Civil liberties - new material (71)
01 April 2008
Living under a Control Order, Cerie Bullivant. 26.6.08. IRR website. This is the text of a talk given by Bullivant, a Muslim convert, on his experience of living under a Control Order. It was given at the launch of the exhibition Captivated: art of the interned. The author was placed under a Control Order in 2006 and in 2007 absconded "in a moment of madness". After four weeks on the run he handed herself in to the police and was detained at Belmarsh maximum security prison. He was tried for breaching his Control Order at the Old Bailey and cleared. Another, stricter Control Order followed until, in January 2008, a High Court judge quashed it, ruling that the Home Secretary no longer had reasonable grounds for suspicion. Available online: http://www.irr.org.uk/2008/june/ha00025.html
Was it like this for the Irish? Gareth Peirce. London Review of Books 10.4.08. The civil liberties lawyer, Gareth Peirce, compares the architecture of British justice during the thirty years of conflict in Northern Ireland with that deployed against its new "suspect community", Muslims.
A Surveillance Society? House of Commons Home Affairs Committee (Fifth Report of Session 2007-08) 20.5.08, pp. 117. This is another report that warns that Britain is in danger of becoming a "surveillance society" and it proposes new safeguards to protect peoples' privacy. The MPs express concern at the compulsory multi-million pound identity card scheme, which could be used to carry out surveillance on millions of people, and raises concerns that a new children's database could be used to identify "potential" criminals. It also expresses "alarm" that local councils are misusing surveillance powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to gather information on minor offences such as putting out domestic waste incorrectly. While the number of CCTV cameras is unknown, the committee estimates that there are up to 4.2 million in the UK. It also reports that at end of 2007 more than 650,000 of the 4.2 million samples on the DNA database were duplicates: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmhaff/58/58i.pdf
In a democracy accountability is everything. So, let's see some, Henry Porter. Observer 9.12.07. Porter compares the leniency with which chief constables and government ministers are treated when they break the law (in relation to speeding or anonymous political donations) and the enthusiasm that the same individuals have for detention without trial on the basis of a minister's "word". Porter sees it is an issue of accountability which "among ministers and police does not warrant...trust".
Lead us not into temp nation. Labour Research Vol. 97 no 2 (February) 2008, pp.14-16. This article examines how the UK economy is becoming reliant on temporary workers, "yet the government continues to deny them the same employment rights as permanent employees." It also examines trade union efforts to secure equal treatment for agency staff and initiatives to recruit and organise them. Available from LRD, 78 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8YX, email: info@lrd.org.uk
In whose best interests? Omar Khadr, child 'enemy combatant' facing military commission. Amnesty International April 2008, pp 50. 21-year old Omar Khadr, a Canadian national, has been in US military detention for approaching six years, a quarter of his life. He was taken into custody in July 2002 in the context of a firefight with US forces in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old. The teenager was held and interrogated in the US air base in Bagram for several months before being transferred shortly after he turned 16 to the US Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he remains. Available at:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/028/2008/en