Tuesday, January 26, 2010 

The VIP treatment.

Here's one of those especially crass Sun articles written with the type of feigned ignorance so prevalent in the tabloids:

ILLEGAL immigrants are getting the VIP treatment when booted out of Britain - with personal security escorts costing almost £500 each.

Yes, you read that right - the VIP treatment. I don't know what VIP means to you, but I somehow doubt that those who considered themselves such would put up for long with what the average failed asylum seeker or illegal immigrant faces prior to their deportation, often provided by the same private security firms. The last report into Colnbrook (PDF) immigration removal centre, ran by Serco (glossy corporate, touchy-feely everything is wonderful page), where many are held prior to their deportation due to its location near to Heathrow, found that it was struggling to cope and that safety was a significant concern.

That though is nothing when compared to the true VIP treatment when those lucky enough to be leaving are taken to the flights to return them to their home country. The reason why "personal security escorts" are used is twofold - firstly because there are few officials and staff within the UK Border Agency who are authorised to use force and as result many first attempts to deport individuals are abandoned because those whose time has come dare to resist - and secondly as many within the UKBA are not prepared to actually see the policies which they implement put into effect.

In a way, you can't blame them - the horror stories from some of the chartered flights are visceral in their intensity. On one of the first chartered flights back to Iraq a detainee smuggled a blade on board and slashed his stomach, while another concussed himself after banging his head repeatedly against a window. Those were probably the ones which weren't restrained, with others either handcuffed or even wearing leg irons. Charter planes aren't always used though - there was the notable case of a British Airways flight to Lagos where the passengers in economy class mutinied after seeing the plight of a shackled detainee who wouldn't stop screaming, with the supposed "ringleader" arrested and charged only to be cleared over a year later of "behaving in a threatening, abusive, insulting or disorderly manner" towards the crew.

Then again, you wonder what the Sun expects. After all, according to them we roll out the red carpet in welcoming immigrants and asylum seekers in the first place, and the commenters on the piece certainly agree. Might as well extend the gesture when we forcibly throw them out as well then, surely? It does though also prove that simply the government can't do anything right - let too many come here in the first place and spends too much when it gets rid of them, regardless of the much higher cost of keeping them detained here before their deportation - why it bothers when there is simply no political benefit in keeping up such brutal but also ineffective policies remains a mystery. Perhaps, just for the Sun, we could think up something that would negate the need to deport them at all; there are after all many lessons which we can learn from history...

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1/26/2010 09:46:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, February 18, 2009 

Abu Qutata?

The somewhat surprising decision by the House of Lords to overturn Abu Qatada's successful appeal against his deportation to Jordan is a faintly disturbing one. Qatada's appeal, although based on what he claims would be breaches of various articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, was only upheld on article 6, the right to a fair trial. The Special Immigration Appeals Committee, which hears evidence in secret and where the appellants are represented by special advocates, had already held that despite Jordan's undoubted deficiencies in its legal system, Qatada's deportation could only be thrown out if there was likely to be a "flagrant" breach of his right to a fair trial under article 6.

The law lords, in turn, have agreed with the initial decision and threw out the appeal court's ruling that SIAC had erred in not putting enough weight on the possibility that the evidence against Qatada was the result of torture. Lord Phillips, in the ruling, argues (paragraph 153):

I do not accept, however, the conclusion that he has derived from this, namely that it required a high degree of assurance that evidence obtained by torture would not be used in the proceedings in Jordan before it would be lawful to deport Mr Othman to face those proceedings. As Buxton LJ observed, the prohibition on receiving evidence obtained by torture is not primarily because such evidence is unreliable or because the reception of the evidence will make the trial unfair. Rather it is because “the state must stand firm against the conduct that has produced the evidence". That principle applies to the state in which an attempt is made to adduce such evidence. It does not require this state, the United Kingdom, to retain in this country to the detriment of national security a terrorist suspect unless it has a high degree of assurance that evidence obtained by torture will not be adduced against him in Jordan. What is relevant in this appeal is the degree of risk that Mr Othman will suffer a flagrant denial of justice if he is deported to Jordan. As my noble and learned friend Lord Hoffmann said in Montgomery v H M Advocate [2003] 1 AC 641, 649

“…an accused who is convicted on evidence obtained from him by torture has not had a fair trial. But the breach of article 6(1) lies not in the use of torture (which is, separately, a breach of article 3) but in the reception of the evidence by the court for the purposes of determining the charge".


The reason why this decision is so troubling is obvious: the Lords have not only ruled that they accept that the trial Qatada is likely to face in Jordan would not reach the standards we would demand under article 6, but also that it's additionally likely that the evidence against him is the product of torture, as he himself claims. This however does not still add up to what the Lords would consider to be a "flagrant" breach of article 6, which is the threshold at which deporting Qatada to Jordan would be unlawful.

Qatada is quite understandably taking his case to his last port of call, the European Court itself, where the ruling could quite possibly turn out to be another landmark, similar to Chalal vs United Kingdom. Nothing should as yet be ruled out, as the House of Lords ruling is in itself something of a surprise, and one which has been criticised by all the main human rights groups.

It has to be said that it is a horrifically difficult decision to have to make, one which Lord Hope authoratitavely comments on at the beginning of his own argument, something well worth quoting in full:

209. Most people in Britain, I suspect, would be astonished at the amount of care, time and trouble that has been devoted to the question whether it will be safe for the aliens to be returned to their own countries. In each case the Secretary of State has issued a certificate under section 33 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Immigration Act 2001 that the aliens’ removal from the United Kingdom would be conducive to the public good. The measured language of the statute scarcely matches the harm that they would wish to inflict upon our way of life, if they were at liberty to do so. Why hesitate, people may ask. Surely the sooner they are got rid of the better. On their own heads be it if their extremist views expose them to the risk of ill-treatment when they get home.

210. That however is not the way the rule of law works. The lesson of history is that depriving people of its protection because of their beliefs or behaviour, however obnoxious, leads to the disintegration of society. A democracy cannot survive in such an atmosphere, as events in Europe in the 1930s so powerfully demonstrated. It was to eradicate this evil that the European Convention on Human Rights, following the example of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948, was prepared for the Governments of European countries to enter into. The most important word in this document appears in article 1, and it is repeated time and time again in the following articles. It is the word “everyone". The rights and fundamental freedoms that the Convention guarantees are not just for some people. They are for everyone. No one, however dangerous, however disgusting, however despicable, is excluded. Those who have no respect for the rule of law - even those who would seek to destroy it - are in the same position as everyone else.

211. The paradox that this system produces is that, from time to time, much time and effort has to be given to the protection of those who may seem to be the least deserving. Indeed it is just because their cases are so unattractive that the law must be especially vigilant to ensure that the standards to which everyone is entitled are adhered to. The rights that the aliens invoke in this case were designed to enshrine values that are essential components of any modern democratic society: the right not to be tortured or subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment, the right to liberty and the right to a fair trial. There is no room for discrimination here. Their protection must be given to everyone. It would be so easy, if it were otherwise, for minority groups of all kinds to be persecuted by the majority. We must not allow this to happen. Feelings of the kind that the aliens’ beliefs and conduct give rise to must be resisted for however long it takes to ensure that they have this protection.


That's around as detailed and sound an argument against the tabloid case for kicking them out immediately that could possibly be made. It's therefore a shame that Lords have effectively ruled that both unfair trials and evidence obtained by torture, as long as both occur outside the countries which have signed up to the ECHR and as long as the breach is not deemed to be "flagrant" are in some way acceptable. It's true that this is not their argument, which is as legally sound as it could possibly be, but that is in effect what they have decided. It comes, as we have seen, at a time when our own connivance with torture is being exposed as never before, when questions are being raised about how deeply involved we have been during the initial stage of the so-called war on terror with almost routine breaches of international law. It gives the impression, however undeserved, that our own values concerning such practices are becoming more jaded and diluted just when the opposite should be the case.

Fundamentally, the extended legal drama concerning Qatada should not have ever even began. If Qatada is as dangerous as the government claims he is, and if he is indeed guilty of inciting racial hatred and radicalising Muslims as he is accused of doing, the question remains why he cannot be tried here. Similarly, we still don't know just how involved Qatada was with our security services, when there are claims in the public domain that he was a double agent, albeit one it seems who is still reasonably well respected within takfirist jihadist circles. If the evidence against him cannot currently be considered outside of closed sessions, then intercept evidence needs to be introduced, although it needs to be in any event urgently. Both of these things should have been considered and potentially implemented before we resorted to simply getting rid of him, back to a country with a poor human rights record that by our own courts' admission would not reach our own standards regarding a fair trial. Instead we seem to be making compromises regarding torture that we need not be. That is an indictment of our politicians, rather than our courts of law.

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2/18/2009 11:34:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, April 09, 2008 

The right if difficult decision.

The appeal court judges have come to the right if difficult and strewn with problems ruling that Abu Qatada should not be deported back to Jordan. Before jumping on the the typical blaming of the Human Rights Act, it should be noted that the judges' decision was on the grounds that he would not receive a fair trial, not that he was at risk of personally being tortured or mistreated. No one might care if someone who produced fatwas used during the Algerian civil war to kill individuals declared suitably un-Islamic was tortured, but most of us do still care about whether someone receives a trial that doesn't have the appearance of resembling a kangaroo court.

The whole extended legal farce has been one idiocy followed by another. We know quite well that Qatada, much like Hamza and Bakri Mohammad, had at least some sort of relationship with the security services; how far it actually went, whether they were informing or whether there was some sort of pact by where they didn't call for attacks against this country in their preaching is much harder to ascertain. Bisher al-Rawi, formerly held at Guantanamo, was repatriated here because it emerged that he had in fact been helping MI5 all along keep tabs on Qatada, while Jamil el-Banna was approached and urged to become an intelligence asset shortly before he left for Gambia, where he and al-Rawi were subsequently arrested and rendered to Gitmo. Whether this is part of the reason why he has not been simply charged with inciting racial hatred like Hamza eventually was is unclear, but it seems that as with Bakri, the authorities have decided it's much easier to simply get rid of him than to try to build a case against him.

This is strange because despite the case against him in Jordan, it was his preaching here that undoubtedly has influenced some that have subsequently become suicide bombers or plotted terrorist attacks. Like with Hamza and Bakri, the services undoubtedly know what he was up to, and probably have tape after tape of his speeches, or at the very least intercepts of some of his telephone calls. While we simply can't know whether it would be possible to try Qatada here if intercept evidence was allowed in court, a ban that the head of the FBI recently denounced as "untenable", it's difficult to believe that if the government was truly exercised that it couldn't be able to build a viable case against him. Perhaps the difficulty is that unlike Hamza, the US doesn't seem to be making any efforts to attempt to extradite him, where he would undoubtedly face a far longer prison sentence than any he would ultimately face here. Even that isn't certain though, as although Qatada has never been personally linked to any plots here, those recently sentenced have faced sentences of over 20 years.

At the heart of the issue ought to be the acknowledgement that deporting anyone to a country that practises torture, and Jordan is certainly one, with Human Rights Watch only yesterday reporting that up until 2004 Jordan was one of the destinations for those who went through the rendition programme, and they weren't being sent there for the beautiful beaches and excellent prison facilities, ought to be the absolute last resort. Instead the government has used it as the very first resort. "Memorandums of understanding" that aren't worth the paper they're typed on are a ludicrous justification for doing something that we would have never have done prior to 9/11. Under Brown we've been told that despite what Blair said, the rules of the game haven't changed. They ought to prove it by doing the decent thing over Qatada.

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4/09/2008 10:34:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, March 21, 2008 

Scum and Mail-watch: More on the Horne hypocrisy and bashing those on benefit.

Can you get much more hypocritical than the Daily Mail? Today, a day late after the Sun had already splashed on it:

And part of the Mail's front page the day after the ruling that Learco Chindamo could not be deported back to Italy:

The Mail of course doesn't want malingering criminals to be sent back here, but it's perfectly OK with those who have served their time and have shown such a willingness to reform that the prison governor himself spoke out in his favour to be sent back to their "home" country, even if like Raymond Horne here and Learco Chindamo would be in Italy, they would be without any family, place to go or even any sort of connection to a country which they left when they were small children.

The Sun however is determined to make as much out of the comparison with Chindamo at it possibly can, even though it too is outraged by Horne's deportation. In a sidebar of its Horne story:

RARELY has there been a clearer case of double standards. Britain has been forced this week to accept sick paedophile Raymond Horne after he was flung out of Australia.

But only last year, our attempts to deport the Italian-born killer of headteacher Philip Lawrence — Learco Chindamo — ended in failure.

Horne moved to Australia when he was five and has lived there for 56 years. But because he is a British citizen — and because Australia isn’t tied up in EU regulations — lawyers say we have to take him back.

Chindamo was born in Italy and moved to Britain when he was six. Just nine years later, in 1995, he brutally killed Mr Lawrence.

Yet the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal threw out the bid to deport him to Italy last August as it would infringe his Human Right to have a family life, and breach EU directives that he can’t go unless he threatens the “fundamental interests of society”.

So we are powerless. And both are now free to roam our streets.

Well no, it's not double standards. Our courts have it right and Australia has it wrong - it is monstrous to send someone back to a country which they have no links to, especially when it's the country both have grown up in that has shaped the individual. If someone comes here as an adult and commits a crime then they should be deported unless there are pressing reasons as to why they should not - more on this in a moment. Horne is not our responsibility, just as Chindamo is. The Sun has also typically got it the wrong way round, wilfully, no doubt - it was the EU directive that meant he couldn't be deported, as he had been here for over 10 years. Only if that existed would the human rights act have came into play, as the judge who decided the Home Office's appeal made clear. Also, Chindamo is as far as I'm aware yet to be released, so he's not free at all.

The Sun's article on Horne himself is close to hysterical:

EVIL Raymond Horne last night settled in to his cushy new life in Britain — funded by hard-up taxpayers.

The 61-year-old fiend — dumped on us by Australia — will enjoy a free home, protection and benefits.

But police security and surveillance of him will cost taxpayers as much as £100,000 a year.


I'd say that presumably then the Sun would prefer that he wasn't monitored - but that would be a straw man, and that after all, is what the Sun relies on. The most likely place he'll be sent first of all is to a hostel, not a house, and far from being "protected", which he wouldn't need anyway if the Sun and Mail weren't plastering him all over the newspapers, he's going to be under the supervision of MAPPA, as the Sun article later admits. This doesn't however stop them from already imagining how he'll be spending his spare time:

 He is even effectively free to stalk playgrounds or schools — and cannot be stopped from living near young families — because he did not serve time for his vile crimes in Britain.

Yeah, and he'll probably alternate when he isn't doing those two things with masturbating at the sight of children walking down the street and stroking a white cat sitting on his lap. Not to get too sidetracked, but Lorraine Kelly's been thinking up what Horne's going to immediately start doing as well:

But you know as well as I do that he will disappear into the undergrowth and be just one of thousands of grubby perverts who get away with child abuse and child rape, and allow sick child pornography to flourish.

Oh yes, there are tens of thousands of individuals out there who get away with child abuse and child rape. Memo to Ms Kelly: the vast, vast majority of child abuse and rape occurs within the family, which Horne doesn't have here, and child rape by a stranger is about a rare a crime as there is. When it does occur, it tends to be other children raping those within their own age group, not older men or those like Horne. Instead we're so terrified of paedophiles, as a direct result of the scaremongering and out of all proportion reporting on the matter by the Sun that we have schools that think they need to cover up children's faces when they put their images on the net. Then the likes of the Mail and Scum blame it on "political correctness", a PC-concept that they and they only created.

Back to the main article, although the whole of Kelly's excretion is appalling:

Last night the Ministry of Justice confirmed that unlike with freed UK prisoners, the police currently have no powers to exclude him from approaching schools and playgrounds.

A spokeswoman said: “Normally when sex offenders are released, they are on licence and can have conditions attached to this, such as to live in a certain address or be banned from certain areas.

“In a situation where a sex offender returns from a foreign country, this does not exist.”

In extreme cases cops can apply for a Sexual Offences Prevention Order that gives them the power to rein in offenders. But Scotland Yard declined to say if they had applied for the order for Horne.


Yes, but as the rather more measured Grauniad article points out, he has had to sign the sex offenders' register, meaning he has to abide by the conditions of that, which in itself carries the potential for a five-year prison sentence for breaches. He'll also doubtless be put on the SOPO, but they might have to wait until the panic now subsides to do so.

Campaigners voiced disgust at how much he will cost taxpayers.

Matthew Elliot, of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “At a time when schools and hospitals are strapped for cash and taxpayers are paying record levels of tax, it’s a bizarre set of priorities that sees huge amounts spent on a sexual predator.”


Oh look, Matthew Elliot's emerged out of his hole and given another quote to a grasping newspaper. Elliot and his Tory-clique couldn't care less about schools or hospitals - they just want lower taxes, in fact not just lower taxes, but a flat tax (PDF), and they want it NOW, with one of their mission statements to campaign against any tax increase whatsoever. Again, this raises the instant response that Elliot would presumably prefer that we dump him out on the street and let him get on with it, but that's the old straw man again.

The Scum article ends with:

DO you know where Horne is? Call the Sun newsdesk on 020 7782 4104.

But err, surely the Sun knows where he is? After all, it states that:

The Sun can reveal that Horne, a serial abuser of young boys, is living in a secret location in LONDON.

Who knows, maybe he's moved to Wapping?

Also of interest is a connected article written by an old friend, none other than Tim Spanton, who previously told a whole series of lies about the Human Rights Act:

PERVERTS like Raymond Horne are allowed back in Britain after years of committing disgusting offences abroad.

But it is a very different story when it comes to getting rid of foreign criminals from our shores.


Actually it isn't. According to both the BBC and the Guardian, we deported 4,200 foreign criminals last year. The Sun doesn't mention this fact anywhere in any of its articles, as it might rather undermine the point when it's focusing on the few exceptions, usually for good reasons:

Somali gangster YUSUF JAMA ran up a string of convictions for robbery and firearms offences. But a High Court judge said he could not be sent home as there was civil war in parts of Somalia.

Weeks later Jama, 19, shot dead PC Sharon Beshenivsky in a robbery in Bradford, West Yorks.


Err. what does the Sun mean by "was"? There's been a civil war raging in Somalia for nearly two decades, and the violence has stepped up over the last year. Even the Sun would likely baulk at sending criminals/illegal immigrants back to Darfur, Iraq, or even Zimbabwe. Whatever their crimes, sending someone back to a war zone is simply not an option.

Italian LEARCO CHINDAMO was the 15-year-old leader of a Triad gang when he stabbed headmaster Philip Lawrence to death outside a North London school.

Chindamo, already a suspect in another knifing, got life in 1996 with a minimum term of 12 years.

The Asylum & Immigration Tribunal ruled last year he could not be deported because it would breach his right to a “family life”.


Again the Sun is being economical with the truth. He could not be deported because of the EU immigration rulings of 2006, with his right to a "family life" only a minor consideration.

MOHAMMED KENDEH from Sierra Leone punched and indecently assaulted a mum-of-two in a South London park in 2003.

At the time Kendeh, 16, was supposedly under supervision for SIX sex assaults in the SAME park.

He also was not kicked out because of his human rights.

No disagreement with this one; I wrote at the time that the judge I believe on this occasion got it wrong. Incidentally, the judge in question is the government minister Margaret Hodge's husband.

Pakistani MOHAMMED MALIK escaped deportation because his criminal record was SO BAD.

The Crown asked that Malik, 20, should be sent home after his latest 3½-year term for robbery.

But the defence argued the sentence was similar to previous ones he had not been deported for.


Having to go by a Google cache of an original report on this one. The judge in fact:

said he was taking into account how long Malik had been in the UK and his family circumstances.

Difficult to know where to stand on this one. On the one hand this was his third serious assault, which ought to mitigate towards a deportation order; on the other he's either lived here since he was 5 or 9, and again is a product of our society, not Pakistan's, where he doesn't apparently have relatives. I think I'd sway towards deporting him if it was my decision, but it wouldn't be one I'd take lightly, and the judge didn't either. It can't be as simple as saying anyone who's foreign and commits a crime should be deported; all the factors have to be considered, but when responding to tabloids, as Gordon Brown did in his speech to the Labour party conference, all of those go out the window.

Iraqi Kurd RAMZI BORKAN was jailed for indecently assaulting a girl of 14 but a judge ruled he couldn’t be deported for safety reasons. Weeks later Borkan, 36, raped a Japanese student.

Borkan is a Kurd, but was born in Baghdad. The judge sentencing him after the rape said he couldn't see why he couldn't be deported back to Iraqi Kurdistan, because of the lack of violence there, but as we've seen recently with the Turkish incursion and the rise of violence around Mosul and Kirkuk, the situation there is no longer that stable either. Whether he has family links in Kurdistan or knows anywhere there would have came into it as well; deportations to the area are still rightly controversial, horrific rape or not.

PJETER LEKSTAKAJ fled to Britain after he shot a man during a row in his native Albania.

UK cops arrested Lekstakaj, 59, but a judge refused to extradite him because he was DEPRESSED.


Can't find a source for this one, or at least not a report which goes into far more details than given here, or one in English. The one that comes closest suggests that he was suicidal rather than depressed, and argued that he wouldn't receive the necessary psychiatric care he needs in Albania but doesn't give the actual decision.

The Sun has therefore collected six exceptional cases, all without mentioning the 4,200 deported last year.

Elsewhere the Sun is picking on those other undesirables - the dole scum:

THE Sun visited the UK’s biggest benefits blackspot yesterday to find out why four out of five people there live on State handouts — and discovered over a THOUSAND jobs up for grabs.

Throughout the article, the Sun doesn't make clear what benefits they are actually on - whether it's jobseeker's allowance, income support or incapacity benefit. The differences between the three and why someone is on one and not the other obviously don't have any consequence, or rather don't to Charles Yates and Rebekah Wade, not to mention the sub-editors.

Yet a visit to the JobCentrePlus, ten minutes walk away, revealed 1,630 jobs on offer, from non-skilled cleaners to £30,000 managers.

The centre — where 425 vacancies were posted in the last week alone — was busy.

But most people were claiming benefits, not looking at the work on offer.

Which is where it would help if we knew what benefits they were on before condemning them for not taking on the jobs available. Most people though were claiming benefits rather than looking for work, so obviously they're as happy as can be on state handouts, which despite the Sun's outrage, are often far below even the lowest paid jobs available.

I wandered down the street, knocking on doors of businesses.

At Dunelm Mill furnishings store I found a vacancy for a £16,000 manager in the fabric department.

An assistant manager thought I stood a good chance.


What exactly is the point of this exercise? Doubtless he thought you stood a good chance; you're a journalist, likely had a university education, from the photograph in your 40s and presentable, with good experience and instead you're sticking it to the very people most likely to read your very newspaper, the most vulnerable in society. Nice work if you can get it.

And the boss at neighbouring Carpetright requested my CV, as vacancies are always cropping up.

Oh, so they didn't actually have any jobs at the moment. Hey ho though, in it goes.

Last stop was the busiest shop in Falinge — Coral the bookmaker, where on a working day at least 20 men were fluttering away their cash.

Manager Andrea Moran, 32, offered me an application form for a cashier job and gave me an on-the-spot interview.

She said: “Coral is a big company and offers employment opportunities to scores of local people.

“We’re always looking for suitable staff. You’ve passed with flying colours.”

Well, no surprises there. Middle-aged journalist who looks presentable enough in able to get a job in betting shop shock! Personally I couldn't abide working somewhere where you're essentially making money out of others' misery, but oh, you do that already don't you, Mr Yates? Hardly a change of scene from the news room in Wapping to a betting shop.

I’d been in Falinge for just two hours — and landed a full-time job in a bookie’s, with no previous experience.

What experience do you exactly need to work in a betting shop when they'd provide training in the first place? Answer came there none.

Will locals start queuing behind me? Who’ll give them the benefit of the doubt?

Probably when the Sun starts being honest with everyone else.

There doesn't seem much pointing answering the Sun's ludicrous question on whether we've ever been a softer touch, considering that the prison population has never been higher and sentences themselves are getting longer in its leader, but its comment on the above article is worth responding to:

WHERE there’s a will there’s a wage.

A Sun reporter went to Britain’s biggest benefits blackspot and landed a job at Corals bookies in less than two hours.

Corals were not the only ones offering work to people prepared to get off their backsides.

More than 1,600 jobs were on offer at the Job Centre in the Rochdale suburb of Falinge, where four out of five adults live on benefits.


Again, no comment on what benefits they are on, or how many of those 1,600 jobs on offer were actually suited to any of those 1,600's qualifications, experience or skills, but who needs nuance when we're being bled dry by scroungers?

Here lies the heart of the challenge facing the Government.

There ARE jobs. But too many people prefer loafing to working.


Ask any unemployed person and they'll say they want to work. It's absolute nonsense that the vast majority are work-shy or scrounging because life on benefits is too easy. There are a distinct number who are masters in the art of not working, but as the figures released this week show, the numbers are at their lowest since the 70s.

That’s because Labour have made life on benefits too easy.

The numbers on incapacity benefit, for example, are actually falling, mainly thanks to the targeted help programmes introduced by the same Labour party that has made life on benefits easy.

If fit people refuse to take suitable jobs, should we cut their benefit?

That is the question facing Britain today.


Uh, Jobcentre Plus can already do exactly that if they decide that a person on Jobseeker's Allowance isn't genuinely looking for work or is simply refusing jobs that are suitable for them. As ever, the Sun seems determined to either be ignorant or worse, wilfully ignorant.

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3/21/2008 09:50:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, March 20, 2008 

Scum-watch: The paedo is coming!

A classic Sun front page today:



AND THEN HE'S GOING TO FUCK YOUR KIDS!


As usual, it's a case of reality imitating satire:


The Sun though is naturally conflicted. Outraged as it is by this disgusting paedophile being deported to Britain, it's fully in favour of "foreign" criminals in similar circumstances here being sent back to their home nation. All the Australians are actually doing is throwing their problem on to us rather than dealing with it themselves. If Raymond Horne had gone out to Australia and committed his crimes when an adult, then his deportation would have been fully justified. As it is, he went to Australia as a five-year-old. He is a product of Australian society, and therefore their responsibility, regardless of his nationality. This is the same reason why Learco Chindamo shouldn't have been deported back to Italy whenever his sentence ends; a decision which incidentally wasn't a result of the Human Rights Act, as the Sun today alleged again in its leader, which has since disappeared into the ether.

The Sun article does carry some very pertinent points from Paul Roffey, director of the UK-based RWA Child Protection Service:

accused the Queensland Police and Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence of simply “shifting the problem offshore”.

He said: “Let’s make it English children instead of Australian children — that seems to be her attitude. It’s outrageous.

“These sort of committed paedophiles often live isolated lives by the very nature of their offending. They do not integrate well into society and that often leads to the formation of paedophile rings of like-minded people.

“Horne, who has lived most of his life in Australia, will have no network in the UK. He will feel even more isolated — increasing his risk of him reoffending.”


All very true. The Sun response to this? To directly ask its readers to inform them if they either knew Horne or where he's going to live, therefore ensuring that he will forever be isolated, moving from place to place and as a result even more dangerous than he already his. The Sun has betrayed children themselves before in its apoplexy; it's more than happy to do exactly the same now.

I was also going to take on the Scum's delusional "Hope for Iraq" leader, but as said, it's since gone like all their leaders now do, apparently unarchived. Elsewhere we do have the "mothers in arms" meeting both Jack Straw and David Cameron, carrying their copies of the Sun along with them. Neither seems to have demurred from their demands, or dared to directly criticise "their" campaign, and Jack Straw even says the following about their demand for a universal DNA database:

He vowed to raise with police the expansion of the DNA database, saying: “I don’t understand people who are not happy to give DNA samples.”

It couldn't possibly be because they're concerned about potential mistakes, or indeed that nostrum which the Sun so endorses, if you've got nothing hide, you've got nothing to fear, could it? Therefore if I've nothing to hide, why should the police have my DNA profile? The three mothers' proposals would make every single individual guilty until proved innocent, and the more questionable responses, that their proposals would be a step towards a police state, if not establishing one, aren't that far from hitting home.

She told Mr Straw: “Ninety-nine per cent of Sun readers want it back. You have to listen to the people and what they want.”

Quite right, because 99% of the population are Sun readers, aren't they? And there's more pleasantries about how they want their tormentors extinguished:

“I do not like the thought of Steve Wright just sitting in jail watching TV. I want him dead."

Doubtless Straw and/or Cameron just stared meekly back and didn't say anything, unable to respond to a demand that they can simply never deliver or appease.

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3/20/2008 10:46:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, December 11, 2007 

The footballer, deportation and the dilution of asylum rights.

If there were to be a case that's likely to highlight the inherent unfairness at the centre of this country's asylum system while also one bound to be covered by the tabloids, then you might well have to rely on a footballer facing deportation. That today has happened after Al Bangura, a player with Watford who sought refuge here from Sierra Leone four years ago had his bid to stay rejected.

It would be difficult to come up with a more convincing argument for why someone like Bangura should be allowed to stay. Not only has he most certainly contributed to the community that originally offered him asylum, he's since established a family, with his first child being born only this month, is in paid employment and has helped Watford towards an immediate return to the Premier League after being relegated last season, as the club currently sits at the top of the Championship. Bangura, who was originally trafficked here and sexually assaulted on his arrival, also fears that if returned he could face persecution at the hands of the Soko tribe, formely led by his late father.

Common sense seems to be an alien concept both to the asylum and immigration service in its current form and to the ministers concerned only with inexorably lowering the numbers claiming refuge. While the case of Jahongir Sidikov and deportations to Uzbekistan have become more widely known thanks to Craig Murray's intervention, other disturbing cases, such as that of Maud Lennard, an opponent of Robert Mugabe who sought asylum here only to be racially abused and beaten by guards trying to return her to Malawi, and Meltem Avcil, a 14-year-old girl held for 3 months in Yarl's Wood detention centre where she became suicidally depressed are all too widespread, and many of them receive no coverage whatsoever. The Home Office was so determined to get rid of Meltem and her mother that it apparently attempted to charter a private jet, at no doubt huge cost.

Perhaps the case of Bangura will help to draw attention towards those such as Sidikov that face the prospect of torture if deported to their home countries. The real danger is that as the political climate turns increasingly towards "tough" limits on migration in general that asylum seekers themselves become stigmatised and tarred with the same brush. The latest proposed removal of rights from "failed" asylum seekers, that of access to GP surgeries, does nothing to dissuade from that view. Apart from not affecting their access to accident and emergency departments, it's a fundamental declaration that a class of people, who in most cases have fled genuine oppression, are in effect unpersons and will be treated as such until they decide to leave or are forcibly deported. We earnestly fight against any increase in the detention without charge limit, while such vulnerable people are often forgotten or held for even longer than 42 days. All the signs are that life is about to get even more harsh for those daring to dream of a better life, and never have the aspirations of a few trampled over so many others.

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12/11/2007 11:16:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, August 22, 2007 

Rehabilitation can never win against the demands for a pound of flesh.

Just how wrong were the original reports about the reasons for why Learco Chindamo couldn't be deported then? Despite nearly every news organisation blaming the decision almost instantly on the Human Rights Act, from the BBC to the Guardian, from the Mail to the Sun, the actual decision was taken not under Article 8 of the HRA, as we were told, but rather on the 2004 EU directive on citizenship, which gives those who have spent over 10 years in one nation state protection from summary deportation to another. It was only if this directive had not applied in Chindamo's case that Article 8 could then then have come into play; as such, it was a secondary factor in the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal's ruling that he should stay in Britain.

Not that this has stopped even the Times from splashing on the "threat" posed by Chindamo. This supposed threat, taken from the Home Office's submission to the panel on why Chindamo should be deported, was so far from being conclusive, as well as downright disengenuous, that the panel rightly dismissed it. The relevant part of the letter is reproduced by Unity, and ought to be compared to the coverage in the Times, Sun and Mail:

In the revised reasons for deportation letter it is noted that it is unlikely that the appellant will reoffend, and that he accepts his responsibility for his offences and has undertaken courses for anger management. It notes however that his current behaviour and actions and day-to-day life are very closely monitored. There is reference there to one escorted visit, though we accept that the evidence is in fact that he has been on two escorted visits and three unescorted visits. The point is also made in the refusal letter that the court has deemed that the appellant’s crime is of such severity that he will always continue to be a threat to the community such that his release on licence would be on the basis that he might be recalled to prison at any moment for any breach of his conditions. The point is made that he has been assessed and that he is subject to the highest level of multi-agency public protection arrangements (Mappa) (Level 3). In this regard though we must bear in mind the point to which we were referred by Mr Scannell that that assessment was not made on account of the appellant being a threat to the public but because of the likelihood of media scrutiny and/or public interest. The letter does note that risk factors might increase because of media and public scrutiny that the appellant might receive. It also comments that the OAsys report notes that there are occasions where the appellant has overacted to situations and there are severe concerns with finding him appropriate accommodation on release if allowed to remain in the United Kingdom. He would need to be excluded from certain parts of the country, community integration would be a problem on release and he might suffer a backlash. The letter states that the appellant’s notoriety might make him feel excluded from society as he had been before and there was a significant risk that his previous disregard for authority and the law might resurface and result in him coming to adverse attention. As a consequence it was considered that he posed a continuing risk to the public and that his offences were so serious that he represents a genuine and present and sufficiently serious threat to the public in principle such as to justify his deportation.

In other words, the only justification that the Home Office could come up with for his deportation was that because of the adverse press coverage likely around his time of release, it'd be better for him if he was removed from the country entirely. Never mind that he was no longer considered a threat, that he had completed anger management courses, as well as 3 GCSEs and a NVQ, despite not being able to write his address when he entered prison, and that he had shown genuine remorse for his crime, all of that was secondary to the government's concern that it was likely to get it in the neck whether he was deported or not. Their last laughable argument was that he had overreacted on a couple of occasions to certain situations. I think all of us might overreact if we too had been kept in the constant uncertainty and insecurity of prison for twelve years.

What the Times additionally doesn't mention, for reasons to be explained shortly, was that the governor of Ford open prison had made a submission for the tribunal to be held behind closed doors because of the previous reaction of the press to Chindamo being allowed out on day release to visit his family. To quote the relevant paragraph from the ruling (DOC):

In particular he referred to the memo from Ms Radford, the Governor of HM Prison Ford, dated 25 April 2006, to be found at pages 63 and 64 of Mr Scannell’s bundle. Among others things she referred to the fact that on day release in February 2006 the appellant had been pursued by members of the press and an article appeared in the Sun newspaper three days later. There were further follow-up articles in the Sun, the Daily Express and the Brighton Argus. Ms Radford expressed her deep concern that they were ‘managing offenders by media’ and spending more time playing down risk than explaining their offender management strategies and how those more effectively protected the public than hysterical misinformed articles in the gutter press.

And we really are talking about the gutter press here. The Scum splashed Chindamo's release on the front page, calling it an "outrage":

THE killer of headmaster Philip Lawrence has been let out of jail early — despite an emotional warning it would “destroy” his victim’s family twice.

Former teenage gangster Learco Chindamo, now 25, was allowed an unsupervised day outing from Ford Open Prison in West Sussex.


Yep, that's right, Chindamo, like all over prisoners coming towards the end of a long prison sentence, had been allowed out for a whole day on his own as part of the general program towards preparing him for his eventual release. The article also willfully misquotes Mrs Lawrence: she had made the warning after Chindamo had appealed against the length of his sentence, an appeal that was denied. It was nothing to do with his day release. The Sun additionally published what its readers' felt should have been done with Chindamo to start with:

He should have got a suspended sentence - suspended from the end of a rope.

Sachilles


The next day Mrs Lawrence was herself in print, condemning what she thought was "a jolly day out" and thanking the Sun for bringing it to her attention. Most likely as a result of the Scum's coverage, Chindamo was as a result moved back to a closed jail, despite what the governor of Ford open prison described as his measured reaction to being followed by members of the press. The Sun subsequently referred to Chindamo as "evil" in its leader condemning the situation, saying he should be behind bars for life. The newspaper ought to have taken that up with the judge who gave the twelve year sentence, and not with the person who had been trying his hardest to rehabilitate himself, only to be vilified again in the tabloids because of a decision made by the prison service.

Mrs Lawrence herself has also now been making nonsense statements that seem to owe more to the Sun's line in rhetoric than the more dignified, understanding approach she had favoured on the previous day.

“It takes away our human rights and gives it to them — and that is wrong.”

“In a way I am glad this ruling has brought the whole human rights debate to the fore. Something has to be done to balance things. At the moment the criminal is the only one getting the rights. I felt I had to come forward and speak up for my husband.”

It only looks as if the criminal is getting the rights because the press never report on the other cases and the government is too spineless to defend the act. As I wrote yesterday, the families of murder victims have used it to obtain inquiries into their deaths, while Katie Ghose outlines 3 cases in which the right to a family life has been used to defend individuals wrongly taken away or banned from seeing their relatives. These are the ordinary people being protected, but their stories are boring compared to the latest instance of human rights madness. The Sun also completely misunderstands the act in its entirety, claiming that judges give more weight to Article 8 than to the right to life, which is not just patently absurd, but also completely untrue. It also refers to bits of it being politically correct; would that a reference to the right to freedom of expression, which the Sun so obviously loathes when it gets pulled up on its lies?

As Justin argues, Chindamo ought to be a model for how prison can work. Coming in illiterate, his success in gaining qualifications, counselling other inmates, accepting his guilt and showing remorse mark him out as one of the success stories of how prisoners can be rehabilitated, given the right circumstances, facilities and the necessary resources. Instead, all of that has now been dismissed out of hand, rejected without a thought by the press and reactionaries who want a pound of flesh rather than the evidence that "bad people" can indeed change. The Sun says that his lawyer and Jack Straw should hang their heads in shame; how bitterly hypocritical of a newspaper that today prints the following:

NEVER mind deportation — what’s he doing being let out of prison if he killed a headmaster in cold blood? I hope this evil killer is hounded by the press and vigilante mobs until he dies.
Germuluv

The government it seems would like that: maybe then it'll convince the appeal panel Chindamo really does have to be deported, disgracefully for his own safety.

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8/22/2007 09:11:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, August 21, 2007 

The rights and wrongs of deportation.


In trying to respond to the at times irrational prejudices and misconceptions adopted by the tabloid press, the biggest obstacles to arguing the point of the other side is just how powerful emotion and anger can be in defending if not the indefensible, then certainly the highly questionable.

So it is in trying to work out a coherent riposte to the points made both by Frances Lawrence, widow of the murdered headteacher Philip Lawrence, and to the arguments additionally made by the newspapers backing her up, regarding the decision by the Asylum and Immigration tribunal not to deport Learco Chindamo back to his country of origin, Italy. Unlike some of those who have lambasted the Human Rights Act in the past, often erroneously, Mrs Lawrence makes highly articulate points regarding the on the face of it deeply hurtful decision that it breaches his right to a family life protected under Article 8 for the deportation to go ahead. Still clearly grieving and traumatised by how the life of her husband was snatched away in such a pointless and meaningless fashion, it's difficult not to be moved by the position she finds herself in, almost 12 years' after his death. Having presumed that his removal from this country would be automatic or at the very least go through without such a struggle, all the hurt she most likely thought was over has been brought to the surface again. Her argument, that she has always supported the Human Rights Act, but that she feels that there has to be some kind of responsibility attached to it which takes into account how those who appeal under its usage have themselves acted, is one that's likely to strike a chord with many that believe that the the criminal justice system has bent over backwards for too long to protect the rights of the criminal rather than those of the victim.

All of which makes it all the more difficult to respectfully disagree with Mrs Lawrence without drifting into condescension or ridiculing her arguments. She quite clearly doesn't deserve to have all this brought up again. Firstly, the facts have to be set out as we know them. Chindamo was brought here at either the age of 5 or 6, as reports differ. Born to a Filipino mother and fathered by a Italian man linked to the mafia, he has had no contact with his dad since 1986, when his mother moved here to get away from her violent husband. He speaks no Italian, and most likely has few solid memories of life before he was brought to Britain. The only things that still link him to Italy are his passport and his parentage. He was sentenced to a minimum of 12 years in prison for the murder of Philip Lawrence, who died after being stabbed outside his school when he stepped in to stop a younger, 13-year-old boy from being attacked by the gang Chindamo belonged to, subsequently linked to at least two other violent crimes, although he had no involvement in either. According to his lawyers, his time in prison has changed him irrevocably, now counselling other inmates on how they themselves have ended up in jail, trying to persuade them to change their own ways. He's completed a NVQ in health and social care and plans, if and when released, to start a career in nursing. On the face of it, if his lawyers can be believed, Chindamo has been a model prisoner.

Secondly, as alluded to by other experts, and now apparently confirmed by the Guardian, the decision that he should not be deported was not just taken under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, but also as a result of recent EU legislation which governs the transfer of EU citizens between member states. Under such law, those sent home must be judged to pose a "genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat" to society as a whole, a definition that excludes nearly everyone except terrorist suspects. Chindamo may have posed such a threat at the time of Lawrence's murder, but the tribunal decided that he does not now. In addition to this, the fact that Chindamo was brought up here, that he has no real ties to Italy and cannot speak the language would mean that his right to a family life would be breached if he were to be deported.

This it seems to me is a difficult but correct decision. It differs from the cases of most of the other foreign prisoners because of how old he was when he was brought here; while they moved here for economic or other reasons once they had reached adulthood, Chindamo had no personal choice where he was taken to or lived. That he committed his crime after spending around ten years in this country, a far longer proportion of his life than he spent elsewhere, also makes him our responsibility rather than Italy's. To deport him now would be to punish him twice, forcing him to start his life over yet again. There's also no guarantee that Chindamo will even be released yet, as his minimum sentence doesn't end until next year, and he will then subject to a parole panel review. As he was sentenced to life, he will subject to recall to prison if he breaks the conditions of his parole or commits any other offence. The minimum length of his sentence should perhaps be as open to question as the tribunal decision is. Is twelve years of imprisonment a sufficient punishment for taking a life, even if committed while still a minor in the eyes of the law? We can equally argue that Chindamo has rightly had the best years of his life taken from him for his crime, but if released he will still be either 26 or 27, with most of his life still ahead of him.

According to the Sun, Mrs Lawrence has also now said the following:

“In Article 2 of the Human Rights Act my husband had the right to life.

“Chindamo destroyed that right yet he has used the legal process to enable him to live as described in Article 8.

"The Act works in his best interest. It is ill-equipped to work in my family or for people in my situation. That seems to me a major conundrum.”


It's worth pointing out that the act has not just worked in "his" best interest, but rather in the interests of anyone who feels that they have been the victim of an injustice. Just last week the the 7/7 survivors and associated families informed the government of their intention to seek a full independent inquiry, as provided under Article 2, as Mrs Lawrence refers to. Vera Bryant, whose daughter was murdered by a man released from prison, also successfully applied under Article 2 for an inquest into her death which the government had denied. As Unity also points out, although the Human Rights Act was not signed into law until 1998, after Mr Lawrence's death, justice was served, with his killer caught and imprisoned. His rights were properly served. Mrs Lawrence has said that although she has not forgiven Chindamo, she has never wished him ill, and Chindamo himself has apparently offered his sympathies to her, hoping that the decision would not cause her any additional grief. How much either of them actually mean such comments is open to question, but at least both sides seem able to forget if not forgive, something often lacking in similar cases.

It may well be that the government itself did little to prepare Mrs Lawrence for the possibility that Chindamo would not be deported, as it surely knew that there was more than a chance that such an appeal would be successful. She also raises the legitimate point that such laws don't take into account the views and appeals of those most affected by the subsequent rulings they lead to, ignoring the voices of the ordinary people they are meant to both protect and deal with. The question has to be how far though we allow the at times retributive and vengeful views of victims and those wronged interfere with justice rightly being blind; we've seen statements from the families of murder victims introduced into the courts before sentencing, do we also let the families get involved in the hearings of such appeal tribunals? Or do we have to rely that the judges' in those cases already take into account fully how they are going to be affected by their decisions?

None of this though is an argument for the repealing of the Human Rights Act itself, as Mrs Lawrence herself doesn't seem to be suggesting, although the newspapers taking up her cause, especially the Mail, are most certainly calling for exactly that, as is the Sun. The Tories, whose own plans for a "British" bill of rights which would almost certainly look more or less the same as the HRA have already been aired and dismissed by Ken Clarke as "xenophobic legal nonsense", have jumped on the case, with David Cameron already taking the rhetoric of the Sun straight on board, claiming that there is now "anarchy" in some parts of the UK, and that this is "a shining example of what is going wrong in our country". Some might argue that it's a shining example of our belief in tolerance and justice for all, in that disproportionate punishment has no more place in our society than murder itself does. David Davis, who ought to know better, also said that it was a "demonstration of clumsy incompetence" that Chindamo couldn't be sent back to his "own country". Can Italy really be called his home country when he has spent the vast majority of his life here, regardless of his crime?

However painful it is for Mrs Lawrence, for Chindamo to be treated differently simply because of the fact he has an Italian passport and committed a well publicised, heinous crime would be an injustice in itself. At times, such decisions do seem outrageous, beyond comprehension and downright wrong, ignoring the voices of those they hurt the most, but they are never taken without all the options being considered, insult to common sense as they are denounced or not. It might seem condescending to say so, but hopefully she will come to terms with the decision and respect it in the time to come, however illegitimate she thinks it is. As for the tabloids, their minds were already made up about the act, and trying to defend it time and again after all their lies, smears and distortions becomes an ever more dispiriting and difficult task. That they should take advantage once again only shows how low and dishonourable their motives are.

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8/21/2007 06:40:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, February 26, 2007 

To deport or not to deport the man with the beard.

Few are going to shed any tears over the decision by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission that Abu Qutada can be deported back to Jordan, where he was convicted in absentia of being involved in a number of bomb attacks. While it's impossible to know just how involved he was with al-Qaida prior to 9/11, and some of the charges against him may well be unsubstantiated, it's clear that he was one of three clerics, along with Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri Mohammad, who were the most influential and respected extremist Islamist preachers in the United Kingdom until recently.

While the charge sheets against Hamza and Bakri are an inch thick, nowhere near as much is known about Qutada. We know that videos of his sermons were found in one of the flats in Germany occupied by the 9/11 hijackers, that his declarations were read out at Al-Muhajiroun meetings, and that it's possible he may have been a MI5 double agent, but other than that Qutada is something of an enigma. For a man who is alleged to have the same mindset as the average al-Qaida influenced Salafi jihadist, his plea for Norman Kember to be released by his captives in Iraq was certainly out of character, especially when you consider how others like him are firm believers that non-Muslims and anyone else they don't like are kuffar. It could of course been an attempt to get better treatment in prison, or to try to stop his possible deportation to Jordan, but the authorities made clear at the time that he had not been offered anything in return for his message, and it seems that he approached them rather than them approaching him.

The decision is really not so much about Qutada but about whether we should deport anyone, even terrorist sympathisers/suspects to countries which are known to practice torture. While Jordan is by no means the most egregious of Middle Eastern countries when it comes to mistreatment of prisoners, Human Rights Watch documents how confessions are obtained through sleep deprivation, mock executions and prolonged solitary confinement, as well as beatings. Amnesty International, in a report titled "Your confessions are ready to sign", accuses the Jordanian government of being entirely complicit in the practicing of torture:

they maintain a system of incommunicado detention which facilitates torture and other ill-treatment of detainees and a related special security court whose judgments regularly appear to be based on little more than "confessions" which defendants allege were extracted under torture or other duress.

The fabled memorandum of understanding, which has Jordan agreeing to treat anyone deported to the country humanely, is little more than worthless. It's the equivalent of a nudge and a wink, as well as making it more than clear that torture is indeed practiced in Jordan. The Adaleh Centre for Human Rights Studies (site is in Arabic) has agreed to monitor anyone who is deported from the UK, but just how much access they will be allowed will not become clear until it actually happens.

The main question, as ever, is why Qutada cannot be tried here. SIAC itself is little more than a kangaroo court; it's allowed to hear evidence in secret, and Qutada has been allowed few opportunities to challenge the evidence held against him, other than his rather ambigious sermons which are in the public domain, which are nowhere near as bloodcurdling nor delivered in the oratory more associated with the swivel-eyed Hamza and Bakri. SIAC has been used previously to take a seeming revenge on one of the men acquitted in the "ricin" trial; it heard the exact same evidence as in that trial, with added "secret" evidence, before coming to the decision to recommend that he could be deported to Algeria.

The judge in that case, Mr Justice Ouseley, said that it was "inconceivable" that "Y" would be ill-treated. He could not have been proved more wrong more quickly. Two men who were being held under suspicion of links with terrorism who decided to return to Algeria of their own accord after growing weary of the process and who were promised they would not face criminal proceedings under the amnesty put in place after the civil war, have since been arrested and charged with.... terrorism offences. While there is no "memorandum of understanding" with Algeria, it's an incident that was both predictable and bound to embarrass the government. However, as the men were "terrorist suspects", it's unlikely there'll be any change in policy as a result.

Reasons for why the government wants to be rid of Qutada are manifest. He's a symbol of "Londonistan", however far that particular neologism has been exaggerated. MI5 has denied that he was an agent or ever held in a safehouse by them, two things that had previously been reported, but he's still involved with the rendition of Bisher al-Rawi. al-Rawi is believed to have spied on Qutada for MI5, but outlived his usefulness once Qutada was arrested. On leaving for Gambia, he was stopped by MI5 but allowed to travel, only for MI5 to inform the CIA that he was carrying bomb parts. He was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, and during his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, he was asked mainly about his relationship with Qutada (PDF). Both men are clearly an embarrassment to MI5, whether all the allegations are true or not.

How much of the secret evidence held against Qutada is made up of intercepts we will probably never know. A number of his speeches and his interviews are however available, and if the authorities were so inclined, they could probably get enough together for a prosecution along the lines of the one that resulted in Abu Hamza being convicted for inciting racial hatred. It is however much easier to try to deport him, therefore getting rid of him once and for all. Unlike Bakri, who left before he was arrested in similar circumstances, and who is still preaching his hate in web casts from Lebanon, Qutada faces at the least a long term of imprisonment in Jordan.

Yesterday's Observer argued that it was a lesser evil leaving him to be potentially abused in Jordan than for him to remain here. Such an argument is dubious at best, and "jihadisbad", who, as you might guess isn't the most liberal commentator on Islam in his comment says it's "naive" to think he won't be tortured. If this deportation is to happen, and it appears extremely likely, then the memorandum of understanding needs to be enforced, and properly. No half measures should be tolerated. It may be that there'll be the tiniest violin in the world playing if he is in fact mistreated, but the ruling sets a potentially dangerous precedent, and again shows how little our respect for human rights often is when it comes to those we don't like.

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2/26/2007 06:29:00 PM | | | links to this post

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