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November 21, 2005
UK: Lords Debates Anti-Terror Bill
Today the House of Lords has been discussing the second reading of the controversial terrorism bill. Already in the House of Commons, the decision to detain potential terror suspects for 90 days, which was Tony Blair's desired option, was voted out on November 9. Members of parliament substituted an amendment limiting the time a suspect can be held without charge to only 28 days.
The Guardian announced today that the bill would be receiving a detailed scrutiny from the opposition Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, before sending it back to the House of Commons.
Senior police officers supported the 90 day detention clause, but the Guardian states that the Association of Chief Police Officers has privately voiced its displeasure at four of the fourteen clauses in the bill. Their reason? They believe these would risk alienating Muslims, even though extremist Muslims now constitute the biggest single threat to society.
The controversial clauses are these:
With attitudes like this in the police force, no wonder crime is rampant, and groups who are successors to Al-Muhajiroun are sneering openly at UK society.
Human Rights Watch has also joined in with its own criticism, stating that the proposed offfence of "encouraging terrorism" is "likely to have a chilling effect on free expression in classrooms, media newsrooms and mosques."
When I have recovered from my bout of appeasement nausea, I will be updating this post later.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 21, 2005 12:17 PM
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