Fourthwrite ..........................Issue No. 12

British coercion laws change little

By Patricia Campbell

Regular Fouthwrite columnist, Patricia Campbell recently attended a meeting in London, organised to combat the latest piece of anti-democratic Coercion legislation to be introduced in Britain

Since September 11th the British Government rushed through a measure to intern foreign Nationals without trial. They suspended their obligations under the European Human Rights Convention, which guarantees the right to liberty except prior to a trial and after conviction by a court. Internees or their lawyers are not allowed to hear the evidence against them. There are currently 10 men, all of whom are believed to be Muslim, interned in Britain Special Secure Units (S.S.Us) which are renowned for their sensory deprivation. In the past their use gave rise to a number of public figures and Amnesty International to voice their concerns about their long-term use. Specialists conclude that the inevitable sensory deprivation has long-term implications on the mental health of those detained.

Three appeal court judges headed by Lord Wolff, the Lord Chief Justice recently ruled that the government was within its rights to continue holding suspects indefinitely. Lawyers acting for the 10 internees will now take their case to the House of Lords and possibly to the European Court of Human Rights.

A meeting to highlight and address these issues was organised recently by the newly formed campaign group, People Against The Terrorism Act (P.A.T.A.) The platform included a speaker from Fourthwrite. The meeting was attended by a sizeable multi-cultural audience. Many of the audience were young and would have no memory of how the ‘old legislation’, the Prevention of Terrorism Act (P.T.A.) impacted on the Irish Community in Britain. However Fourthwrite’s Patricia Campbell gave a moving account of her own and her family’s experiences in London in the early 1990s, which included house raids, arrests and exclusion orders. A speaker from the Connolly Association in London also highlighted how the ‘old legislation’ impacted on the Irish Community in Britain. A representative from the DHKP-C (a Kurdish Party in Turkey) gave an account of the current situation in Turkey whom we should be reminded are presently on hunger strike.

The chair and one of the main organisers, Fahim Ahmed, a young criminal defence lawyer, spoke briefly about his own ordeal at the hands of the new legislation. Like thousands of others he was arrested and detained without so much as the suspicion of an offence. Fahim had attended an anti-capitalist demonstration in Brussels and was arrested when returning to London by anti-terrorist Special Branch when he disembarked the Eurostar train.

He was also quizzed about his trip to Pakistan, despite him being second generation Pakistani and has visited his family there since childhood. The interrogation was clearly an intelligence gathering exercise at Fahim’s expense.

The main difficulty arose when Fahim refused to be fingerprinted. As a lawyer, Fahim was aware that the procedure for taking fingerprints requires written consent and that once given, consent can not be withdrawn. Moreover, his prints would be kept forever. He refused.

Having insisted on his limited rights, the next 17 hours in custody was to prove trying and extremely difficult. Fahim continued to stand his ground and refused to submit to their demands. He told them he would be mad to give Special Branch his fingerprints reminding them that people like Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four had spent decades in jail because Special Branch had stitched them up for offences they did not commit. After several phone calls to solicitors and negotiations he was eventually released at 10:00 am the next morning.

Irish readers will identify with Fahim’s experience being only too familiar with the sight of Irish people being lead away, handcuffed through airports and ports-of-entry into Britain. We are also familiar with miscarriages of justice and stories of people detained, strip-searched and brutalised.

Fahim makes the point, " The whole episode affirmed my worse fears about the police, Special Branch and the British criminal justice system. The rights that we assume are upheld in our ‘civilised’ country are actually not recognised in practice. He said;

The police detained me under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act, which gives the power to officers to ‘detain’ anyone for up to nine hours to determine whether they ‘appear’ to be a terrorist, and the officer does not even need to have reasonable suspicion. That is called arbitrary arrest. They then wanted to ‘examine’ me, during which I had a ‘duty’ to provide any information they required. I had no right to silence. Further, I would be committing an offence if I failed in that duty. This means that simply refusing to answer questions has been criminalised, and carries a prison sentence of up to three months. This is called being guilty until proven innocent, and is a subversion of the right to a fair trial.

Fahim Ahmed, who is currently an accredited police station advisor and P.A.T.A activist, makes the point that, the most worrying aspect of the law is; the removal of the right to freedom of speech, association and thought. The ‘proscribed list’ of terrorist organisations tells you who you can and cannot support, which organisations you can and cannot support, which organisations you can and cannot join and even which organisations you can and cannot advertise with badges. The Terrorism Act, in effect since 19 February 2001, defines terrorism as action or threat of action.

The definition within the Act is so broad that it could be used to target workers on strike (with the continuing crisis in capitalist economies, this is bound to become a thing of the future,). Fahim states that this means that slowly but surely the government is telling you that if you support national liberation and revolutionary movements abroad, you will be treated like a criminal, but you will not get the same rights that a criminal suspect has. Fourthwrite’s Patricia Campbell urged those who attended the meeting to unite against this onslaught. She pointed out that the P.T.A. legislation was used against the Irish community in Britain to isolate it and drive Irish politics underground. She urged all in attendance to mobilise and to not allow yourselves to be isolated or driven underground. She spoke about the scandal of the British government making laws, which allowed people to be interned in prisons without charge or trial and said that this is a matter of grave concern for everyone.

Patricia pointed out that this is not by any means the first time that Britain has used anti-democratic measures and laws. It has been the well recognised experience of Irish people struggling for democracy that Britain is an imperialist and anti-democratic state. This, she said, is why Irish republicans have for long sought to break the political connection with Britain. She concluded her speech by voicing her concerns about policing in N.Ireland. She reminded the audience that new Chief Constable Hugh Orde comes from the same policing culture that framed the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four. The same policing culture that persecuted the Irish community under the P.T.A legislation, the same policing culture that murdered Diarmuid O’Neill, and denied him medical treatment as he lay dying. All democratic and freedom loving people must unite, she said, in the struggle against British imperialism and its draconian legislature.

The meeting ended up with some very useful contributions from the audience. Observers present at the meeting told Fourthwrite that they are confident that P.A.T.A has the potential to launch a worthwhile campaign to bring about change.