|
|
Terrorism & the law
AT 4AM on Friday 2 June 2006, the adjoining houses
46 and 48 Lansdown Road, Forest Gate, east London, were raided by over
250 police, headed by 15 officers decked out in chemical and
radiological protection suits. The brothers Abdul Koyair and Mohamed
Abdulkahar were arrested and held without charge for over a week. Their
mother was treated in hospital for shock, a neighbour sustained a head
injury requiring hospital treatment, and Mohamed was shot in the arm by
a policeman. The police found nothing.
The recently-published Independent Police Complaints
Commission (IPCC) report into the operation arrogantly states that "if
police do not find an explosive device this does not mean they were
wrong to have launched the raid". But each botched raid and terror scare
that comes out now is greeted with growing scepticism by a broad layer
of workers, especially after the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes.
This is particularly the case among Asian workers.
Asian workers are among the poorest in British
society. In 1999, whereas 28% of white families lived below the poverty
line, among Bangladeshi families this was a staggering 84%. Shahedah
Vawada, a Muslim woman living in Tower Hamlets, interviewed by the
International Herald Tribune, stated: "There is a total lack of
opportunity for Muslim youths, as in any ghetto, and that is the primary
source of the problem. You have teenagers wanting to get back at the
world, and they will fall prey to people inciting them to violence and
hatred". Add to this the growing sense of alienation and persecution
felt by many young Asians, as well as the profound anger over the
government’s continued participation in the occupations of Iraq and
Afghanistan, and you can see how a tiny minority is prepared to support,
or even take part in, terrible attacks like the 7/7 London transport
bombings in 2005.
Workers and young people across the UK were
disgusted by the 7/7 terrorist bombings and the indiscriminate killing
and maiming of ordinary black, white and Asian workers commuting to
their jobs. It is natural for people to support action to prevent
further death and destruction by terrorist acts. However, we must stand
against divisive measures ostensibly passed to combat terrorism. These
sort of ‘emergency measures’ do nothing to combat the social base from
which support for terrorism can be fostered.
The 2006 British Social Attitudes survey revealed
increased support for curbs on civil liberties. Seven out of ten people
thought compulsory identity cards for all adults were ‘a price worth
paying’ to reduce the threat of terrorism. Eight in ten thought the
authorities should be able to tap the phones of people suspected of
involvement in terrorism, open mail and impose electronic tagging or
home curfews. Twenty-five percent thought that police should be allowed
to interrogate suspects for up to a week without letting them see a
solicitor. Commenting on the survey, Conor Gearty, professor in human
rights law at the London School of Economics, said: "The very mention of
something being counter-terrorism makes people more willing to
contemplate the giving up of their freedoms. It is as though society is
in the process of forgetting why past generations thought those freedoms
to be so very important". (The Guardian, 24 January)
The government’s anti-terror laws have proved to be
not just ineffective but also counterproductive as they exacerbate
tensions between different communities, deepen divisions, and ultimately
create the ground for an increase in terrorism. More than 70% of people
now believe government foreign policy has made Britain more of a target
for terrorists. New Labour’s repressive anti-terror laws can also play a
role in pushing a small layer of Muslim youth into terrorism.
We must do all we can to build unity among workers,
whatever ethnic background they come from, as it is only through a
unified working class fighting back against the attacks of the
capitalist class that we can win – be they attacks on public services,
imperialist war and occupation, or job cuts. But it is not just on these
grounds that we oppose the anti-terror laws and the actions of a police
force seemingly above the law.
David Shaylor, the MI5 whistleblower, stated in an
interview with The Socialist in 2001: "I think that a lot of the
restrictive laws that are in place now are not just there to be used
against terrorism but against the trade unions also, anti-capitalist
protesters and the left in general". This was before 9/11 and the
introduction of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, which goes much
further in curbing civil rights than the laws Shaylor was commenting on.
In 2004, two protesters and a baby were prevented
from holding a banner and leafleting outside Reed Exhibitions in
Richmond, the organiser of Defence Systems and Equipment International,
the world’s largest arms fair. Police issued an Anti-Social Behaviour
Order banning the protesters and their child from Richmond for 24 hours.
In 2005, a 25-year-old chef was convicted for reading aloud the names of
the British soldiers killed in Iraq. Earlier this year, the ex-boxer
Chris Eubank was arrested for driving up Whitehall with an anti-war
banner! In the future, it is likely that anti-terror legislation will be
used against anti-war activists and trade unionists on a much larger
scale.
The state, be that the judiciary, police or armed
forces, acts in the interests of the capitalist class and, in the final
analysis, exists to defend its property rights and profits. Despite
this, there is a dual nature to the role of the police force. On the one
hand, it is looked to by workers to deal with crime. Its main priority,
however, is protecting the interests of big business. See how long it
takes the police to turn up if your TV has been stolen and compare that
to the £72 million that was spent policing the 2005 G8 conference in
Gleneagles! The same logic applies to legislation attacking civil
liberties, whatever covers are used to gain support for it.
Laws curbing the right to assembly, ostensibly
passed to combat Oswald Mosley and his Black Shirts in the 1930s, were
only ever used against trade unionists and those on the left! The
Russian revolutionary Lenin was the subject of the first MI5 file,
written in 1909. The state’s interest in his activities was down to the
fact that his political ideas were a threat to the rule of profit.
The IPCC report, branded a ‘whitewash’ by the
brothers involved, came directly after February’s anti-terror raids in
Birmingham, where it was alleged that a group of young Muslim men were
plotting to kidnap and behead a Muslim serviceman. One of the nine
arrested stated that Britain has become a ‘police state for Muslims’. At
this stage, that is an exaggeration, but it is understandable that
increasing numbers of young Muslims feel this way. The commentator
Martin Jacques stated: "It is hardly surprising, though, that many young
Muslims feel alienated. They face worse discrimination in education and
employment than any other ethnic minority, Anglo-American policy in the
Middle East has had the effect of demonising the Muslim world, and the
Muslim community here finds itself the victim of a barrage of hostile
propaganda". (The Guardian, 15 February).
Young Asians, particularly men, face a huge increase
in police harassment. In London 2001-02, there was a 41% increase in
‘stop and search’ of Asians by the police. Even high-ranking Asian
police officers publicly objected to the government’s proposal for
‘passenger profiling’ on flights after last year’s alleged plot to blow
up planes. Chief Superintendent Ali Dizaei and Assistant Commissioner
Tarique Ghaffur described this as, in effect, creating a criminal
offence of ‘travelling while Asian’. Between the introduction of
anti-terror legislation in 2000 and the 7/7 bombings, 700 people were
arrested under the new laws. Only 17 were convicted of any crime, and
only three of any crime relating to terrorism! We are seeing the
emergence of a kind of parallel ‘justice’ system, where people who are
Muslim, or ‘look’ Muslim, are subject to more aggressive policing and a
harsher application of the law.
The IPCC report went on to state that the police
tactics "may well be grounds for an equally high profile public
apology". We must demand much more than just an apology! In the final
analysis, under capitalism, representatives of the state – the police,
secret services or armed forces – protect the rule of profit. We can
counter their divisive methods by campaigning for increased democratic
control and accountability to elected community and trade union based
bodies. But fundamentally what is required is a transformation of how
society is run. Only under socialism could we see a permanent end to
poverty, imperialist wars and police harassment and victimisation. In
building support for socialist ideas it is vital that we expose the role
that the state and the government’s undemocratic anti-terror laws play
in class society.
Greg Maughan
|