As anyone who knows me, or has read any of my blogs, will attest, I could hardly be described as a ‘bleeding heart liberal’. In fact the phrase “well to the right of Genghis Kahn” I take as a compliment. I am however increasingly worried by the continuing erosion of fundamental elements of our civil liberties, which we all used to believe were our inalienable right.
Today all 12 suspects arrested in a security operation intended to thwart what the Prime Minister said was “a very big terrorist plot” have been released without charge. These arrests were, you may remember, precipitated by Scotland Yard’s head of counter-terrorism's accidental disclosure of details of proposed raids, by exposing a secret and confidential dossier.
This is not the first time that so called terrorists have been spectacularly arrested only to be later released, much more quietly. It seems that in the name of “The War On Terror” the age old adage of “Innocent Until Proven Guilty” has been replaced by “Innocent Until Proven Pakistani”. The sacrificing of our rights to the god of the war on terror is, sadly, only the tip of what I believe to be a disturbing murky iceberg.
I believe that this Socialist, Central Soviet, government, formally of comrade Blair (or B. Liar as he should more accurately be known) and currently headed (I can’t bring myself to say “lead”) by tovarich Brown, has steadily steered us down a path toward a Stalinist police state.
Presumably fuelled by its insatiable desire to control every aspect of every individual’s life (and thought processes if they believed that they could get away with it), rights and freedoms we have enjoyed for almost a thousand years have quietly disappeared from the statute book.
Gone are the days when you had the right to remain silent. When you did stay ‘schtum’ British law was very clear that just because you did not say anything your silence could not be construed as guilt. This was because the burden of proof was always on the prosecution; so I did not have to prove my innocence, it was always assumed. Today judges can direct a jury to assume exactly the opposite and a failure to testify can be assumed as guilt. There used also to be the right of Habeaus Corpus. Now the police can kick your door down at 4:00am and hold you without charge for 28 days (remember the government wanted this to be 56 days). It appears that no needs any actual hard evidence to do this as you can be released, after this period, without charge, as in today’s case. When you are released the police don’t even have to say they're sorry, nor apparently do they have to justify locking you up in the first place, beyond saying that it “was in the interest of national security”.
If the police did have a valid reason for arresting these young men why, now that they have been released, can we not see it? Whatever happened to the concept of “wrongful arrest” (itself a crime)?
It is becoming clear to me that the police are increasingly acting as an arm of the government, who are arming them with powers to ride roughshod over the rights of the individual. Even opposition shadow cabinet ministers are not exempt. Armed with such powers the police themselves seem to be taking a stance of not being our guardians but our warders. Flushed with their seemingly limitless power, and the fact they are divorced from any consequences, they appear to be operating from the view that “everyone is guilty and we will catch you eventually”. They also feel empowered to physically attack protestors, or anyone else for that matter, willy-nilly, again without consequence.
When servants become masters in this way I suggest that there is something fundamentally wrong with our society. I believe that people should not be afraid of their government, or their police force, the government, or the police, should always be afraid of their people. Our rights and freedoms give us the ability to exercise our power over our government and police force and we should all be afraid when they are, taken away from us.
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