Does Britain's new antiterror act go too far?

CSMonitor
Oct. 06, 2005

For many Britons, last week's sight of Labour Party security personnel "grabbing [82-year-old Walter Wolfgang] by the collar, yanking him from his seat and ejecting him" from the party's conference hall was the latest event to call into question the ability of Prime Minister Tony Blair's government to use wisely new security powers he seeks. The Dallas Morning News reports that despite the continuing shock and anger over the July 7 bombings in London, British politicians and human rights advocates are increasingly asking if the police and the government can be trusted with broad new powers.

Those concerned about the issue point to the incident with Mr. Wolfgang – who was evicted for shouting "nonsense" during a speech by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw about Iraq, and then refused entry again under existing antiterrorism laws (Mr. Blair later apologized to Wolfgang) – and the police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian, at an underground stop when they thought he was a terrorist. They also worry about the effect the new laws will have on free speech.

Under the proposed British law, police could arrest an individual for "conduct which gives encouragement to the commission, preparation or instigation" of terrorist acts, as well as "conduct which gives support or assistance to individuals who are known or believed to be involved in terrorism-related activity." Mr. Blair insists the law would not be used to curb free speech, but even members of his own party have balked over language designed to punish the "glorification" of terrorism.

"Glorification is so broad," said Shami Chakrabarti, director of the British human rights group Liberty. "You can be found guilty of encouraging terrorism even when you had no such intention."

Columnist Iain Macwhirter wrote in the Sunday Herald that the Labour Party's "unhealthy obsession with security" may result in the removal of freedoms that Britons have long taken for granted.

[The eviction of Wolfgang is] by no means the first time that the catch-all section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 has been used by police against legitimate public protests. It is frequently used, according to legal watchdog Liberty, against peaceful protesters outside military bases, against animal rights activists and even squatters. On BBC’s Question Time from Brighton on Thursday, Labour activists cited numerous incidents at this conference in which people were being regarded as a security risk because they wore T-shirts opposing the war. Such declarations can apparently be interpreted as an incitement or provocation under section 44.

Former Grampian Police chief Ian Oliver said on BBC Scotland that he is worried the police are being given too many new powers that are too vague and general. If chief constables are becoming worried about a police state, then I think we all should be.

The Scotsman reported last month that Home Secretary Charles Clarke admitted that "MI5 [British intelligence] has not told ministers that deporting alleged Islamic extremists will significantly reduce the threat of terrorist attacks." The Scotsman noted that this had led to concerns that the policy was being driven more by "politics than genuine security concerns."

Opponents of the new security laws also worry that anyone who advocates rights for Muslims in Britain could fall under the broad 'glorification' section of the new law. One of the people who might find themselves in this position is Swiss philosopher Tariq Ramadan, one of the world's top 100 thinkers, according to Time magazine. The day after the July 7 bombings, the right-wing British paper The Sun wrote a front-page story about him that read "Banned in the US for links with terrorists. Banned in France for links with terrorists. Welcomed to Britain days after the Al Qaeda attacks." But The Guardian suggests that the Sun had badly misrepresented the situation.

Ramadan had an American visa revoked under the Patriot Act, adopted after the September 11 terrorist attacks. No full reason was ever given and the US government has since said he can reapply; last week he did. In November 1995, he was banned from entering France. He challenged the ban and it was lifted in April 1996. The only countries he is currently banned from are Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Egypt, after he suggested a moratorium on sharia law, in particular corporal punishment, stonings and beheadings.
Ramadan is currently at Oxford University writing a new book "reconciling Islam and Europe."

The debate about terrorism and the war in Iraq took another twist recently when leading Church of England bishops called on Christian leaders to publicly apologize for the war in Iraq. The church leaders did not call for a withdrawal of troops, as they believe that it is necessary for coalition forces to stay in Iraq until a stable government is in place. They also said that use of force can be justified in some situations.

But the bishops wrote in their 101-page document that since Blair's government was unlikely to apologize for this "gravely mistaken war," churches should do so by making a "public act of institutional repentance."

In a preface, one of the four authors, Bishop of Oxford Richard Harries, writes that for many people in the world today, "It is not terrorism, but American foreign policy and what they perceive as American expansionism which constitutes the major threat to peace." Like all major powers in history, he says, America seeks to expand economic, political and military influence.

"What distinguishes it from many other empires in history is its strong sense of moral righteousness. In this there is both sincere conviction and dangerous illusion," Harries says. "This sense of moral righteousness is fed by the major influence of the 'Christian Right' on present United States policy."

American church groups were quick to condemn the statement by the British bishops, calling it "absurd." One spokesman said that the Church of England officials were relying on stereotypes of evangelicals in their denounciation of the Christian right, rather than reality.

The International Herald Tribune reports that Malcolm Rifkind, a former British foreign secretary and current candidate for leader of Britian's Conservative Party, told a meeting at the party's annual convention that the war in Iraq is the single greatest policy blunder since the Suez Canal crisis of 1956, a "failed attempt by Britain and France, working secretly with Israel, to seize the Suez Canal, which had been nationalized by Egypt."

"I happen to believe that the Bush administration and Blair had no moral authority to go into Iraq," [Rifkind] said. "Having gone in, we now have a moral obligation to stay there as long as we may be able to help the Iraqi people to produce some degree of stability and democratic government."

Meanwhile, Tony Blair continues to be more popular in America than in Britain. Columnist Daniel Johnson, writing in The New York Sun, praises Blair as President Bush's ally through thick and thin. Blair also defended Britain's role in Iraq and its place "alongside America" at the Labour Party convention.

And The Sunday Telegraph wrote Sunday that there are people who think that by removing Blair or Mr. Bush would somehow end the terrorist threat to the West. But, the Telegraph continues, in an editorial that supports Blair's attempts to combat terrorism in Britain, the July 7 bombing in Iraq and last week's bombings in Bali show this is not true.

There is a thread that connects all these fronts in what is undeniably a worldwide war: a thread that links [Saturday's] beachside atrocities in Bali with the terrorist cells that spawned the July bombings in London. The terrorists have shown repeatedly that they are thinking globally and acting locally. So must we.