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42 day Detention - Why should Ireland Care
international |
rights, freedoms and repression |
opinion/analysis
Sunday October 05, 2008 23:38 by Amanda
What is 42 day detention? Why does Britain want to increase the amount of time they can detain terrorist suspects? |
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Comments (5 of 5)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5Another thing is, anything crap in UK, especially laws, Ireland gets too, while missing some of the UK's benefits like widespread decent council housin & NHS/hospital care.
I agree with you there. And this would be a particularly nasty piece of legislation if it made it to Ireland.
Its been reported to day that this bill was rejected by the House of Lords. It was heavily defeated by a massive 191 votes.
No doubt they will try again. but it is good news that there was so much opposition
The world and his mother knows full well that there is a sinister conspiracy (how loose or tightly controlled this is know one knows for sure least of all governments) by a collection of Muslim lunatics (who these fanatics really are is also open to question because their bark is often worse than their bite) to bring violent jihad to the streets of European cities.
But how seriously should be consider this threat?
Before 9/11, anyone who spoke seriously about Islamic terrorists taking over the world would have been told he was barking.
On the face of it 9/11 looks like an efficient Blofeld style conspiracy. Uber sophisticated terrorists straight of a spy novel controlled by a Spectre like organisation with a central casting baddy taunting an impotent world.
However having read the 9/11 Commission Report and the legion of factual books that discuss the events of 9/11 independently, one gets the impression of utter incompetence from the point of view of the terrorists and alarmingly from the US government which we have been told time and time again in legions of movies like Enemy of the State or the X-files is almost spectacularly omnipotent.
Muhammed Atta and his goons were a gang of unexceptional idiots. They took infantile precautions to conceal themselves and who they were but they did not need to worry. Any fool could bring a knife on a plane, any fool with cash could book flight lessons no questions asked and any fool with nothing to lose would be willing the immolate themselves - people suicide everyday.
Governments are not stacked with geniuses either - the US government in peacetime cannot keep track of bargain basement fugitives who regularly evade and run rings around law enforcement. Indeed no government the world over can do this.
Since 9/11, no terrorist is going risk hijacking any airliner unless he wants to be escorted down to the nearest runway by fighter jets or the passengers with nothing to lose will jump him.
The Patriot Act and the legions of other measures taken by governments around the world have been given the credit for stopping attacks.
More than likely it is the simple vigilance of ordinary people that has halting attacks or thwarted attacks in Europe and the United States.
I know have few Arab Muslims and they have told me that when they get on a bus with a bag the other passengers always look like they will jump them if they make any sudden movements. These guys are no terrorists I might add. But what must a terrorist think? What if my bomb does not explode and I do not immediately meet my 72 virgins and instead I am kicked to death by a mob of angry infidels?
The average security guard in a cinema, sports stadium, airpoty, shopping mall etc. will instintively watch Muslims who enter with suspicision. For innocent Muslims this is terrible fact to live with but what must it be like for a genuine terrorist? Recce missions must be nightmare.
Some Muslims doubtlessly will commit attacks over the years and decades to come.
The laws already exist to track organised criminals and other shady charachters who create far more damage and far more real fear.
Knee-jerk detention of suspects risks grabbing the wrong people and creating a false sense of security.
Dogged detective work is what defeated extremists in the past - terrorism thrives when they can claim victimhood following the shoot-to-kill actions of police. The death of John Charles De Menzez would not have happened if police had been less gung ho. He passing resemblence to a suspected terrorist made his innocent movements in a Tube station to be miscontrued as a suicide mission.
But the majority of Muslims who live in Europe have no interest in violence.
Some fundamentalists may seek European countries to become more like Muslim states or for Muslims to be given a special exemption to live according to sharia law or other Muslim are happy with the status quo.
Those is necessarily mean we are on a slippery slope toward a Saudi type society in Europe?
Certainly not.
However repressive measures designed to combat terrorism may undermine basic freedoms already enjoyed, prevent the open expression of views and actually prevent the integration of Muslims into European society, prevent the development of understanding between communities and pretend the natural healing power of time to work its magic.
After 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland, failed anti-terrorist policies have led to even greater division not less.
Before 1968 there was much more interaction between Republican and Loyalist communites than is now.
It's a conundrum of the English system that a totally undemocratic institution, the House of Lords, actually preserves democratic freedoms at times.
Brown Envelope still wants the UK ID cards scheme to go ahead, but there is growing resistance to it.