Britain's steady descent into an authoritarian society.

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

A shameful history

(Monday 17 November 2008)

PAUL DONOVAN






PAUL DONOVAN charts Britain's steady descent into an authoritarian society.



THE Birmingham pub bombings on November 21 1974 were the biggest peacetime mass murder in British history. They claimed 21 lives and injured 182 people. The attacks on the Mulberry Bush and Tavern In The Town pubs were carried out six weeks after similar IRA attacks in Guildford had killed four.

The bombings sent out shock waves that would reverberate through the Irish community for years to come.


Birmingham's Irish population became suspect overnight. Hostility was directed at Irish people across the country, but it was particularly acute in England's second city, where a number of crimes against Irish people went ignored.


The government introduced the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) in response to the bombings. It allowed police to stop and detain people for up to seven days.


Then home secretary Roy Jenkins introduced the PTA four days after the bombings, declaring that "the powers ... are draconian. In combination, they are unprecedented in peacetime." The Bill passed in record time, clearing Parliament by November 29.


The PTA was rewritten in 1976, 1984 and 1989, but its provisions remained as emergency, "temporary" powers which had to be renewed each year.


The PTA effectively became a means of policing the Irish community, particularly outside Ireland, to ensure that few would get involved in the politics of the North.


The statistics tell their own story. About 86 per cent of the 7,052 people detained under the Act between 1974 and 1991 were released without charge.


The PTA had its desired effect. It cowed much of the Irish population, with people never sure whether they were going to be stopped going through ports and airports or for how long.


The first person arrested under the Act was Paul Hill, who was subsequently convicted of the Guildford pub bombings and served 15 years before being freed by the Court of Appeal.


A succession of miscarriages of justice followed over the next two decades, with the Irish community closing in on itself and becoming seen as generally suspect.


The community learned to cope with the PTA and gained confidence from the successful campaigns to overturn the convictions of the Guildford Four, Birmingham Six, Judith Ward and the Maguires. However, there was always the potential for further miscarriages of justice.


Young Derry student John Matthews was a case in point. He was arrested under the PTA in 1993. With the help of the Irish community, he argued his innocence for over three months before he was vindicated. Twenty years earlier, Matthews could have become just another miscarriage of justice statistic.


The mistake that some made was in seeing the PTA as having been brought in to combat Irish terrorism. The real agenda was the gradual sacrifice of human rights on the altar of security.


This process became clear at the turn of the century, when the government brought forward the Terrorism Act 2000. This, remember, was at a time of peace in Northern Ireland and prior to September 11.


The Terrorism Act doubled the period of pre-charge detention from seven to 14 days. It also broadened out the definition of terrorism beyond Irish groups. The definition was also to include the threat of "serious damage to property" in ways "designed to influence government" for a "political cause" anywhere in the world.


Notably, there was no pretence that the Terrorism Act was a emergency measure. Gone was the requirement for annual renewal. The powers were permanent. Then came September 11 and the Muslim community became the new focus.


The British government response to the attack on the US was to reintroduce internment in December 2001 via the Anti-Terror Crime And Security Act (ATCSA).


This allowed foreign nationals who could not be deported or removed as "suspected international terrorists" or "a national security risk" to be indefinitely detained without trial on the basis of secret intelligence that neither they nor their lawyers could view.


Twelve people were immediately taken into custody in Belmarsh prison.
These men were then detained for three years before the House of Lords ruled that the ATCSA was unlawful under the Human Rights Act.


This led to the March 2005 Prevention of Terrorism Act which introduced the concept of control orders, amounting to putting a suspect and their family under house arrest. Those who had been in Belmarsh were put under control orders.


The Blair government also made an audacious attempt on the back of hyping the terror threat to increase pre-charge detention from 14 to 90 days. Fortunately, MPs finally found some backbone and rejected 90 days, but agreed to 28 days pre-charge detention. This doubled the previous limit and quadrupled Jenkins's previous "draconian" measure.


The Brown government, apparently seeing the need to prove its terror credentials, immediately acted to increase pre-charge detention first to 56 days and, when that looked unwinnable, to 42 days.


Fortunately, this time, a combination of growing public resistance and other economic and political problems seem to have ensured the Bill's defeat.


This, though, is not the end of the story. The project that began back in November 1974 has travelled a long way. It is still a work in progress.


First, it was the Irish who were the suspect community, now it is the Muslims. In the future, it will be another group and, ultimately, anyone who dissents.


For many years, the Irish community suffered the injustice of anti-terror laws. Many began to resist and overcame injustice.


Today, there appears to be a growing realisation that there is an authoritarian project out there that feeds on insecurity among the public.


What must be hoped now is that the defeat of 42-day pre-charge detention marks a turning point when people start to question and then roll back this state of affairs.

[Nostalgia]

This process became clear at the turn of the century, when the government brought forward the Terrorism Act 2000. This, remember, was at a time of peace in Northern Ireland and prior to September 11.


The Terrorism Act doubled the period of pre-charge detention from seven to 14 days. It also broadened out the definition of terrorism beyond Irish groups. The definition was also to include the threat of "serious damage to property" in ways "designed to influence government" for a "political cause" anywhere in the world.


Notably, there was no pretence that the Terrorism Act was a emergency measure. Gone was the requirement for annual renewal. The powers were permanent. Then came September 11 and the Muslim community became the new focus.

We should be grateful that our leaders are psychic and can introduce these powers during the quiet times, it is the quietness that allows for psychic activity, why do you think some people meditate?
During 1999/2000 the British Government was going through a quiet period of meditation and saw what was on the horizon, thank fuck they brought in those laws to help save our poor souls.

[ZingPao]

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