HOME | IMC UK | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Support Us

Liverpool Indymedia

Another “terror scare” revealed as baseless

Julie Hyland | 28.04.2009 13:56 | Analysis | Repression | Liverpool

Only the most damning political conclusions can be drawn from the admission that 12 people rounded up in a major terror scare in Britain have all been released without charge.

Once again hysterical claims of an impending terrorist atrocity have proven baseless.

The 12 men—11 Pakistani nationals and one Briton—were arrested on April 8 in a series of high-profile swoops in Liverpool and Manchester.

Armed anti-terror police raided several premises in an operation that Prime Minister Gordon Brown claimed had uncovered a “very big plot” against the UK.

One young man was arrested by officers carrying machine guns as he ate his lunch outside Liverpool’s John Moores University (ten of the men are students at various northwest colleges and universities). Two other men were detained at the DIY store where they worked.

The media claimed the men had been planning to carry out a series of Al Qaeda-type explosions—potentially including suicide bombings—over the Easter holidays, targeting major public venues.

Despite holding the men for up to 13 days, searching their homes, computers and personal papers, police found nothing to substantiate these claims. It transpires that not only was no terrorist attack “imminent,” there is no evidence it was even in preparation. The Crown Prosecution Service has concluded there are no grounds for any charges and police failed to convince magistrates that they should hold the men any longer. Police can detain people for up to 28 days without charge under Britain’s anti-terror laws.

The men appear to be so blameless that there is no evidence of any misdemeanour. But that has not stopped police handing over the Pakistani nationals to the UK Border Agency for deportation.

A spokesman for the prime minister claimed that they were to be removed “on grounds of national security. The government’s highest priority is to protect public safety. Where a foreign national poses a threat to the country, we will seek to exclude or deport them where appropriate.”

In a further infringement of the men’s democratic rights, their cases are to be put before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, which is not subject to the burden of proof required in a criminal case. The supposed “evidence” supporting their deportation will be heard in secret.

Without a shred of evidence, their education is to be disrupted and they are to be banned from the country. What fate will await them in Pakistan under such conditions is another matter for concern.

The moves have been condemned by the men’s representatives. Lawyer Mohammed Ayub stated, “After 13 days in custody, during which no evidence of any wrongdoing was disclosed, they have now been released without charge.

“Our clients have no criminal history, they were here lawfully on student visas and all were pursuing their studies and working part-time. Our clients are neither extremists nor terrorists.”

Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said the government had been “dishonourable” in its treatment of those arrested.

Their detention “took place in very dramatic circumstances of students being arrested at university and thrown to the floor,” he said, with authorities claiming they posed a serious threat to the public.

Such claims represented political interference in the legal process, he continued. It was unacceptable for the government to make such prejudicial remarks, and then, having failed to substantiate them, deport the men anyway.
Executive action

The media have described the release of the 12 as a humiliation for the government and the police.

The suggestion is that the raids were moved forward after Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick—Britain’s leading anti-terror officer—allowed a top secret document on the raids to be photographed when he went to brief ministers on the operation at Downing Street. He resigned the following day.

To reduce the issue to one of “embarrassment” in ruling circles, however, is to trivialise the issues raised by this latest “anti-terror” scare and its ramifications for democratic rights.

The Guardian reported that “Investigators had desperately hoped they would find something at the suspects’ homes. But after initially hunting for, and failing to find, bomb-making equipment, they turned to the computers with their fingers crossed that some evidence of a plot would turn up. They found nothing substantial.”

“Desperately hoped,” “fingers crossed,” “turn up.” What type of security operation is initiated on a wing and a prayer, and why?

Ever since the 9/11 atrocities, and especially since the London bombings in July 2005, the government and the security services have cynically manipulated public anxieties over potential terrorist attacks.

The latest raids followed an all-too familiar pattern. A major plot is supposedly discovered just on the eve of its execution. The media, ministers and so-called “terror experts” warn of the dire threat to life and limb that was only narrowly averted thanks to swift police action.

Time subsequently reveals that much of this was hype. The vast majority of those arrested under anti-terror legislation are never charged with terrorist activity. In the few instances that do come to court, it usually transpires that much of the original claims made about the “plot” were built up out of all proportion.

In the meantime, the scare has served its real aim in providing the pretext for a further assault on civil liberties.

As the World Socialist Web Site pointed out, the recent scare occurred “just as the government and Metropolitan Police faced mounting condemnation of police actions during the G20 summit of world leaders in London, which ended April 3.”

Video footage and photographic stills of indiscriminate violence meted out against protestors and bystanders—as in the tragic death of Ian Tomlinson—revealed the extent to which political dissent has been criminalised under Labour.

Another disturbing aspect of the recent raids was also revealed by the Guardian, although without any comment. Reporting on tensions between MI5 and the police over the raids, the Guardian reported that the police decided “to take ‘executive action’ even though the intelligence suggested there was little evidence to charge the suspects.”

Such are the extraordinary powers given to the police by the Labour government that they are now able to mount high-profile raids and arrests on the flimsiest of pretexts, detain people for weeks at a time while circulating false and highly damaging claims about them and then, at least in the case of foreign nationals, remove the evidence of their “mistakes” by handing them over for deportation on the most dubious grounds. And all apparently on the basis of “executive action” and without any form of democratic oversight.

Julie Hyland
- Homepage: http://www.wsws.org

Comments

Display the following 5 comments

  1. Another story... — Joe Blow
  2. Re: Another story... — Mike
  3. Better safe than sorry — Paul
  4. Nothing retrospective about it — Stroppyoldgit
  5. Lets see! — Bodgit and scarper.

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

[navigation.actions2016]

[navigation.actions2015]

[navigation.actions2014]

NATO 2014

Actions 2013

G8 2013

Actions 2012

Workfare

Actions 2011

2011 Census Resistance
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Occupy Everywhere

Actions 2010

Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands

Actions 2009

COP15 Climate Summit 2009
G20 London Summit
Guantánamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
University Occupations for Gaza

Actions 2008

2008 Days Of Action For Autonomous Spaces
Campaign against Carmel-Agrexco
Climate Camp 2008
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Smash EDO
Stop Sequani Animal Testing
Stop the BNP's Red White and Blue festival

Actions 2007

Climate Camp 2007
DSEi 2007
G8 Germany 2007
Mayday 2007
No Border Camp 2007

Actions 2006

April 2006 No Borders Days of Action
Art and Activism Caravan 2006
Climate Camp 2006
Faslane
French CPE uprising 2006
G8 Russia 2006
Lebanon War 2006
March 18 Anti War Protest
Mayday 2006
Oaxaca Uprising
Refugee Week 2006
Rossport Solidarity
SOCPA
Transnational Day of Action Against Migration Controls
WSF 2006

Actions 2005

DSEi 2005
G8 2005
WTO Hong Kong 2005

Actions 2004

European Social Forum
FBI Server Seizure
May Day 2004
Venezuela

Actions 2003

Bush 2003
DSEi 2003
Evian G8
May Day 2003
No War F15
Saloniki Prisoner Support
Thessaloniki EU
WSIS 2003

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech

Publish Your News


Temporary Scroogle search

-->