Friday 11th March to Saturday 12th March 2005

Briefing Notes

Who We Are

Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC) was formed in March 2001 in response to the banning of 21 political and campaigning organisations under powers contained in the Terrorism Act 2000. CAMPACC believes that the law intimidates and criminalises communities, rather than protecting the public. After the Government passed the Anti-Terror Crime and Security Act (ACTSA) in December 2001, as its response to `9/11’, CAMPACC intensified its efforts and opposed the new power to imprison foreign nationals indefinitely without trial. CAMPACC sees the anti-terrorism legalisation as part of a political agenda aimed at controlling and restricting the rights of migrants, refugees and political activity.

The Campaign has brought together individuals and groups from communities that have found themselves targeted by so-called ‘Anti-Terrorism’ legislation, lawyers, other human rights activists and increasingly members of the public who are concerned about the implications on their civil liberties by the ‘War on Terror’.

Terrorism?

One question that opponents of state oppression are always asked is ‘what would you do about terrorism then?’ This begs the question of what is meant by ‘terrorism’? The ‘War on Terror’ has blurred any distinction between attacks on the public and resistance against state oppression, in order to stigmatise and criminalise the latter. In addition, ordinary criminal law in the UK provides ample powers to protect the public from violence, so why does the state create further powers for itself and what effect does this have on society?

Since September 11 2001, there have been 644 anti-terrorism arrests; of these, 118 led to charges under the act, while 135 were charged under different legislation and there have been 17 convictions, although there are cases pending.

Communities stigmatised as terrorist networks

The British state has been promoting a culture of suspicion directed at migrant and refugee communities, and since September 11th 2001 especially the Muslim community, fuelling racist prejudice and anti-immigrant/minority feeling in the country. Throughout Europe, a ‘climate of hysteria is encouraging immigration officers to act on suspicions based on little more than religious stereotyping.’ A similar climate drives ‘anti-terrorist’ measures. Communal, friendship and political networks of minority groups are readily stigmatised as ‘suspected’ of terrorism or being ‘associated with’ terrorism. The UK’s close diplomatic, military and economic relationship with foreign governments which oppress their people, such as Turkey, Egypt and Uzbekistan highlights the duplicity in the ‘War on Terror’.

The implications of this have been described by Liz Fekete of the Institute for Race Relations: "The War Against Terrorism is leading European governments to embrace those countries that, in practicing state terror, create the very culture of repression which drives oppositional groups towards rebellion and may lead them to respond to terror with terror tactics of their own.”

Joint police-press operations

As part of the ‘war on terror’, the public has been encouraged to fear foreigners, especially those from Muslim countries. High-profile police actions are accompanied by rumours from intelligence services and mass media speculation about terrorist threats. These incidents should be understood as joint police-press operations.

In the run-up to the US-UK invasion of Iraq in 2003, such operations were used to make us fear violent attacks here, thus fabricating a public emergency. For example, the Government sent tanks to Heathrow Airport, branded refugee circles as ‘Al-Qaeda cells’, spread fears about a cyanide attack in the London tube, and linked detainees with the poison ricin. All these operations and stories turned out to be without basis.

Such malicious rumours about detainees have been spread by government sources and reproduced by the mass media -- even before evidence is produced in a criminal trial. Such character assassination could be treated as contempt of court leading to a case being thrown out and certainly violates the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Yet this practice has been tolerated and has become routine.

Broadening the definition of terrorism

Previously terrorism had meant organised violence intended to harm ordinary people. In the 2000 Terrorism Act, ‘terrorism’ is now vaguely and broadly defined to include simply 'the threat' of 'serious damage to property', in ways 'designed to influence the government' for a 'political cause'. This broader definition encompasses and stigmatises a wide range of activities, far beyond any involvement with organised violence -- which would anyway be illegal under the criminal law. In this way, it creates new crimes of association -- e.g. with people, property or funds which may be used for ‘terrorism’.

Under the same Act, organisations in the UK can be banned on the basis that activities abroad fall within that broadly defined ‘terrorism’-- regardless of the nature and practices of the foreign government against which it is a response. Its broad scope denies people the right to resist oppression, even to struggle against dictatorship. The bans have been used and have certainly been experienced as an attack on freedom of expression, to intimidate community networks, to criminalize activists and to turn people into police informants through implicit blackmail. Political activities come under constant surveillance and harassment as suspected ‘terrorism’.

Crimes of association

The broader definition of ‘Terrorism’ means that the police have extended powers, which are triggered by mere suspicion that someone may be associated with so-called ‘terrorism’ -- including conduct that does not otherwise constitute a criminal offence, and an anticipation of future ‘terrorist’ activities. Anyone can be held without charge for up to 7 days, and foreign nationals can be interned indefinitely. Of all the people arrested under the legislation, few have been charged -- and those mainly under immigration offences or normal criminal law. Most could have been arrested under such law or under the ordinary criminal law, instead of ‘anti-terrorist’ powers. The law has been used in arbitrary ways, for example:

• Otherwise legal activities -- e.g. charitable donations, or cash payments -- are portrayed as sinister.
• Foreign nationals (especially refugees) are asked to act as police informants about ordinary political activities, with threats of reprisal if they refuse and promises of favours if they cooperate.
• Special Branch officers have warned relatives and friends of detainees against any contact with their families.

Such actions have had the following effects:

• Anticipating random police action, many Muslims keep telephone numbers of a solicitor, yet this is interpreted as suspicious by the bizarre logic of the police.
• Refugees seeking a safe haven from persecution fear that the authorities here will treat them in ways similar to their own governments or will deport them back home
• Police actions have intensified Muslims’ feelings that they live in a state of siege, while encouraging popular prejudices against them.
• Mere arrest has undermined people’s reputations, livelihoods and freedom to travel.
• Hundreds of arrests, with just a few prosecutions, have intimidated entire communities. Through an apparently random, open-ended series of arrests, ‘The use of “antiterrorist” powers has now paralysed and terrified significant parts of the Muslim community in this country’, according to a solicitor who deals with the human consequences.
• Although Muslims overwhelmingly opposed the US-UK military attack on Iraq, many of them were deterred from attending anti-war meetings because they feared that informers would report them to the police and intelligence services, who would then harass them.

Internment: fabricated emergency, unfair trial

In the Anti Terror Crime and Security Act 2001 internment is authorised. Internment in ACTSA 2001 means that any foreign national can be detained for an indefinite period without charge or trial, on the grounds that the person has suspected ‘links’ with an international terrorist group but cannot be safely deported to their own country.

Internment can be ordered simply on the basis of belief and suspicion by the Home Secretary, based upon ‘closed’ or ‘sensitive’ material that could not be used as evidence and tested in a criminal trial.

On these vague grounds, several foreign nationals have been interned since December 2001. In many cases, they were taken straight to high-security prisons without being questioned or interviewed, and with no idea of the basis of the allegations laid against them, according to their solicitor.

Internees have been given a document accusing them of involvement with Islamic extremist groups, yet they have not been asked any questions for a criminal investigation.

The men cannot be identified because to do so might put their families at risk here and in their home countries. They have been in prison now for years, without charge, without trial and with no prospect of release.

To allow for this, Britain had to derogate on the section of the European Convention of Human Rights stipulating no detention without trial - the only country out of 40 to have done so. The Government has claimed that the UK is in an state of emergency.

• Yet the government acknowledged that it had ‘no immediate intelligence pointing to a specific threat to the UK’.
• The UK derogation is unique among EU member states.
• The United Nations Committee on Torture stated that the UK did not provide sufficient evidence for its decision to derogate.
• In reality, the emergency has been fabricated -- partly by the law itself, and partly through scare stories spread by the intelligence services.

The interment powers in ACTSA have now been called into question by a Law Lords Review, in one most damning critiques of this Government’s approach to ‘terrorism’. The ruling by an 8-1 majority held that the indefinite detention without trial at Belmarsh, and Woodhill high security prisons was unlawful under the European convention on human rights (ECHR). Lord Hoffman declared that "the real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these." This is a victory for the detainees, their lawyers and for those who have campaigned to end this legal absurdity and defend human rights. Pressure on government must continue to ensure the detainees are released or tried in fair and open court.

In addition, in March 2004, without consulting Parliament, the Government agreed that US extradition requests do not need to have evidence attached. The Government has willingly given into unreasonable demands from the US and so denied British citizens trial in front of their peers. In August 2004, appeal court judges decreed that evidence extracted under torture was admissible in British courts, as long as British agents were not the ones doing the torturing. This decision has also gone to appeal at the House of Lords.

Stop and search

The police stop and search powers have been used far beyond contexts related to ‘terrorism’. Such powers have targeted those in Muslim communities involved in protest and demonstrations, as well other activists, for example at the 2003 anti-arms fair protest..

The 2003 Home Office figures on stop and search show that 13 per cent of the 895,300 stop and searches carried out by police forces in England and Wales in 2002/03 led to an arrest. This figure only refers to stops carried out under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) and not to stops under anti-terror legislation. In the year 2002/03, 82,920 people were stopped and searched under these anti-terror powers, a tenfold increase over the last three years. Of these stops, 3,646 resulted in an arrest - a rate of only 4 per cent - suggesting that these powers are being used in an arbitrary way.

Furthermore, research by the civil liberties group Statewatch suggests that some police forces are mounting operations in which pedestrians and vehicles are being stopped and searched on suspicion of terrorism but that these stops are then recorded as being conducted under the 1994 Act (which was introduced to deal with football hooligans and ravers) rather than under the Terrorism Act. Thus, the real extent of stop and search under anti-terrorist provisions is being disguised.
Statewatch estimates that, when this is taken into account, the percentage of arrests resulting was only 1.18 per cent - the majority of which were not connected with terrorism. Statewatch argues that 'the low arrest rate and the large number of people stopped and searched suggests that these powers are being widely used to little effect'.

What this means:

• Black people are now eight times more likely to be stopped and searched than Whites.
• Asians are two-and-a-half times more likely to be stopped and searched than Whites.
• Over the last two years,
  • the number of Whites stopped and searched has fallen by 19 per cent,
  • the number of Blacks stopped and searched has increased by 28 per cent,
  • the number of Asians stopped and searched has increased by 28 per cent.

‘Terrorist property’ and freezing orders

Economic resources of communities are also threatened. The ATCSA 2001 empowers the authorities to seize property or cash, and to freeze bank accounts, in cases of suspected ‘terrorist’ purposes. These powers have been used to investigate charities of ethnic minorities. Some bank accounts have been frozen. Regardless of whether any wrongdoing is eventually found, such a severe action damages reputations, destroys trust among communities and stops the flow of often indispensable donations.

Disclosure of information

Powers under ATCSA 2001 allow public authorities to force the disclose of information for the purpose of any criminal investigation anywhere, or even to judge whether one should be initiated. What this means is that the police and other authorities can access phone records, emails, internet histories, and bank statements for the purpose of an investigation, even if there has been no charge against an individual. Such powers are unnecessary to prevent serious crimes, yet open up great scope for abuse. Moreover, for a long time the UK authorities have exchanged information on political activists with the countries from which they have come, so these new powers increase fears that such practices will become routine.

Political agendas behind the legislation

Protecting people from violence does not drive or explain the ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation. ‘Where crimes are planned, attempted or committed, then the mechanisms for arrest are already firmly in place’-- i.e., under the ordinary criminal law. What, then, explains the legislation? Evidence gathered in this document points to antidemocratic, and discriminatory purposes and effects.

For example:

• the intimidation of minority communities, especially refugees, against taking part in political activities -- and to isolate such communities.
• attacking communal and friendship networks, especially in Muslim communities.
• deterring support here for internal resistance against oppressive regimes abroad from which refugees have fled.
• protecting foreign regimes which are supported by the UK government.
• giving governments unlimited access to information on political activities.
• granting extra powers to deal with immigration, while portraying refugees as dangerous.
• justifying extensive resources for the security services, in a period when the conflict in Ireland no longer provides a credible threat to the public.

Conclusion: repeal the legislation, oppose its powers

Overall the ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation is an attack on democracy and especially on ethnic minority communities. Its wording and use has blurred crucial distinctions -- between political activity, communal networks, immigration issues and organised violence. Such blurring has broadened and trivialised the term ‘terrorism’, such that it becomes meaningless to ask whether the special powers are necessary to prevent ‘terrorism’. As a leading solicitor has argued, ‘The arrests are intended to terrify entire communities. Those arrested are arbitrarily labelled as outlaws’. The entire UK framework of ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation is illegitimate, undemocratic and discriminatory in its terms and effect. It should be repealed. Meanwhile, its powers and its use should be opposed by anyone who believes in civil liberties. In particular, internment powers of the ATCSA should be immediately repealed; and everyone detained under the ATCSA should be released unless charged with a recognisably criminal offence.

Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC), www.cacc.org.uk

Contact for the National lobby: humanrightslobby@yahoo.co.uk