U.K. Imprisonment of People Not Convicted of any Crime

U.K. Imprisons People Indefinitely on "Suspicion of Terrorist Links"

What is an "alleged terrorist"?

Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights bans detention without trial. The U.K. is a signatory to this convention. But in order to detain people without trial the U.K. has "opted out" of this article.

Five alleged "international terrorists" held in British jails without charge or trial today [2003-10-29] lost an appeal against the post-September 11 laws being used to detain them.

The special immigration appeals commission ruled that the government had enough evidence of links to terrorism to justify imprisoning the five non-UK nationals indefinitely. ...

Lawyers for the home secretary had only to prove to the judges that the government has "reasonable grounds to suspect" the men have links with terrorism, a far lower requirement than the standard of proof which would be required to convict them in a criminal court.

Lawyers for the men were meanwhile denied access to the secret documents and testimonies that the government presented as the basis for its "reasonable grounds". The detainees are instead represented by "special advocates" who are security vetted by MI5 and appointed by the attorney general to act on their behalf.

— Alleged terrorists can be detained indefinitely, rule judges

Twenty years after 1984, the date for George Orwell's dystopian vision, the British home secretary hopes to introduce a new category of imprisonable offence — "thought crime," or guilt by association.

According to two recent newspaper articles, David Blunkett is considering jailing those who merely "sympathise" with so-called extremist Islamic groups or who continue to "associate" with alleged terrorist suspects.

The Observer wrote on April 11, "Sympathisers with extremist Islamic groups will risk jail under controversial plans to make merely associating with a suspected terrorist a crime."

The next day, the Times reported, "Those whose names were found on seized mobile phones, computers or e-mails and who tried further contact would find themselves facing prison."

... The latest musings of Blunkett are a double attack on democratic rights.

Firstly, the proposal to introduce "guilt by association" makes criminals of those who have committed no crime. Secondly, by extension the so-called "undesirables" with whom they associate face a form of banning order reminiscent of the apartheid regime in South Africa, preventing them from coming into contact with anyone.

Barry Hugill, spokesman for civil rights group Liberty, said, "You cannot start imprisoning people for what may or may not be going on inside their head."

— Britain: Blunkett to legislate for "thought crimes" and guilt by association

Something called the Civil Contingency Bill (CCB) is (2004) making its way through the British parliament. This tyrannical piece of legislation, which could go as far as extending internment without trial from foreign nationals (as now) to UK citizens, is

designed to update existing emergency powers legislation, [and] extends those powers to such a degree that they will become not merely authoritarian but verging on the totalitarian. Not only will its catch-all measures be implemented according to highly subjective criteria, but the emergency regulations brought into force would allow the government to "disapply or modify any enactment or a provision made under or by virtue of an enactment." In other words, all existing legislation (including the Human Rights Act) which has been debated and passed in Parliament can be rendered null and void once the Prime Minister or Home Secretary decides that the situation is sufficiently serious to declare a state of emergency. — Labour's reactionary parliamentary programme

See also: Amendment to CCB Bill Would Detain UK Citizens Without Trial

U.K. to Imprison People with "Personality Disorder"

A White Paper, launched by Health Secretary Alan Milburn (photo right) in the House of Commons on 2000-12-20 CE, contains proposals for: New orders to detain people with severe personality disorders who are considered dangerous by the State. Powers to force people with serious mental illnesses to drug themselves with state-supplied "medication".

That's what they used to do in the Soviet Union (and for this the Soviet Union was condemned by the "liberal" West). If you disagreed with what the State said was right and good you were classified as "mentally ill" and locked up, maybe for years. Now in Britain you just have to be judged as having a "personality disorder", which is whatever the State says it is. But the U.K. is not a country any sane person would want to live in anyway. BBC: Tougher controls for mentally ill BBC: It's wrong to lock up people against their will

This man obviously has a personality disorder. Should he be locked up?

WE HOLD THIS TRUTH

THAT ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE CREATED DIFFERENT.

That every human being has the right to be mentally free and independent. That every human being has the right to feel, see, hear, sense, imagine, believe or experience anything at all, in any way, at any time. That every human being has the right to behave in any way that does not harm others or break fair and just laws. That no human being shall be subjected without consent to incarceration, restraint, punishment or psychological or medical intervention in an attempt to control, repress or alter the individual's thoughts, feelings or experiences.

— UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF MENTAL RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS

Not only humans have rights — animals also have rights. Of course, since we eat animals (700 million slaughtered each year in Britain alone) it's expedient to forget this. Perhaps we should, at the very least, confine ourselves to killing only the stupid animals, such as cows and chickens, while admitting that the intelligent animals, such as dolphins, foxes, whales (the Norwegians eat whales), dogs (the Chinese eat dogs) and horses (the French eat horses) have a right to life.

Or better, a visit to the pig factories, where pigs are raised in pens with wire mesh floors and never see the sky until at the age of seven months they are taken to the slaughterhouse, should be part of every child's education, along with a visit to the abbatoirs where it can be seen how the pigs, cows, chickens, turkeys, etc., are slaughtered. But most people prefer to eat meat in willful ignorance of the means by which that meat reaches their table.

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