Between 16 and 19 September the state visit of Pope Benedict XVI provoked a range of reactions: many Catholics turned out to welcome the pontiff, while a 20,000-strong demonstration opposed the visit for multi-faceted reasons, including the long-running and massive international scandal of child abuse perpetrated and covered up within the Catholic church and the Vatican’s general attitude to women’s rights, contraception and homosexuality. The visit also saw the latest in a catalogue of arrests of innocent Muslims accused of plotting imagined acts of terrorism.
During the past decade scores of people have been arrested for supposed involvement in what turned out to be non-existent bombing campaigns, aimed variously at disrupting Christmas and Easter, blowing up Manchester United football ground and poisoning commuters on the London Underground, among others. The list would be hilarious if the consequences to those targeted were not so serious. Men, women and children have been detained, interrogated, imprisoned, terrorised, beaten up and shot. Furthermore, in the majority of cases involving non-British citizens, the point at which it has become clear that they are entirely innocent has meant not release from custody and an end to trauma but the start of another nightmare in which the immigration authorities act to prevent any embarrassment to the state by initiating deportation proceedings.
On 17 and 18 September the press exploded in a torrent of headlines proclaiming ‘Muslim plot to kill the Pope’ (Daily Express), ‘Six in Pope plot’ (The Sun) etc. The story ran that a group of ‘Algerian street cleaners’ (or even ‘ISLAMIC terrorists disguised as street cleaners’) were planning to murder the Pope at some point during his visit. The Express didn’t stop there, adding that ‘It is feared plotters with links to Al Qaida planned “a double blow to the infidel” by assassinating the head of the Roman Catholic church and slaughtering hundreds of pilgrims and well-wishers.’
Running alongside other headlines on the same days about the Pope’s ‘plea to save Christmas’ from atheists and unnamed other dark forces, the message was clear: Catholics and Protestants should set aside their differences and unite against the real enemy. Forget the child abuse in the Catholic Church; forget that this visit was paid for by the British taxpayer at a time of economic crisis. Remember that today’s top villains are not Irish Republicans but Muslims.
Unlike some of the previous non-plots, it became apparent immediately that there was no substance to the allegation. By 19 September the six arrested men had been freed. The Sunday Mirror carried a story to the effect that the arrest had followed their sharing a brief joke in their work canteen about the difficulties of shooting the Pope due to the bullet-proof glass on his car, which caused a suspicious colleague to call the police.
With scarcely a pause for breath, the media then launched into a new frenzy over the question of whether the wrongly arrested men could now sue the police. In the same tone used to vilify prisoners, asylum seekers or anyone else considered generally undeserving and who successfully takes legal action against the state, the Daily Mail and other papers quoted the police: ‘As far as the Met are concerned, the arrests were proportionate and justified, but there is a strong feeling that the legal-aid vultures will soon be circling around this case.’
Over the 13 years it was in power, the Labour Party built up and used a repressive ‘anti-terrorist’ apparatus, together with a relentless and all-pervading propaganda war against Muslims and anyone who even appeared to be a Muslim. The Con-Dem government has inherited all this and, despite some rhetoric about civil liberties and its obvious need to cut costs at all levels, appears perfectly happy to continue the attack.
Nicki Jameson
FRFI 217 October/November 2010
