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We must end the view that civil liberties are negotiable
Jean Charles de Menezes is another victim of Blair's war on terror.
By Liz Davies
07/25/05 "Morning Star" - - LONDON is a frightening place to live right now. We Londoners are being shown a small glimpse of what it must be like to live in Baghdad. We are in danger - from terrorist bombs and trigger-happy police.
On Friday, the police acted as judge, jury and executioner. Jean Charles de Menezes is a victim of the war on terror in London, just as those who died on July 7 are victims.
He was killed for three simple reasons - he wasn't white, he was wearing a bulky coat and he ran away from the police. Who knows why he ran, but for no reason could that justify summary execution.
The rush by leading London and national politicians and by most sections of the media to support the police action has been breathtaking.
In a democratic society, the first response when a member of the public is killed by the police should be to suspend the officers involved and to announce an independent inquiry.
There are circumstances, obviously, when an inquiry might conclude that the only thing that the police could have done, to protect the public or themselves, was to kill.
But the gravity of that conclusion is such that it should only be reached after independent scrutiny of all the circumstances, not as a knee-jerk reaction on the day. Instead, politician after politician queued up to explain that shoot-to-kill is now necessary.
Now that we know that Menezes had nothing to do with terrorism and that there is to be an inquiry, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has expressed his regret at the tragedy but added, almost casually, that it might happen again.
The inquiry must examine not only the actions of the police at the scene but the instructions from the top and the whole "shoot-to-kill" policy. It must never happen again.
Where have we seen the state operate shoot-to-kill before? Apartheid South Africa, present-day Palestine, Los Angeles and, of course, Northern Ireland.
New Labour's assault on civil liberties, ratcheted up several notches post-September 11, reproduces the infamous policing techniques used in Northern Ireland.
Extraordinarily, new Labour has chosen those methods from Northern Ireland which were not only abuses of civil liberties but were also profoundly ineffective.
'We must end the view that civil liberties are negotiable.'
Internment in 1970s Northern Ireland, described as the best recruiting tool for the IRA, has been followed by 21st-century detention in Belmarsh.
Muslim communities are treated by the police and racists as suspect communities, with thousands of young non-white men subject to stop and search and racist attacks escalating, in the same way that the Irish community suffered in the 1970s and 1980s.
Now, we see the police operating shoot-to-kill and doing so under pressure, after July 21, to get results. The pressure to get results produced the Guildford Four, Birmingham Six, Annie Maguire and her family and Judith Ward - all appalling miscarriages of justice, but at least not executions.
This war on terror has become a byword for failures of intelligence. A failure of intelligence led to Jean Charles de Menezes's death.
A failure of intelligence and our politicians doctoring the intelligence that was available led to the announcement that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, to an illegal invasion and continuing illegal occupation and to the deaths of thousands of innocents - civilians and soldiers.
Those failures of intelligence have created the climate for terrorism to escalate.
We must end the view that civil liberties are negotiable.
The US and Britain have encouraged and practised torture, despite the absolute prohibition on torture in international law that both countries have signed up to.
Both countries will use evidence extracted by torture elsewhere. Both have practised torture on detainees in Iraq, in Bagram and in Guantanamo Bay, alternatively denied and justified as preventing further acts of terrorism.
But, of course, what someone says under torture is not reliable, it's aimed at what the victim believes the torturer wants to hear. Mass murders have not been prevented. Torture didn't identify the bombers in Madrid, Istanbul, London or Egypt.
Now, summary execution is acceptable if, apparently, it is used to forestall mass murder. But, just like torture, the chances of summary execution actually preventing mass murder are remote.
The chances, however, of the police getting it wrong and killing innocent people are high. A democratic state has a duty to maintain non-negotiable standards - otherwise, we slip further and further into arbitrary state power.
Friday's shooting will make it harder for the police to find and prosecute those involved in the events of July 7 and 21 or anyone planning similar criminal acts. Just as the Irish community was suspicious of the police, so anyone who might be mistaken for a Muslim - logically, any of us, given that it is a religion, but, in practice, those who are not white - will think twice before giving information to the police.
Suppose they detain me as a terrorist suspect? Suppose they shoot me if they raid my next-door neighbour's house?
After July 7, Charles Clarke announced further anti-terrorism offences. With the exception of the thought-crime proposal to criminalise anyone "glorifying" acts of terrorism, these offences are as yet unspecified and will be put before Parliament in the autumn, along with the government's earlier proposals to introduce ID cards.
It's hard to imagine that Labour MPs will now have the guts to vote down ID cards, but the arguments remain the same post-July 7.
ID cards wouldn't have prevented the tragedies that day. As for the creation of further anti-terrorist offences, there are plenty of criminal offences available - murder, conspiracy to commit murder, the carrying of explosives.
The police don't lack offences with which to charge potential suicide bombers - their problem lies in detecting them. The reality of more anti-terrorism offences is that the police will have more tools and more opportunity to harass anyone that they choose and grievances will escalate.
Above all, political solutions are required to end the war on terror. Blair's denial that the London bombs had any connection with the occupation of Iraq is as unrealistic and self-justifying as an alcoholic denying that he has a problem.
Ending the occupation of Iraq and achieving justice for the Palestinians are necessary to bring about a better world and would have the useful by-product of eliminating some of the sense of grievance that causes a very few to resort to violence.
Until those happen, we will all remain less safe - from terrorism and from the state.
• Liz Davies is a barrister and long-standing labour movement and peace activist. She is vice-chairwoman of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers. She writes this column in a personal capacity.
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