The inhumanity of control orders

I'm someone who likes to think that he's pretty plugged into the ins and outs of the erosion in civil liberites over the last few years. I still couldn't help but be taken aback by the footage garnered by the Channel 4 Dispatches programme on Monday.

Rather than just read about these nameless men who are represented by letters of the alphabet, for the first time we saw their faces, and heard their voices tell their stories. The choice that one had to make in either continuing the sad farce of this government imposed existence indefinitely, or letting his wife and kids get on with their lives by voluntarily sending himself back to Algeria was one that none of us can relate to. Two previous detainees have done precisely this, and no one has heard from them since. As we heard in the programme, the Algerian view on torture is "Of course we do it! What do you think we give them flowers?"

By creating a legal framework whereby suspects can opt to leave the fire and jump into the frying pan, Algeria's torture can be argued to be an extension of our own system. We have a system in this country where we can be locked up indefinitely without trial, on the say-so of a secret court that hears secret evidence that the accused is not even allowed to know.

[You can hear more on this by downloading this week's podcast which features Ann Alexander, who has befriended many of those held under the Terrorism Acts]

Credit to Phil Rees for producing this work. Many media commentators complained that the Dispatches programme a few weeks ago into bigotry in mosques didn't get enough circulation. No one has covered this latest programme at all, despite this being an issue that goes right to the heart of those running our country, rather than the rantings of people in empty halls. As you'll see from that link, the Undercover Mosques film is still getting media coverage.

You also have to salute the bravery of the men to speak out, as you can well imagine their torture increasing as a result. Given what happened to Abdul Kahar last summer, Abu Bakr in Birmingham was also incredibly valiant for speaking out over his arrest and subsequent release after being questioned about a long johns to Pakistan scandal and notes that his kids wrote. Madeleine Bunting recently interviewed someone from a well-known Muslim family (many readers may know Ajmal Masroor - his brother), after he was held by police for a week because his fingerprints were found on a book he handled briefly when he was 18. 

Meanwhile, our politicians debate whether we have a police state or not. Lenin's pondering this too.

Comments

[Tom Prendergast]

Can't be too bad, can it? Otherwise they'd head back to their own countries. You can say they have homes here, families here and jobs here - all fair enough. But if the treatment was as debilitating as you (and they) claim, common sense dictates they would avail themselves of the option that is always on the table - a ticket back home. The idea that each and every one of the control order detainees is in mortal danger if they leave the UK is an insult to our intelligence.

They won't leave because they don't want to leave - and they don't want to leave because it's not so bad. They chose to get involved in politics and now they are engaged in a battle of wills with the authorities, backed up by their mates who have nothing personally to lose and everything politically to gain by persuading their CO patsies to stick around as living proof of the 'brutality' of the British state.

Trouble is, the vast majority of people have got no sympathy for Islamists. They (and you) are on a losing wicket and the only question is: how long 'til you realise it?

[aineliva]

What's to debate? Ask an Irish person. The trick is that you have to fit the particular category before you "notice" that a police state exists, because generally it's only applied to certain sections of the population, once it was the Irish, now Muslims.

[Osama]

Indeed Ainelivia, it seems some never learn.

Tom, you seem to be under the impression that the control orders only apply to foreigners. There are British citizens subject to them too.

[Tom]

I know, Osama. However, the guys featured on C4 aren't British They've been offered the chance to go home (or anywhere else that will have them) as an alternative to having restrictions placed on them here in the UK. Indeed, one of the guys said on the programme he intended to do precisely that.

No one is pretending that Control Orders are pleasant but some of the hyperbole is ludicrous ("it's a form of torture") and campaigners are too ready simply to gloss over the dodgy backgrounds of the detainees.

Becoming an Islamist in Britain in a situation where bombs are going off (and others are being planned) is just asking for it. Such people should either move elsewhere to plot for the Caliphate or else go deep underground and take the consequences when caught.

[joe90]

They chose to get involved in politics..
- this isn't a crime, this is an attribute that people who live in a functioning liberal democracy need have no fear over - indeed, it is one that separates out any decent society from the one which is currently being sponsored by the likes of mass-murdering war criminal butchers like Blair, and his fanatical supporters like Racist Murdoch (a foreigner).

The idea that each and every one of the control order detainees is in mortal danger if they leave the UK is an insult to our intelligence
- the trouble is, two detainees who have already been forced to return back to Algeria (one of the world's leading human rights abusers) by laws that wouldn't look out of place in Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia, have now disappeared without a trace. It is presumed by Amnesty International that they are now lost in the Kafka-esque chamber of horrors of sunny Algeria

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17247>UK/Algeria: Amnesty issues urgent web appeal amid fears that men deported from UK to Algeria may be tortured
Amnesty International
29 Jan 2007
The UK authorities deported "Q" on 20 January and "K" four days later, on the grounds that they presented a 'threat to the national security' of the UK. On arrival at the airport in the capital, Algiers, "K" was arrested by agents from the military intelligence agency, the DRS (Département du renseignement et de la sécurité).

Reports indicate that when 'Q' first arrived in Algeria on 20 January he was held by the airport police and was released after a few hours' questioning. However, on 24 January he was also arrested by the DRS. Both men appear to have been taken to a military barracks in central Algiers, part of which is used as a secret detention centre. They have not been allowed access to their lawyers or relatives. Amnesty International fears that 'Q' and 'K' are at risk of torture and other ill-treatment in the custody of the DRS.

And here is the Church of England's Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6394619,00.html>Archbishop in police state warning
Guardian
05 Feb 2007
"If you detain people, you must have good enough reason for detaining them and have a chance for there being a successful prosecution," he said.

He continued: "The Home Secretary has not produced the evidence that shows that in 90 days you're capable of getting somebody prosecuted.

"Why does he want these days, so the police do what? Gather more evidence? To me that becomes, if you're not very careful, very close to a police state in which they pick you up and then they say later on we'll find evidence against you. That's what happened in Uganda with Idi Amin."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6342277.stm>No 10 rejects police state claim
BBC
08 Feb 2007
And the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, can say things like this without any hint of irony about the existence of secret courts; secret evidence; detention without trial; no habeas corpus; 90 day police fishing expeditions that tear people's lives apart and which will always turn up evidence that will find anybody guilty of something or other -

"We live in a democracy and what we are sadly having to fight at the moment is people who seek to destroy the very basis of our democracy."

Well, I didn't expect someone who has doled out over £7 Billion in British taxpayers money to carry out unprovoked aggression against Iraq and murder a million Iraqis to date, to say anything different. That's his job.

[Tom]

Joe 90 - get real. Becoming involved in politics is fine, but we're not talking about little old ladies joining the local branch of the Lib Dems, are we? These guys came to Britain to make better lives for themselves (one assumes) but couldn't resist hanging out with dodgy Islamist groups. The message should be understood - if you're a foreigner living in Britain then steer well clear of anti-British organisations - or we'll kick you out. And if you have a nasty government waiting for you back home then be even more careful.

Seems fair enough to me.