15.11.2001

Internment returns

New Labour has signified its intention to step up the assault on democratic rights with the announcement by home secretary David Blunkett of the introduction of detention without trial for alleged terrorists.

Tory MPs were outraged - not because they were concerned about the latest impingement on democracy, but because Blunkett had absented himself from the Commons and could not be questioned. Labour MP Mark Fisher, who, unlike the Tories, will mount some kind of opposition to the full panoply of repressive changes, to be introduced in the next 40 days, complained: ?The order laid before the House today proposes huge changes to our human rights legislation, and at the very least we need the opportunity to ask the home secretary on what basis he is making those changes.?

Let there be no mistake: the introduction of detention without trial - flouts the basic rights formally guaranteed by the Human Rights Act, an act this government itself placed on the statute book only two years ago. Its duties under the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 5 of the Human Rights Act, which establishes the right to liberty and security, will be abrogated.

New Labour?s hypocrisy is breathtaking. The government that claims to be ?bringing democracy to Afghanistan? intends to opt out (or ?derogate?, as the legalistic language has it) from what are supposedly basic rights. Of course, an emergency is cited, though there is very little sign of it in the UK at present. Moreover the problem is that besides fundamentalists the act will catch within its net all manner of progressive socialists and leftist dissidents opposed to hateful regimes such as Iran, Iraq, Algeria, etc.

New Labour has few qualms about doing whatever is necessary in order to safeguard the interests of capital. Adherence to democratic ?norms? has never been of much concern anyway and the introduction of internment for ?terrorist? suspects is going to be only one part of a wide-ranging Anti-Terrorism Bill that New Labour hopes to make law by the end of this year.

Just as Jews born in Germany were interned without trial by the UK government at the start of World War II - a war which was supposedly fought against anti-semitic Nazism - so the present New Labour government is employing a similar scatter-gun measure now. Anyone, especially those painted in ?muslim fundamentalist? or ?terrorist? colours, can be held without trial merely on suspicion that they might commit offences. There will be no due process; no right to a court hearing, where evidence must be brought and tested in public.

And the EU definition of ?terrorist?, which has been embraced wholeheartedly by the UK government, is so wide that it can easily cover everyone demonstrating against the Blair/Bush attack on Afghanistan. This move gives the government and the state enormous powers to act against any and every opponent, without the need to establish guilt in a court of law.

We must unite against this draconian measure by the British government. Detention without trial flies in the face of every principle of democracy. Internment will inhibit opponents of the government, since every political gesture, especially from the left, could be labelled ?terrorist?. Internment without trial is an attack on us all.

Jim Gilbert