Government attacks democratic rights under guise of ‘fighting terror’

Steve Score

The government has raised the terror alert level from ‘severe’ to ‘substantial’. The main threat now, they say, is the Islamic State (IS) organisation and British Muslim fighters returning from Iraq and Syria

After 13 years of the so-called ‘war against terror’ initiated by George Bush and Tony Blair following the 9/11 attacks, and the wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq this threat is now apparently “greater and deeper” than ever.

Clearly, as the Socialist predicted at the time, these wars for the benefit of imperialism have in fact increased instability across large areas of the world and created more ‘terrorism’. A new Frankenstein’s monster, the IS, has emerged to overtake the previous ones such as al-Qa’ida.

Failed policies

The policies of Bush and Blair, and today of Obama and Cameron, have not only failed in the Middle East, but have succeeded in further increasing the sense of grievance and anger among young Muslims in the West. A tiny section of those, estimated at around 500 in the case of Britain, have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight.

The government response is to introduce measures to ‘deal’ with this, including giving police more power to withdraw passports from ‘suspects’ to prevent them leaving the country and making it easier to bar them from returning. It also includes increasing the information provided by airline companies to the security services and increased powers to monitor suspects.

However, these measures won’t prevent terrorism, and they will further threaten basic civil rights. A series of anti-terrorism laws have been used in recent years in cases that do not involve terrorism, for example against arms fair protesters and others.

Blair’s Labour government introduced ‘control orders’ which could be used to hold suspects without charge on virtual house arrest, restrict their rights to communications and internet connection, and even who they can meet for example.

The Tories replaced this with ‘terrorism prevention and investigation measures’ (Tpims) which were in reality very similar. But now it appears they want to expand them further including the ability to relocate suspects away from their home towns.

Home Secretary, Theresa May, has also suggested adopting proposals from last year’s ‘extremism’ task force made in the wake of the killing of soldier Lee Rigby. These include ‘banning orders for extremist groups’ to target those who “radicalise others” and who may not break the law themselves but are deemed to support organisations or individuals who are terrorists.

Infringing rights

But who is to define ‘extremist’ in the future? Could the anti-Apartheid movement in Britain have been banned on that basis for supporting the African National Congress in South Africa for example?

Given that the attacks on the living standards of working class people will continue to escalate, mass action and political opposition will increase in the future.

The police and justice system already has plenty of powers to arrest and place on trial anyone suspected of terrorism. Rather than deterring acts of terror, the latest government measures will infringe the civil liberties of many innocent people and can potentially be used against trade unionists, anti-cuts activists and other protesters, unless we can stop them.

Cameron dismissed Boris Johnson’s suggestion that the law principle of ‘innocent until proved guilty’ be ditched for British people who travel to Syria or Iraq. Cameron felt he couldn’t get away with that. But all the time the government is testing the boundaries of what it can do, and terrorism gives it the perfect excuse.