Tue01Apr - Commons vote on Counter-Terrorism Bill

[Rory Winter]

Commons to vote on Counter-Terrorism Bill

The key debate and vote on the Counter Terrorism Bill 2008 will be held on Tuesday 1st April in the House of Commons.

Sadly it is no joke. The controversial Bill will recieve its 2nd Commons reading on 1st April.

The Bill include measures to extend the time people can be held without charge in the UK to 42 days - in other words you could be locked up for six weeks without being told what you are suspected of doing. Although there is now very widespread opposition to this proposal, the draft bill has many other provisions which are equally pernicious.

It would allow post-charge questioning of 'terror suspects', heavier sentences for ordinary crimes with a 'terrorist connection', confiscation of property without fair trial, extra punishment beyond the original sentence (again without trial), new offences that could criminalise voluntary workers, systematic retention of DNA samples, stronger protection from prosecution for UK-friendly state terrorism, and measures that could hide evidence about police killings

PLEASE ASK YOUR MP TO VOTE AGAINST THE BILL

PLEASE ASK YOUR MP TO VOTE AGAINST ANY EXTENSION OF PRE-CHARGE DETENTION

Tony Blair couldn't get Parliament to extend pre-charge detention to 90 days, even after the London bombings of July 2005. It was his first parliamentary defeat. We hope that Parliament will be also reject Gordon Brown's plan to extend pre-charge detention to 42 days.

More information, including a sample letter to your MP at
http://www.sacc.org.uk/stopbill

TAKE ACTION NOW - THREE THINGS YOU CAN DO.

A. Contact your MP

1. Point your browser to http://www.writetothem.com
2. A separate window will appear. Put in your post code and you will get a link to your MP.
3. Click the link: it will take you to a form. entering your details and space for the letter
4. Type your message into the form
5. Send it.
6. IMPORTANT: Go back to your email. You will get a message to confirm that you want to send the message. Click the link.


B. Sign the Petition- spread the word

1. Get everyone you know to sign the Amnesty International petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/notadaylonger
2. Spread this everywhere you can on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, blogs and anywhere and everywhere.

C. And another thing...

The House of Lords must also vote in favour of the Bill for it to become law. In recent years the Lords have often tried to resist government demands for repressive new powers. Lords do not have a duty to reply to the public, and they are (obviously) not elected. But you can still contact them to let them know your views - visit http://www.writetothem.com/lords
___________________________________________

News from Scotland Against Criminalising Communities - SACC, http://www.sacc.org.uk

[Lawrence Phillips]

Thanks for that Rory, email sent to my MP

[Rory Winter]

Thanks Lawrence. Hopefully, anyone in the UK reading your comments will be inspired to do the same. Only takes a few minutes.

[Rory Winter]

OPEN LETTER

'April Fool's Day' in Commons-
one more step to grave injustices

How appropriate that on 'April Fool's Day' Jacqui Smith will launch the long awaited second reading of The Counter Terrorism Bill 2008. We should not be fooled. For the last six years the Labour government has created a climate of fear and deceived us that we face a permanent emergency as a nation. Hence the most fundamental principles of justice such as 'habeas corpus' and the right to a fair trial have to be mutilated in the name of national security.

Although the extension of pre-charge detention from 28 to 42 days has been aired widely, the draft bill has many proposed police powers which are equally pernicious particularly when the definition of terrorism under the 2000 Terrorism Act is so broad that people are being jailed for possessing DVDs and downloading web pages.

Extra powers - for surveillance, pre-charge questioning and legal obligations to disclose 'suspicious' financial transactions - will further encourage arbitrary arrests. Information 'which could be useful for terrorism' can mean nearly anything and would generally be linked with politics activities in order to justify prosecutions, as well as to harass activists. Restrictions could be imposed on travellers to international demonstrations.

Sinister also are the attempts to extend 'secret�' court procedures to confiscation of property and to inquests, partly or wholly held in camera, a move to avoid accountability when we have the next Jean Charles de Menezes.

A new offence making criminal the failure by volunteers in charities or NGOs is an attack on the right to silence. The Bill would also criminalise the collection of information on armed forces by investigative journalists, thus attacking free speech.

We, the 27 civil society organisations listed hereunder, call on MPs to hold the government to account and not let this unjust bill through Parliament without serious challenge. Yes, the government has a duty to protect the public against terrorists but Parliament has a duty to protect the public from draconian measures that violate the most fundamental principles of justice.

Saleh Mamon
Campaign Against Criminalising Communities
www.campacc.org.uk

NATIONAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST ANTI-TERROR POWERS

1990 Trust
Baluch Human Rights Group.
Cageprisoners;
Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC);
Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (CARF);
Centre for the Study of Terrorism (CFSOT);
Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers;
Index on Censorship;
Institute for Policy Research and Development (IPRD);
Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC);
July 7th Truth Campaign
Justice not Vengeance (JNV);
Kurdish Federation UK;
London Guantanamo Campaign (LGC);
Muslim Parliament
Panjaab National History Society;
Peace & Progress;
Peace and Justice in East London;
Scotland Against Criminalising Communities (SACC);
Sheffield Muslim Association (MAB)
Sheffield Guantanamo Campaign
Solidarity (Scotland's Socialist Movement)
South Asia Solidarity Group (SASG);
Stop the War Coalition (STWC);
Tamil Campaign for Truth and Justice;
Tamil Centre for Human Rights;
Westbourne Grove Church

Contact
Saleh Mamon
30 Woodstock Road
Carshalton
Surrey SM5 3DZ
0208 395 9437
07931 786 134

[Reflecter]

Thanks for the short notice heads up on this Rory, I've mailed a modified version of the open letter to my MP Ann Coffey.

I also found this short film by Liberty with Riz Ahmed (Riz MC) that highlights the issue


Link


Lets hope it falls on its face at this reading and there is more time available to re-highlight this and get it stopped in its tracks.

You are BTW quite right that our own Government is doing plenty to erode our rights as it is, I am however reluctant to believe the EU as it stands will offer any better. So I do support your belief that we should be campaigning to alter the way the EU runs, rather than pure opposition to it with no better solution offered. I do believe as it currently stands it is a bad idea though and that our own MP's are guilty of breaching common law as Treason by their current support of it. I could easily be wrong and I hasten to add I have no liking of UK history and am thus no Anglophile or Europhobe, I am simply pro Truth and anti-police state.

[Rory Winter]

[Rory Winter]

A stitch-up heading for an unravelling

The House of Commons gave the Counter Terrorism Bill its second reading on April Fool's Day. It's a stitchup that looks set to come unravelled.

When the last Terrorism Bill was given it's second Commons reading in October 2005, 95 MPs voted against it - even though the debate was held in the shadow of the 7/7 London bombings. But the new Bill's second reading was unopposed. Parliament's fixers had made sure there would be no chance for MPs to reject the idea that this country needs more terrorist legislation.

No chance for them to reject yet more "emergency" laws in this seventh year of the post 9/11 "emergency." No chance for them to vote against adding another bandaid to the lucky-bag of terrorism laws. No chance for them to say that a better way would be to bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. No chance to call a halt until the government makes good it's forgotten half-promise of a wide-ranging overhaul and rationalisation of the laws. Parliament should be ashamed of itself, and so should the opposition parties who didn't object to this dirty deal.

Fortunately, even in the fog of fake consensus many MPs can see very clearly that the powers contained in the Bill to allow police to hold suspects for 42 days without charge are an outrage that a free society can't tolerate. When the Bill reaches the Committee stage amendments to remove this part of it are certain to be tabled and to receive wide support.

The safeguards the government says it has attached to 42-day detention are nonsense. Before using the internment powers contained in the Bill, the government would have to come back to Parliament to ask for authorisation. In other words, the government is asking Parliament to defer until a moment of panic a decision that it can't stomach taking now. That isn't justice, it's government by scare story - and many MPs know it.

This is a battle the government is set to lose, however thoroughly they try to stitch it up. We hope that every MP of conscience and commonsense will vote against any extension of pre-charge detention when the Bill next comes before Parliament. And we hope that every citizen of integrity and conscience will tell their MP that that's what they expect.

More information at www.sacc.org.uk/stopbill