Blair vows hard line on fanatics

[muriel_volestrangler]

(with a slightly fanatical-looking photo of him to illustrate the story):

The prime minister said he was prepared to amend human rights laws to make deportations more straightforward.

But civil rights group Liberty said his plans attacked key human rights and would jeopardise national unity.

Director Shami Chakrabarti said: "It seems he no longer has much truck for fundamental human rights at all.

"He's talking quite actively about deporting people to face torture around the world - that is completely unacceptable and plays into the hands of terrorists."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4747573.stm

Hizb ut Tahrir and Al-Muhajiroun and its successor groups are to be banned, too.

[shoelace414]

1. at least one of them was an British citizen

how many of the bombers were in Britian illegally?

[Guy_Montag]

2. most of them were british,

I think all the first lot were anyway.

All were here legally.

The point is to get rid of the rabble rousers, those that tell them that they will get a free pass to paradise.

[non sociopath skin]

3. I'll be looking at this carefully, but I fear that I have little sympathy

... for some of the muslim hardliners.

Opposing anti-semitism and homophobia are core issues for me. Can't make exceptions for cultural and/or religious differences, I'm afraid.

The Skin

[Mr Creosote]

4. This is GOOD news

"Tony Blair has outlined a raft of plans to extend powers to deport or exclude foreigners who encourage terrorism". So Dubya will never be allowed in again then? Hurrah!

[Anarcho-Socialist]

9. I'm very much in agreement on that

[LeftishBrit]

5. I agree with both the Skin and Mr. Creosote!

[Briar]

6. The Lib Dems are also expressing concern

about this, which incensed one of BBC News 24's interviewers so much he claimed to find it extraordinary and accused the Lib Dem spokeswoman of opposing the will of the British people (as supposedly expressed by Sir Ian Blair, no less - I thought he was a servant of the people, not the iron hammer of the establishment) and their desire to be safe.

[mrfrapp]

7. The BBC

The BBC has a habit of doing this. Both Galloway and Salmond have also suffered public humiliation at the hands of the BBC when they dare speak againt the Government (or in the case an unelected Knight of the Realm). What I find extrodinary is that the BBC interviewer thought it was his place to say anything at all.

I'm fast coming to the conclusion that all 24 hours news channels are worthless.

[lockdown]

8. I saw that too. Unreal.

The way he was haranguing her for daring to question aspects of the proposals, something like "didn't you hear what Sir Ian Blair said on GMTV this morning!" as though Blair had been anointed God or something. Whaaat?

Nothing new in recent days. Couple of days ago they had Bernard Crick on to discuss multiculturalism, with someone from the Heritage Foundation to provide "balance" (they give these Washington thinktank neocons enough airtime already, now they're invited on to lecture us on our domestic multicultural "problems"). It was a different interviewer but he went ballistic on Crick, who was being completely reasonable unlike the neocon, shouting him down and being outraged about Crick trying to discuss historical context while people were blowing themselves up in London's streets! I love the BBC overall but I'm not naive about them, but I was still taken aback by the disrespectful ferocity of it.

They've been Pravda News 24 since July 7th.

[Briar]

12. You noticed that too?

Whenever the BBC asks for someone in the US to comment, it is ten times more likely to ask a neocon as anyone else! Remember that female law professor who was always dragged on to opine that the war was legal, torture was legal and especially Guantanamo was legal? She might not have had an Administration title, but she was just their mouthpiece.

Pravda or Mnistry of Truth, take your pick. The BBC obviously sees it as a patriotic duty to support the government in time of war and has lost all objectivity - Bliar's reality is its reality and anyone who sees things differently must be sneered at and harangued and discredited.

[lockdown]

14. And in contrast,

the endless stream of "security consultants", "terrorism experts" and "intelligence analysts", with their trite and uniform observations about evil, global networks, evolving dangers and their solutions, they are always treated with fawning respect!


I don't remember that neocon professor specifically, but there seems to be an endless stream of them too.

[Briar]

15. Ruth Wedgewood?

That may have been her name.

[D-Notice]

10. Distrubing quotes

If necessary MPs will be recalled from their lengthy summer break and the UK could renounce parts of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Prime Minister pledged. Coming to Britain is not a right and even when people have come here staying here carries with it a duty," he said.

"The Government will repeatedly test the new arrangements in the courts, but if problems remained then Britain's interpretation of the convention could be changed, he pledged."

Tony Bliar hates our freedom... :scared: :scared: :cry:

Hopefully he's just saying this to get favourable headlines in the Sun/Mail/Express & has no real intention of repealing the HRA 1998... However, going on this government's civil liberties record (ID cards, house arrest, indefinite detention in HMP Belmarsh, banning protests within 1 km of Parliament), I fear the worst.

On 7th July, he said "We will not allow violence to change our society and values..." Looks like another lie from our beloved Prime Minister.

There's also this interesting comment I found on a blog '...people will now be able to be deported for "fostering hatred, advocating violence to further a person's beliefs or justifying or validating such violence". All very well and good. But considering the government's line over the last few weeks has been "if you say Iraq is a reason for why London was attacked, you're giving excuses for and justifying the attacks" it's a tad worrying. What, exactly, counts as "justifying" these days?'

[lockdown]

11. "Make justifying or glorifying terrorism anywhere an offence"

That's the one that bothered me most looking at summaries of the proposals. I'm somewhat dependent on others to dissect the details, but on face value that sounds like terrible law. Depending on wording and interpretation it could make all kinds of legitimate and necessary discourse illegal.

[D-Notice]

13. With it being

NuLabour, I'd expect that's the whole point of it... Anything to crack-down on dissent

[D-Notice]

17. Oh yeah...

Bliar wanting to repeal the HRA 1998 is just another policy of the Tories that he's stolen... :-(

[T_i_B]

16. Hmmmmm

I think that these proposals will need a LOT of scrutiny from parliament to put it mildly. How does all this relate to the government's legislation to outlaw incitement of religious hatred for instance? And I for one am worried about the idea of Tony Blair re-writing the Human Rights act.

I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that all the activity from the Secular authorities is not going to provide a real solution here. I'm increasingly coming to the view that the real solution is the Muslim world taking on the theology of Jihad, something that we decadent westerners cannot really argue against being infidel and all that but the Imans in the Mosques can.

[non sociopath skin]

18. Good Guardian Leader on the subject today.

They see this as a legal minefield and they’re probably right.
The Skin

….. Let us be clear that the most compelling objection to several of the proposals made by the prime minister yesterday is not that they intrude upon the human rights of every single resident and citizen of this country, although they certainly do that. Instead, the foremost objection is that these measures would have done nothing to stop the first and most deadly wave of suicide bombing on London's transport network on July 7. The first and best test of any legislation remains: will it work? Lists of proscribed websites will not change anything, and are likely to produce far more false leads and innocent suspects than clear and present dangers. And as a method of advertising the fringe lunatics of Islam through their "websites, bookshops, centres, networks," or mosques for "fomenting extremism", publishing any such list would do that perfectly.

<snip>

Other proposals outlined by Mr Blair centre around extradition, deportation, asylum and nationality requirements. Some of these are disturbing, such as a blanket refusal of asylum to anyone of any nationality connected with terrorism - a highly subjective and problematic label. Such a measure, if enacted in the 1980s, would have excluded many members of the current government of South Africa from refuge in this country, to take one example. The extension of "control orders" - house arrest - on British nationals is another unwise move that should be challenged in parliament. Acknowledging resistance to the government's previous anti-terrorism proposals, Mr Blair declared "the mood now is different". That may be true. But it is the role of government not to act according to the mood of the country but in order to do what is good for the country.

Full article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,1543610,00.html

[Briar]

20. Excuse me

Why is "they intrude upon the human rights of every single resident and citizen of this country, although they certainly do that" not the central objection to these proposals?

We don't mind killing tens of thousands of Iraqis to protect and project our values, but we cheerfully throw them away when we feel threatened?

If the much-vaunted British identity Bliar and co want to force upon us doesn't put respect for every single person's human rights at its very core, then it's worthless.

[Briar]

19. But we can't trust Parliament to scrutinise it

The Tories and most if not all of Labour will support these provisions, and the Lib Dems have proved wobbly under pressure in the past.

Bliar's claim that these steps are now justified because "the public mood has changed" is equally blood-chilling.

What happens when "the public mood" (and we know the public he is thinking of doesn't read the Guardian and Indie, but the Mail, the Sun, the Express etc) calls for capital punishment to be reintroduced? For all immigrants to be repatriated? For homosexuality to be recriminalised and abortion banned?

[non sociopath skin]

22. Interesting, isn't it, that Blair is now so very interested ....

... in the "public mood" having ridden rough-shod over it so many times in the past.

I fear that the gutter press, like the right-wing blogs, is actually rather pleased about the London bombs as it has given their biases, distortions and misanthropy greater currency. It's now Open Season on Dusky Intruders ....

And, of course, we know who Blair has to keep happy to keep in control ...

The Skin

[Briar]

23. "It's now Open Season on Dusky Intruders"

That is too true. I was shocked yesterday to hear someone opine that Jean Charles de Menezes had only himself to blame. He "shouldn't have been here" and he "shouldn't have run". So the government and police have got away with the execution of an innocent man in plain sight of the public just by appealing to common British prejudices against immigrants and public paranoia about terrorists. So much for British "values".

[non sociopath skin]

24. Yes, there does seem to be a consensus in certain circles ...

... that by being foreign, Mr. de Menzes had it coming to him.

I originally felt that we were going to handle this better than our Murrican Cousins did 9/11. But I fear that our xenophobia may be an even more potent brew.

The Skin

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. Blair has form on ignoring human rights

This year Lady Symons, a former Foreign Office minister, visited Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco seeking "watertight" assurances but returned empty-handed. Court documents show how Mr Blair repeatedly intervened in an attempt to deport four asylum seekers, including Hany Youssef, to Egypt despite being told by Foreign and Home Office officials that they might be tortured and sentenced to death.

In March 1999, the British embassy in Cairo asked for assurances that if the men were deported they would get a fair trial, and that if found guilty of links to Egyptian Islamic Jihad they would not be executed. The Egyptian interior minister rejected the request. When he was told about the failure to get the assurances, Mr Blair wrote: "This is a bit much. Why do we need all these things?"

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,15935,1543780,00.html[/div