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Law - new material (52)

01 March 2005

Know your rights, Dave Sambrook. Red Pepper April 2005, pp. 11. Informed by the arbitrary detention of protestors (and passers-by) in central London's Oxford Street on May Day 2001 and the arrest of demonstrators under the Terrorism Act 2000 for picketing the DESi arms fair in 2003, this piece explains what to do if it happens to you. It covers Section 44 of the Terrorism Act, arrest and treatment at the police station and police interviews.

They beat me from all sides, James Meek. Guardian 14.1.05. This article describes the plight of a German car salesman, Khaled al-Masri, who was seized by Macedonian policemen while on holiday and rendered to a US-controlled prison in Afghanistan. There he was held incommunicado for weeks without charge and beaten until being released without explanation.

This law cannot be justified, Ian Macdonald. Red Pepper April 2005, pp. 25. Ian Macdonald is a barrister who was appointed as a special advocate to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) to deal with immigration cases involving questions of national security. After 11 September 2001 the SIAC was given the task of hearing appeals against the Home Secretary's decisions to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely and without charge. In December 2004 Macdonald resigned from the SIAC saying: "I felt that whatever little difference I might make on the inside was outweighed by my conviction that my main role was to give legitimacy and respectability to a law I found odious."

The Attorney General's advice, Raymond Whittaker. Independent on Sunday 24.4.05. This article considers evidence indicating that the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, did not believe that the invasion of Iraq was legal. Goldsmith had listed six reasons why it could be in breach of international law and the paper cites John Bellinger, legal advisor to the US National Security Agency, who Goldsmith met in February 2003 saying: "We had trouble with your Attorney, [but] we got him there eventually."