it was relatively easy to do. We gave ourselves the ability, in exceptional circumstances, to detain foreign nationals who we believed were plotting terrorism but against whom there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. It was an important power. They were, of course, free to leave Britain. But we wouldn't let them be free here. The ability to detain foreign nationals gave our services the ability to focus even more resources on the surveillance of British nationals who were a threat. It also sent out a strong signal of intent.

It sent out a strong signal of shoddy law making. If there was insufficient evidence to prosecute foreign nationals then there was no need to incarcerate them without trial, and when that was declared illegal to put them under house arrest. If there was a justifiable suspicion of malicious intent then they should have been kept under surveillance until there was sufficient evidence to prosecute.

In December 2004 these laws were struck down by the courts. In his famous judgment Lord Hoffmann said there was a greater risk to Britain through the abrogation of the foreign suspect’s civil liberties than through terrorism.

That's right, a judge with a far better knowledge of the law than you possess realised that indefinitely imprisoning people without trial is fundamentally wrong in a free society. Not too complicated is it?

So we were forced to opt for the much milder remedy of control orders, applicable to both foreign and British nationals. These do not involve detention. They impose some limits on the individual’s freedom. They are better than nothing and have utility - because otherwise the individuals would have to be subject to even more intensive surveillance.

You were forced to do no such thing. You had the option to attempt a prosecution using phone tap and other surveillance evidence as other countries do. You just didn't like the humiliation of a judge telling you you were wrong so you appealed the judgement and lost that too. The control orders were your sour grapes.

They were, however, much weaker than we wanted, perpetually diluted by opposition amendments, constantly attacked on civil liberty grounds.

Yes, there is a good reason they were attacked on civil liberty grounds. House arrest is still a form of imprisonment and there was still no trial to justify such an action. Are we learning yet? Obviously not.

In addition, after September 11, and again after July 7, we have tried continually to deport foreign nationals who were either engaged in or inciting extremism. Again and again in court judgments we were forced to keep them here. The important point is that although of the hundreds we keep under surveillance, many are UK citizens - as with these three individuals - many are not and in any event their influence and the ideas they import from abroad have a significant and radicalising effect. And, of course, we lost the crucial vote on 90 days’ precharge detention, despite offering a week-by-week court hearing throughout the 90 days.

If inciting extremism is illegal, then those who do it can and should be charged, tried and locked up if found guilty. Simple no? If someone is deemed dangerous or suspicious by the security services then surveillance seems the obvious course of action. I don't see what difference it makes whether they are foreign nationals or UK citizens (like the July 7 bombers). Yes, you did lose the vote on 90 days detention without trial and you haven't stopped sulking since. Hopefully, if you try to reintroduce it, you'll lose the vote again because it's damaging to civil liberties (even with a week-by-week court hearing) and completely unnecessary as we have seen.

So when there is an outcry about the three absconding, we should remember that consistently over the past few years, and even after July 7, attempts to introduce stronger powers have been knocked back in parliament and in the courts. Indeed recently it was said, again in a court case, that unless the British government could prove that a foreign national suspect would not be at risk of mistreatment in his own country, we were obliged to keep him here.

Er...outcry? The only outcry I heard came from you and that odious thug John Reid. You just don't get do you Blair? The reason Parliament and the courts knocked back your attempts to introduce stronger powers is because Britain has a strong tradition of protecting civil liberties, and as Prime Minister you have a duty to do that also. Your dismay that the British government should prove that a foreign national suspect would not be at risk of mistreatment in his own country before you deport him is not a great surprise to anyone because we are all too familiar with your ambivalence to torture, whether it's calling the American Guantanamo gulag an "anomaly" or pretending that extraordinary rendition doesn't happen. The fact is, you couldn't give a flying fuck if people are tortured even if they are innocent.

So the fault is not with our services or, in this instance, with the Home Office. We have chosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect, even if a foreign national, first.

Yes, the fault is with the Home Office and you. Who else is at fault if your dodgy legislation fails? As you say, we have chosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect, even if a foreign national, first. This is what makes us different from the terrorists and from the totalitarian regimes that you support. Strange as it may seem to you Mr Blair, that's how we like it.

I happen to believe this is misguided and wrong. If a foreign national comes here, and may be at risk in his own country, we should treat him well. But if he then abuses our hospitality and threatens us, I feel he should take his chance back in his own home country.

Oh, fuck off! Civil liberties are not "misguided and wrong" you wanker. If foreign nationals abuse our hospitality we can either deport them (if we know they won't be tortured or worse) or we can imprison them. We just need to prove in a court of law that they have indeed abused our hospitality. I can't believe I have to explain this to a barrister.

As for British nationals who pose a threat to us, we need to be able to monitor them carefully and limit their activities. It is true that the police and security services can engage in surveillance in any event. But this is incredibly time-consuming and expensive, and even with the huge investment we have made since 2001, they simply cannot do it for all suspects. Over the past five or six years, we have decided as a country that except in the most limited of ways, the threat to our public safety does not justify changing radically the legal basis on which we confront this extremism.

You should monitor anyone, foreign or British, who the security services believe pose a threat to us, and activities shouldn't be limited unless a good reason to do so can be shown. Time and money shouldn't be a constraint on justice. What a bloody daft thing to suggest. With that logic you might as well bang everyone up up and dispense with courts all together... Oh, wait a moment... Of course, if ~~your~~ America's foreign policies didn't have half the world wanting us dead then maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't have such a terrorist threat to confront.

Their right to traditional civil liberties comes first. I believe this is a dangerous misjudgment. This extremism, operating the world over, is not like anything we have faced before. It needs to be confronted with every means at our disposal. Tougher laws in themselves help, but just as crucial is the signal they send out: that Britain is an inhospitable place to practice this extremism.

Anyone's right to civil liberties comes first. What is dangerous is departing from that stance. The tougher laws don't seem to help. You keep introducing more and more and yet we are constantly being told of ever more numerous heinous plots against us. Saudi Arabia has even more Draconian laws and yet extremism is still practiced. Go figure.

This is part of a bigger picture, in which a considerable part of media and public opinion continues to blame us for causing the extremism.

Hmmm, I wonder why the media and public opinion would think such a thing. Could it be they have a point? Anyway, not all the media do think along those lines. Your masters at The Scum and The Daily Mail certainly don't.

I was stopped by someone the other week who said it was not surprising there was so much terrorism in the world when we invaded their countries (meaning Afghanistan and Iraq). No wonder Muslims felt angry.

Er, yes...?

When he had finished, I said to him: tell me exactly what they feel angry about. We remove two utterly brutal and dictatorial regimes; we replace them with a United Nations-supervised democratic process and the Muslims in both countries get the chance to vote, which incidentally they take in very large numbers. And the only reason it is difficult still is because other Muslims are using terrorism to try to destroy the fledgling democracy and, in doing so, are killing fellow Muslims.

You remove two utterly brutal and dictatorial regimes. In both countries the civilians are being bombed to smithereens by British and American forces. Iraq has been utterly destroyed and is now in the grip of terrorism that didn't exist before the illegal invasion. You lied to the world about Iraq's non-existent WMD because regime change is illegal. The various civil wars are tearing what's left of Iraq to pieces, you made no plans whatsoever for the aftermath of the illegal invasion. There are two million refugees and a further two million internally displaced people and over 600,000 dead. The country is now divided along sectarian lines with a government that seems almost as brutal as Saddam's...but at least they got to vote for the candidates you put forward - Whoop di doo!! And you wonder why Muslims feel angry? You deluded idiot. Oh, and you are losing in Afghanistan too.

What’s more, British troops are risking their lives trying to prevent the killing. Why should anyone feel angry about us? Why aren't’t they angry about the people doing the killing? The odd thing about the conversation is that I could tell it was the first time he had even heard the alternative argument.

Words fail me. So, the British army aren't doing any of the killing, is that what you're saying? Have you asked the family of Baha Musa why they might be angry? You might, by luck or design, managed to have a conversation with someone who perhaps wasn't as well informed as he might be, but I bet there are opponents of your policies who could wipe the floor with you.

This extremism can be defeated. But it will be defeated only by recognising that we have not created it; it cannot be negotiated with; pandering to its sense of grievance will only encourage it; and only by confronting it, the methods and the ideas, will we win.

I think one way of defeating this extremism is by recognising that we have at the very least contributed to causing it, whether in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine or Lebanon. I don't know whether or not it can be negotiated with but we have to acknowledge that there are legitimate grievances that need to be addressed even if we rightly condemn and try to counter the violence, because by dismissing the grievances you are provoking further extremism. Your confrontational attitude has made things worse not better and you seem to have run out of ideas (I'm not sure you had any to begin with). Fortunately for all of us, both here and abroad, you will be out of office soon and we can only hope that your successor is a bit more pragmatic (a forlorn hope I fear).

The continuation of your policies will lead to even more defeat. Your conviction that your bankrupt policies will lead to victory remind me of the claptrap Mussolini came out with during the second world war... Vincere e vinceremo! (To win and we will win!). Well, we all know what happened to him. Here's a reminder. What isn't widely known is that when the bodies were taken down the children of Milan were invited to piss on the corpses (I cite my father as a source for that nugget). You Mr Blair deserve nothing less for your crimes.

*UPDATE*

More bloggage on this from Not Saussure and Obsolete

Tags: John Reid, Tony Blair, Civil Liberties, Stop And Search, Control Orders

More danger from John Reid

2006-10-02T07:59:00.000+01:00

It's no secret that John Reid regards international law, human rights and civil liberties as inconveniences that need to be circumvented. Back in April when he was Defence Secretary he wanted the Geneva Convention to be rewritten in order to allow British soldiers to torture with impunity. The clashes that he, as Home Secretary, and his predecessors have had with the judiciary over control orders and indefinite detention without trial are also well documented. According to our Home Secretary, politicians, judges, lawyers, the media and activists who champion human rights instead of his Draconian anti-terror laws "just don't get it". Reid's speech to the Labour Party Conference last week should have cleared up any remaining doubts about what a dangerous character he is. Here is a small snippet just to make the point [My emphasis]:

It cannot be right that the rights of an individual suspected terrorist be placed above the rights, life and limb of the British people.
It's wrong. Full stop.
No ifs. No buts. It's just plain wrong.
Source

In other words the concept of being innocent until proven guilty is gone, and when you add this to Reid's obvious dislike of the proper legal processes then we are all in grave danger.

With that attitude to justice, it is no surprise that our beloved Home Secretary is once again championing torture. We are returning to that old argument of sending suspected terrorists (or any other kind of suspect for that matter) to countries where they are at risk of being tortured. This is an argument that Reid and his predecessors have repeatedly lost. However, illegality and immorality have never been things to put off John Reid.

JOHN REID, the home secretary, is heading for a showdown with the judiciary over plans to strip some terror suspects of the automatic right to be protected from torture.
Reid is preparing a new anti-terror law that would sideline human rights legislation protecting suspects from torture if ministers ruled there were “overriding considerations of national security”.
The move is aimed at foreign terrorist suspects, including 32 detained in prison without charge or being monitored on strict bail conditions.
Despite Tony Blair’s pledge after last year’s suicide bombings in London to deport them, not one has been forcibly sent home because of legal fears that they might face torture on their return.
Source

When you put this in context with Britain's support for 'extraordinary rendition' which has been condemned by human rights groups, and also in the wider context of what is happening in the USA (our closest ally) with regards to torture, then in isn't difficult to see the direction Reid wants to take the UK. Remember, this maniac has just launched his bid to become leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister. His pal Radovan Karadzic must be very proud.

Tags: John Reid, Torture

Judge Reid

2006-06-23T03:36:00.000+01:00

The appointment of John Reid as Home Secretary hasn’t noticeably improved the performance of the Home Office. On May 24 he made himself a hostage to fortune by promising to sort out the Home Office in 100 days. The very same Home Office he described as “dysfunctional”, “not fit for purpose” "inadequate" and in need of "wholesale transformation". Now he has gone even further by saying that his ‘head is on the block’ over reforms.

So one month into his 100 days, how far has he got? Well for the moment the foreign prisoner scandal that ended Charles Clarke’s tenure in office has died down if not gone away. His current problems are of course the media-driven scare campaign to publish the whereabouts of child-molesters so that illiterate people can burn down the houses of paediatricians, and his attack on judges who have the temerity to enforce the ill-thought out sentencing laws passed by his boss.

Reid now thinks its time to get tough.

Speaking about rebalancing the criminal justice system in favour of the victim, Mr Reid told them the public believed that government, faced with a choice between political correctness and plain common sense, too often chose the former.

"We need to change that," he declared. "We need a little less PC and a little more PCS."
The home secretary later told a briefing of journalists that he had publicly aired his critique of the Home Office "not from my brutish Glaswegian background, as you may think, but from the fact I listened to those who had come and studied it before I came here . . ."

Denying charges from the police and opposition politicians that he was making policy on the hoof in response to tabloid headlines, the 59-year-old Home Secretary insisted a lot of thought was going into his department's new strategy.
Source

That’s right, no more Mr Nice Guy. And no more presumption of innocence either. Tony Blair, seeing another opportunity to relieve us of some more of those cumbersome civil liberties has rushed in to support his beleaguered Home Secretary. Alas, it didn’t turn out to be photo op he was hoping for.

Prime Minister Tony Blair was given a hostile reception by several members of a 60-strong crowd as he arrived to talk with victims of crime in Bristol.

A woman was arrested after she attempted to throw an egg at Mr Blair which missed him and broke in the road.
Source

It reminds me of that memorable scene from the Monty Python film ‘Life of Brian’ when Biggus Dickus comes to the assistance of Pontius Pilate:

PILATE:
Do we have anyone in our pwisons at all?

CENTURION:
Oh, yes, sir. We've got, uh, 'Samson', sir.

PILATE:
Samson?

CENTURION:
Samson the Sadducee Strangler, sir. Uh, Silus the Syrian Assassin. Uh, several seditious scribes from Caesarea. Uhhh, sixty-seven seers from--

BIGGUS:
Let me thpeak to them, Pontiuth!

CENTURION:
Oh, no. Oh.

PILATE:
Ah. Good idea, Biggus.

BIGGUS:
Thitizens! We have Thamthon the Thadduthee Thtrangler, Thilus...

CROWD:
[laughing]

BIGGUS:
...the Athyrian Athathin, theveral theditiouth thcribth from Thaetharea, and...

He is set to continue with his campaign to ‘rebalance’ criminal justice in a series of speeches due to be given on “Our Nation's Future”.

Mr Blair is expected to say: "It's no use saying that in theory there should be no contradiction between the rights of the suspect and the rights of that law-abiding majority.
"In practice there is such a conflict and every day we don't resolve it, the consequence is not abstract, it's out there, very real, on our streets."

[…]

"I have come to the conclusion that part of the problem in this whole area has been the absence of a proper, considered and intellectual debate about the nature of liberty in the modern world."
Source

And just who is it who continuously stifles considered and intellectual debate about the nature of liberty in the modern world? Who is it who constantly panders to the “headlines that scream”? Step forward Prime Minister Anthony Charles Lynton Blair.

Tags: John Reid, Blair, New Labour, Civil Liberties

John Reid Attacks the Geneva Convention

2006-04-04T12:02:00.000+01:00

Hat tip to Blairwatch for being so quick off the mark on this.

John Reid has decided that the Geneva Convention is an inconvenience and needs to be overhauled. The Defence Secretary, speaking to the Royal United Services Institute, said that the legal grounds for mounting pre-emptive strikes or intervening to prevent genocide or internal repression were no longer adequate.

"We risk trying to avoid 21st-century conflict with 20th-century rules, which when they were devised did not contemplate the type of enemy which is now extant…

"The laws of the 20th century placed constraints on us all which enhanced peace and protected liberty. We must ask ourselves whether, as the new century begins, they will do the same. We now have to cope with a deliberate regression towards barbaric terrorism by our opponents. The legal constraints upon us have to be set against an enemy that adheres to no constraints whatsoever."

Source

In other words, because the enemy does not adhere to international laws, nor should Britain. This would, of course, make Britain no better than the people it is fighting. The timing of his speech is interesting coming as it did on the same day that defence chiefs are allegedly planning military strikes on Iran. By altering the Geneva Convention legal restraints on mounting pre-emptive attacks on countries would be removed. This is also a tacit admission that the pre-emptive attack on Iraq was in fact illegal as would an attack on Iran be at present.

John Reid also has a problem with the part of the Geneva Convention which deals with the treatment of prisoners of war. Presumably not being able to hold prisoners without charge, or torture them has become too much of a “constraint”. The surprising thing is that Britain and America have been ignoring the Geneva Convention since the war in Afghanistan and possibly longer. John Reid’s speech echoes the sentiments of US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who described the Geneva Convention as “quaint” and advised President Bush to declare that the Geneva Convention doesn't apply to the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, which was exactly what the president did, despite America having ratified the treaty.

There is an obvious pattern emerging here. The UK, like the USA is moving further away from international laws, and failing to criticise abuses of them when conducted by its allies.

Tags: Britain Iran Freedom