FRFI 172 April / May 2003
Since 11 September 2001 there have been 304 arrests under British anti-terrorist legislation. Most of these have been under the Terrorism Act 2000 (TA) and the overwhelming majority of those detained have either been released with no charge, freed on bail for minor criminal charges, or – most ominously – detained under immigration powers.
Details of the arrests and their outcomes collated by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) clearly show the way in which this legislation is being employed. We reproduce (in FRFI not translated to website) just a brief excerpt from the IRR information. The full list is available on IRR’s website, www.irr.org.uk
There is little doubt that those released without charge will then be under state surveillance. In contrast to the 1991 Gulf War when Iraqis and Palestinians were interned in British prisons for the duration, the British government has in the current situation decided against mass internment and in favour of a high level of surveillance.
That is not to say that there is no internment. In order to pass the post-11 September Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (ATCSA), the government opted out of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which outlaws detention without trial. Thirteen ‘suspected terrorists’ are currently detained under the powers of the ATCSA in Belmarsh and Highdown prisons. They are permitted just one ‘closed’ visit a fortnight.
A delegation from the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) visited the detainees in February 2002. Its report was not published until a year later.
The CPT delegation was extremely concerned about ‘the provision of psychological support and/or psychiatric treatment to persons detained’. The report points out that the UK authorities accept that if these detainees were deported to their countries of origin they would risk serious human rights violations, including death or torture. In fact this is the rationale used for interning them. Several of them have already been tortured prior to coming to Britain, and suffer post-traumatic stress disorder or other psychiatric problems as a result. Being indefinitely detained with no way of contesting the vague and sweeping allegations against them massively increases this distress. This in turn is exacerbated by their being kept in their cells for hours on end, with little access to the ordinary facilities, such as a library and education which are afforded to prisoners convicted of criminal offences.
And the approach of the prison medical service to the severe trauma suffered by these men is nothing short of scandalous. The CPT report states: ‘…the records examined by the delegation’s doctor on occasion showed no indication of the reasons for prescribing psychotropic drugs, their dosage, or the person who had prescribed them’.
The state’s aim is not simply to locate and imprison would-be terrorists; these arrests and detentions are also designed to terrorise entire sections of the community into keeping the lowest of possible profiles. This includes anyone who is Middle Eastern or north African, or who looks like they might be, and anyone who is, or who looks as though they might be a Muslim, whatever their colour or country of origin. The message to these sections of British society is similar to the one sent out by the use of sweeping anti-terrorist powers against Irish people in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s – do not organise, do not protest against the war or against racism, do not practise your religion overtly, do not criticise Britain or the US – if you do any of these things, we will hound you and your families, using whichever part of the immense legal power at our disposal that we choose.
Nicki Jameson
