Verily, Allâh enjoins Justice and Correctness, and helping kith and kin and forbids lewd acts and all kinds of evil deed and oppression. He admonishes you so that you may take heed. (An-Nahl: 90)

Our Post September 11th Britain

At 7am on December 19, 2001, police started knocking on doors in London, Luton and Birmingham. Within minutes nine men were in custody – all Muslims, all foreign nationals. Two more arrests were made later. The men were said to have links with extremist organisations, though none was alleged to have any connection with al Qaeda. They were all taken to high-security prisons, though initially their families were not informed where they were and the men were refused all contact with the outside world. They have never been told of the allegations against them. This is Britain post-September 11, a place where foreign nationals can be detained without charge indefinitely on suspicion of being international terrorists, thanks to the hastily-enacted Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001. These actions were deeply worrying in themselves but, in the atmosphere of the time, national security took precedence over civil liberties. In ignorance of the evidence against these men and against the backdrop of what was seen as a national emergency, few spoke out for them.

Last month lawyers for 10 of the men – most of them held at Belmarsh in south London – argued at the Court of Appeal that they should have their cases reassessed because the evidence against them may have been tortured out of witnesses at Guantanamo Bay, Bagram airbase in Afghanistan or elsewhere. The use of such material was "morally repugnant" and "an affront to the public conscience", they claimed.

Yesterday the appeal judges rejected this by a 2-1 majority, maintaining that the home secretary was only required to act on "reasonable suspicion" under the terms of the 2001 Act. David Blunkett was under no obligation to investigate how information is obtained. This is a shameful judgment. It boils down to an admission that evidence obtained by torture can be used to detain terrorist subjects without trial indefinitely, provided they were not tortured in Britain.

Last night the home secretary insisted that he had not relied on material obtained by torture. Given the long catalogue of alleged abuse at Guantanamo and elsewhere, published last week, it is justifiable to question this confident assertion. How does he know how each piece of information was obtained?

As Amnesty International asserted last night: "The judgment is an aberration morally and legally." It is a demonstration of how far the rule of law and human rights have been undermined in the post 9/11 panic. Tonight eight of these men are still in custody. The other two have been deported under rules allowing for the release of foreign terrorist suspects if another country accepts them. It is to be hoped that those still incarcerated will appeal to the House of Lords in the hope of reversing a judgment that stains our democracy.

Source: The Herald
18 August 2004