17.10.2001

Anti-terrorist legislation

Mobilise to defeat bill

Home secretary David Blunkett got up in the House of Commons on October 15 with a bunch of proposals that are set to further encroach on civil liberties in Britain.

Using the atmosphere of fear that both government and bourgeois media have engendered following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Blair government is not only launching military action alongside the USA, but is bringing in legislation that will restrict what can be discussed in public and how we can write and organise.

Blunkett pretended to espouse the rights he was about to trample on. He mendaciously claimed to be ?determined to strike a balance between respecting our fundamental civil liberties and ensuring that they are not exploited?. But he was very clear about how the government was going to tackle those who are ?prepared to use the opportunity to stir up hate?. He went on: ?It is therefore my intention to introduce new laws to ensure that incitement to religious, as well as racial, hatred will become a criminal offence. I also intend to increase the current two-year maximum penalty to seven years.? Every opponent of the anti-human aspects of religious teaching and everyone who conducts anti-religious propaganda will be a potential defendant in cases brought in the criminal courts under such legislation.

Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, said: ?As a Hackney MP representing a large muslim community, I welcome the thinking behind the proposed legislation against incitement to religious hatred, which is designed to check the disgusting and racist attacks on individual muslims and the muslim faith.? She wondered, though, if Blunkett would ?accept that, because others in Hackney take their religion - or even their lack of religion - extremely seriously, such legislation must not cut across genuine debate??

Blunkett brushed off these last remarks, jokingly suggesting that he would ?consider whether unpleasant and unhelpful comments about atheists could be included?. And of course the intention is clear: the most reactionary defence of the ?rights? of religious believers by patronisingly cocooning them and their dogmas, outlawing those atheists, agnostics or even believers of different faiths who want to challenge the validity of certain religious ideas.

Abbott and what remains of the Labour left worry themselves over democratic rights in the House of Commons. Of course the Blairites do not take democratic rights seriously? except when they want to deny them in the interests of the state. The ?religious hatred? proposals are aimed at keeping muslims onside in the war against Afghanistan, and winning their support for the whole package of new legislation. But what is on offer here is not something that should be welcomed by any democrat - whether muslim, christian or atheist.

While we shall have to wait to see the details of the Emergency Anti-Terrorism Bill that emerges, if its definition of ?religious hatred? is as wide as the proposed definition of ?terrorism? presently before the European Commission, then god help us! In fact, as is so often the case with such legislation, it could well be the left - socialists, progressives, communists and militants of the working class movement - who will be the targets. A vivid example from the past is the Public Order Act 1936, introduced supposedly to tackle Mosley?s fascist blackshirts, but which was subsequently utilised overwhelmingly to attack workers in struggle and leftwing demonstrators.

According to a draft now doing the rounds in the corridors of the European Commission, terrorist offences can be defined as those committed against a country, its institutions or its people, ?with the aim of intimidating them and seriously altering or destroying the political, economic, or social structures of a country? (?Proposal for a council framework decision on combating terrorism?, Commission of the European Communities, Brussels, September 19).

Under article 3 - ?Terrorist offences? - the commission gives a whole list of crimes: ?murder; bodily injuries; kidnapping or hostage-taking; extortion; theft or robbery; unlawful seizure of or damage to state or government facilities, means of public transport, infrastructure facilities, places of public use, and property; fabrication, possession, acquisition, transport or supply of weapons or explosives; releasing contaminating substances, or causing fires, explosions or floods, endangering people, property, animals or the environment; interfering with or disrupting the supply of water, power or other fundamental resource; attacks through interference with an information system?.

It then goes on to proscribe ?threatening to commit any of the offences listed above; directing a terrorist group; promoting of, supporting of or participating in a terrorist group?. A terrorist group is defined as ?a structured organisation established over a period of time, of more than two persons, acting in concert to commit terrorist offences referred to ??

While obviously most of the above are already illegal, others are rather more vague. The clause relating to ?interfering with or disrupting? could be wielded against trade unions during labour disputes, and ?threatening to commit? could be employed against the propaganda of revolutionary groups.

This proposal, even though still in draft form, has already been accepted as the definition of terrorism as far as the British government is concerned. And you can forget any illusory protection that might be mooted because of the Human Rights Act 1998. When Tory frontbencher Oliver Letwin, MP for West Dorset, hopefully asked Blunkett if he would ?confirm the view taken by his predecessor that parliament can legislate to alter the effect of the Human Rights Act?, Blunkett was only too happy to respond that, while ?We are not intent on taking away rights or denying people normal opportunities through judicial process ? we may derogate from article 5 [of the European Convention on Human Rights] ??

Chris Mullin, MP for Sunderland South and erstwhile leftist, meanwhile weakly hoped that the use of the new legislation would be ?confined to dealing with terrorists and not with the other people who might, from time to time, get up the noses of the established order?. But Blunkett responded: ?We are looking with the Crown Prosecution Service to examine ways in which those who are not directly engaged in fundraising, organising or inciting by pronouncement may be involved in conspiracy by supporting or succouring those who are engaged in terrorism.? Of course, under some interpretations this might well cover a good proportion of participants in the current demonstrations against the Blair-Bush war on Afghanistan.

In the guise of fighting terrorism, the state looks set to implement legislation that will hit not just actions, but propaganda. We must mobilise against this latest result of the despicable terrorist attacks in the USA on September 11. We must mobilise against the Emergency Anti-Terrorism Bill.

Jim Gilbert