15 November 2001 Edition
British fail to learn the lessons of internment
Depicting itself as an international guardian of 'Western values' and 'civilisation' far removed from the fundamentalism of the Taliban may be the current preoccupation of British propaganda, but the contradictory tone of 'anti-terrorist' legislation published this week will not be lost on those who have been at the receiving end in the Six Counties.
British Home Secretary David Blunkett's emergency legislation has revived the ugly spectre of internment, which formed an integral part of Britain's war in Ireland in the 1970s. It led to hundreds of young men being caged, without due legal process, without trial. Even British officials of the time later admitted that the policy was a disastrous failure and that many people were wrongly jailed.
The determination of the British government to opt out of international human rights standards by declaring a state of emergency and introducing powers of internment without trial is further indication of its failure to embrace the most basic principles of promoting human rights.
The legislation is being introduced on the basis that it is to deal with 'foreign nationals' potentially involved in the current international situation. However, as has been seen in the past, such brutal, oppressive legislation can and will be abused by state agencies to further their own hidden agendas.
Internment is a failed policy. Its widespread abuse by the British state, the British Army and the RUC for political purposes has caused untold damage and hurt to the nationalist community and created innumerable miscarriages of justice. Many of those responsible for such injustice remain within the NIO, the British Army and the renamed RUC.
The British Home Secretary is preparing to write a blank cheque for the undermining of people's fundamental human rights. The argument that to defend human rights they must be withheld is, indeed, something the British governement shares with the Taliban.
Suspension of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prevents indefinite detention without trial, will be confirmed next week, and with it the British government's failure to learn the lessons of history.
British Home Secretary David Blunkett's emergency legislation has revived the ugly spectre of internment, which formed an integral part of Britain's war in Ireland in the 1970s. It led to hundreds of young men being caged, without due legal process, without trial. Even British officials of the time later admitted that the policy was a disastrous failure and that many people were wrongly jailed.
The determination of the British government to opt out of international human rights standards by declaring a state of emergency and introducing powers of internment without trial is further indication of its failure to embrace the most basic principles of promoting human rights.
The legislation is being introduced on the basis that it is to deal with 'foreign nationals' potentially involved in the current international situation. However, as has been seen in the past, such brutal, oppressive legislation can and will be abused by state agencies to further their own hidden agendas.
Internment is a failed policy. Its widespread abuse by the British state, the British Army and the RUC for political purposes has caused untold damage and hurt to the nationalist community and created innumerable miscarriages of justice. Many of those responsible for such injustice remain within the NIO, the British Army and the renamed RUC.
The British Home Secretary is preparing to write a blank cheque for the undermining of people's fundamental human rights. The argument that to defend human rights they must be withheld is, indeed, something the British governement shares with the Taliban.
Suspension of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prevents indefinite detention without trial, will be confirmed next week, and with it the British government's failure to learn the lessons of history.