Syria: International paralysis

The more the international community speaks out, the more impotent they sound. Words of condemnation become even stronger words of condemnation: we ‘deplore’, ‘are outraged’ ‘sickened,’ ‘horrified’ by events in Syria. Sanctions are ratcheted up with no desirable effect. Diplomats and ambassadors are expelled, surprising those who wondered why they were still in post in the first place.

There’s nothing reassuring about the world’s response to the massacre being waged by Syria’s President Assad against his own people. With one Arab Spring intervention behind, the West is loathed to take action again. And yet, whilst we intervened to prevent Colonel Gaddafi slaughtering the people of Benghazi, we won’t prevent Assad’s actual slaughter of the people of Homs and other areas.

Let me declare my hand and say that I wasn’t a supporter of the military response in Libya. Not because I didn’t want to see a tyrant ousted from power, but because I worried desperately that we were going to get embroiled in something we had little understanding of, exacerbating the death toll, with no idea what would come next once we helped the opposition take over.

The picture since Gaddafi’s overthrow has been mixed. All those who naively thought the Arab uprisings would give way to the blooming of secular democracies have been sorely disappointed. This is not to say that Libya isn’t better off without Gaddafi, but that the situation there is delicate to say the least.

Post war reprisals against supposed Gaddafi sympathisers – many of them black Africans – have marred some of the good will towards the rebels. Highly disturbing images and videos (warning: this link contains an extremely shocking video clip) have come out of torture and beatings, with revenge still on the minds of many rebels. One human rights activist from the town of Misrata says:

“...the brutal methods employed by former rebels are no different than that displayed by Gaddafi’s soldiers.”

Human Rights Watch has warned that legislation recently passed in the country threatens to criminalize freedom of speech:

“It will restrict free speech, stifle dissent, and undermine the principles on which the Libyan revolution was based.”

NATO has been accused of a dereliction of duty in not bothering to count the dead after its intervention. Casualty figures before and after have been virtually impossible to verify.

For Assad in Syria, it’s very much a case of like father like son. Emulating his father who, 30 years ago, crushed a rebellion, leaving anything from 10,000 to 40,000 people dead, depending on which source you consult. Today, the death toll in Syria stands at around 15,000, but again this figure is hard to corroborate.

So, why only words and no action? In Libya, it was Britain and France at the forefront of the action, with America taking a lesser role, happy to let it be seen as a predominantly European intervention. The situation in Libya was far more straight forward, in terms of what needed to be done. Syria presents many complex and unknown challenges. The UN Security Council is currently hamstrung by the refusal of Russia or China to isolate Assad. Whilst he retains their tacit support, because that’s what it is, he’s going nowhere.

As is always the case, the UN is only as effective as the sum of its parts; an easy target for some, notably the liberal interventionists, but the wrong target. Although it certainly didn’t help itself when UN monitors in the country coincided with an upsurge in violence, rather than their hopes of trying to quell it.

America will issue its powerfully worded statements, but there’s no way President Obama wants to get bogged down in another conflict on Muslim terrain. Not five months before a general election. The fortunes of the US economy is very much priority number one right now.

France’s newly elected President Hollande, as well as Germany’s Angela Merkel, are too pre-occupied with trying to stop the implosion of the Euro and its member states to devote their energies to anything else. Besides, Germany failed to lend its backing to the Libyan mission. Which leaves Britain, where there appears little appetite for action, with David Cameron no doubt briefed that any intervention could last far longer than Libya, which itself lasted longer than many predicted.

Syria’s rebels are therefore left with no more than the sounds of a disapproving, but seemingly toothless, international community ringing in their ears, knowing that words will do nothing to dampen the violence. President Assad knows this too, which is why the killings will go on and on.


This article was first published on Speaker's Chair on Thursday 31 May 2012

When Sport and Politics Collide

As if having to contend with another tricky Test series on unfriendly wickets and the inevitable trial by spin wasn't enough, Andrew Strauss, England's cricket captain, spent Wednesday fielding questions about alleged human rights atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan government during the final throes of its quarter of a century civil war with the Tamil Tigers.

Coming off the back of a Channel 4 exposé due to be shown later that evening, which itself followed a series of programmes broadcast last year detailing abuses throughout the war, Strauss was forced to be at his diplomatic best.

When asked to comment, he gave as honest an answer as he probably could:

"It's a bit of a tricky one. All around us we see atrocities taking place all over the world and in war a lot of unsavoury things happen on both sides.

"I personally think the political issues are dealt with by the politicians and administrators. But that doesn't mean we should stick our heads in the sand.

"If the British government feels there is a case to answer to a great enough extent that the England team shouldn't be touring somewhere then that is a call they need to make. Until that is the case, it would be wrong for us to focus on anything other than cricket."

No doubt Strauss would have preferred not have had to talk about this, but credit to him for not ducking the issue.

The question of how far sport and politics should mix, if at all, crops up every time England, or other nations, find themselves face to face with some of the world's most unpleasant regimes.

In fact, the question is largely a redundant one because sport and politics do merge, regularly, whether those in sport like it or not.

Long gone are the days when sportsmen and women could just go about their day jobs and be done with it. They're now ambassadors, role models, and sometimes most awkwardly, diplomats.

2003 and the cricket world cup was a fine example of where sport and politics collided, with politicians leaving their sport stars hung out to dry.

An exercise in farce, leading to utter confusion and bewilderment, played havoc with England's preparations. The question of whether they should or shouldn't play one of their group matches against Zimbabwe, the tournament's co-hosts, and a country run by the tyrannical leader Robert Mugabe, dogged the team for several months beforehand.

In the end, England decided to forfeit their points and not play in Zimbabwe, citing security concerns and fears over player safety.

But, it was the handling of this affair that did few favours to cricket's administrators.

The players could have been forgiven for feeling like they were caught in the crossfire as the ECB, those responsible for running English cricket, the ICC, cricket's world governing body, and the British government, spent several months coming out with contradictory statement after contradictory statement.

Finally settling on the view that England should not play in Zimbabwe, the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, issued this wholly unsatisfactory statement:

"There are no legal powers available to the government to ban a sporting team from participation. However, in the light of the deteriorating political and humanitarian situation in the country, ministers have made clear that if the decision were for them, England should not play in Zimbabwe."

To which a baffled Nasser Hussain, the then England cricket captain, responded:

"It is faintly ridiculous to suppose that the England captain and management have the time to come to the informed moral judgment which it is necessary to make about going to Zimbabwe."

The government's stance had only served to leave its cricketers "in the lurch," as Strauss put it some years later:

"In the past there've been chances to show the strength of feeling here and the government chose not to."

If the England cricket team wanted to see an example of moral courage, they only had to wait until the tournament began, and a look to their future coach, the Zimbabwean, Andy Flower, for inspiration.

Along with team mate Henry Olonga, they both took to the field, for the match between Zimbabwe and Namibia, wearing black armbands to 'mourn the death of democracy in Zimbabwe.'

In contrast to the dithering and spinelessness of the ICC and ECB, they were praised as players who:

"Shine out like diamonds in a pile of mud."

Showing that they had learned the lessons of 2003, five years later, the government finally showed some backbone and, together with the ECB, spoke as one in cutting ties with the Zimbabwean cricket board and cancelling Zimbabwe's summer tour of England in 2009.

Andy Burnham, then in his role as Culture Secretary, said that the government's actions had lifted pressure off the players:

"It was quite unfair [in the past] to leave individual players in the position of having to make a moral judgement in the context of an awkward and uncomfortable position.

"The right thing to do was to provide clarity. We made the decision after giving it the longest possible time for the situation to change in Zimbabwe."

Away from cricket, the decision to award the 2008 Olympic games to China was not without controversy. Another country with an appalling human rights record was, to its critics, handed sport's premier stage to embark on a two week propaganda exercise for the government.

Boycotts were proposed but never carried through.

Ahead of this summer's games, a whole litany of athletes from repressive regimes will descend on London. Saudi Arabia will arrive minus any female competitors, banned by their government from taking part.

To what extent the UK is indirectly endorsing this policy by allowing Saudi Arabia to come at all is a point worth asking, if perhaps unfair.

As to whether England should be touring Sri Lanka, I would say yes, they should be. As much as some of us might like our sportsmen and women to behave like moral crusaders, the reality is that we'd also like them to do what they do they best: entertaining (and frustrating) us.

The lesson learned post-2003's Zimbabwe fiasco is that it's simpler, and more desirable, for governments to take a lead and sport to follow. English cricket has certainly benefited from this.

And like everything else in the world of politics, politics intervening in sport has, and always will be, an exercise in selectivity.

This article was first published by Left Foot Forward on Thursday 15 March 2012

Syria: Why Haven't We Intervened Yet? Blame Iraq. Or even Libya.

If ever there was a case for backing some form of military intervention, what's happening in Syria is surely it, right?

If only it were that simple. In fact, maybe it is that simple.

How many more people have to die, have to be terrorised and slaughtered, in order for the world to do something, other than condemn (do you really think President Assad gives two hoots what the world thinks?), and impose sanctions after yet more sanctions?

UN estimates have put the death toll since last March's uprising at around 5,400. Last month, with fears over accuracy, and due to the body count escalating at such an alarming rate, they chose to suspend keeping track. According to human rights groups and activists on the ground, a figure in excess of 7,000 is more likely.

The Assad regime and his cronies have now been accused of committing "crimes against humanity." Reliable evidence has laid out many of the atrocities being carried out in the city of Homs and elsewhere:

"...army snipers and Shabbiha gunmen [from pro-Assad militias] posted at strategic points terrorised the population, targeting and killing small children, women and other unarmed civilians. Fragmentation mortar bombs were also fired into densely populated neighbourhoods."

"Security agencies continued to systematically arrest wounded patients in state hospitals and to interrogate them, often using torture, about their supposed participation in opposition demonstrations or armed activities."

What Assad is doing in Homs is surely what Gaddafi had threatened to do in Benghazi had the West not intervened?

Which then exposes two often cited criticisms of Western foreign policy: hypocrisy and inconsistency. Why did we intervene in Libya, but steered clear of Yemen, or Bahrain, or, for the moment, Syria?

Some reports suggested that the US gave its tacit approval for a Saudi Arabia backed crackdown on protesters in Bahrain last year. Only two weeks ago, we hear that the UK has continued to sell arms totalling over £1m to the Bahraini regime, coming merely months after its internal repression.

There's your hypocrisy and inconsistency beautifully summed up.

Some we back, some we arm, then we oppose, then we attack, and then we arm again. Isn't that how it goes?

And, surely Iraq has sullied our appetite for intervention? The absolute horror of what we did in Iraq, and to a lesser extent Afghanistan, the mess we created, the unspeakable loss of life, serves as a (still ongoing) reminder of what damage we can do if we put our minds to it.

Without Iraq and Afghanistan, action would probably be far more forthcoming in Syria. Then again, Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with humanitarian intervention and so it's unfair to compare the two. Which makes what's happening in Syria, and our seemingly impotent response, all the more tragic.

And yet, as in most cases, what we do in Syria isn't clear cut. If it was, a more robust approach may have been in the offing by now.

Despite what looks like a one-sided massacre to the outside world, Navi Pillay, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, has characterised it as civil war. But, she also warned that the UN Security Council's failure to come up with a resolution has re-energised and emboldened Assad.

The first thing to say is that Syria isn't Libya. There is no united opposition to arm, no Syrian version of the Libyan National Transitional Council:

"[Libya] is a nation of six and a half million people, while [Syria] consists of more than 20 million. Unlike Libya, Syria's densely populated cities and towns are a mix of ethnic and religious communities; the country cannot be spliced into pro-rebel east and pro-dictator west."

Even within the different opposition groups, opinions remain divided, as to what type, if any, of outside support is desired.

The Economist has argued that 'a focus on firepower' would merely play into Assad's hands:

"...the grounds on which he would most like to fight are military. Foreign bombing would satisfy outsiders’ urge to do something—anything—to show their outrage. But even in Libya, which had a front-line and a terrain more vulnerable to aerial attack, bombing took a long time to weaken Qaddafi’s forces. In Syria it would have less military value."

It could also be argued that inside Syria, there is no overwhelming desire to see Assad deposed.

An opinion poll conducted last December showed that 55% of Syrians still want Assad in power. However, three important caveats should be attached to this finding.

Firstly, fear about the future of the country was one of the principal reasons behind this figure. Not necessarily direct and unconditional support for Assad.

Secondly, a lot has happened in the past couple of months. A poll carried out today may well show very different results.

Thirdly, and perhaps most significantly, it was revealed this weekend, that the poll of just over 1,000 people, covered those from the Middle East and North Africa. Only 98 of those who answered were in fact from Syria, a tiny sample.

Finally, and perhaps most decisively, intervention may only intensify the killing and result in even more bloodshed, as was the case in Libya.

Casualties of the Libyan conflict have been hard to verify due to a lack of independent and rigorous monitoring.

Before NATO's involvement in March last year, estimates put the dead at a couple of thousand. According to the Libyan government, around 30,000 eventually died (from both sides), with 50,000 injured, by the end of its six month war. This includes anything between 13,000 and 17,000 civilian deaths.

It's extremely telling, and hugely depressing, that NATO forces never formally counted the dead. The invasion was, after all, to protect civilians.

Then there were also the widely reported reprisals that were waged, after the toppling of Gaddafi, against black African migrants living in Tripoli, many accused of working for Gaddafi as 'mercenaries.'

All this demonstrates how fraught with danger military action is.

Meanwhile, Assad continues to pulverise the people of Homs, with the West uncertain as to what to do next, and a litany of failed and discredited (humanitarian) interventions behind it.

Maybe, as argued on Left Foot Forward this week, it's time we left it for others to sort out.

This article was first published by Left Foot Forward on Monday 27 February 2012

Women's Rights Under Attack in Israel

“A public transportation operator, like any other person, does not have the right to order, request, or tell women where they may sit simply because they are women.”

So said Israel’s Supreme Court Justice, Elyakim Rubinstein, in a ruling he gave in 2010, in response to an outcry over gender segregation being enforced on Israel’s buses that served mostly ultra-orthodox areas of Jerusalem.

‘Voluntary segregation,’ with passenger consent, however, is still permitted.

On these bus routes, women boarding from the back and staying there, whilst the men fill the front, is not an uncommon sight.

This issue was given extra prominence a couple of weeks ago when, in a closed lecture in Washington, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, voiced her concern over such practices taking place. Images of Rosa Parks and 1955 sprung to mind, an alarm echoed by Rubinstein in his judgement.

In recent years, a highly visible battle has broken out between Israel’s ultra-orthodox or Haredi community, making up around 9% of the population, and their predominantly secular counterparts.

This has extended, in particular, to what some see as women’s rights coming under attack from a reactionary, illiberal, but also highly politicised, and increasingly influential minority.

The bus episodes are just one in a litany of other examples (£).

For the Haredi, the sights and sounds of women singing in public are seen as ‘impure.’ Women’s faces plastered on public billboards and buses are regarded as ‘improper,’ for they may arouse sinful thoughts. Instead, they are defaced or covered up.

During this year’s celebration of the festival of Sukkot, separate footpaths were designated for men and women. And in signs that these tensions have spilled out beyond the capital, there were reports that organisers of a military ceremony in October had forced male and female soldiers to sit apart.

According to Shira Ben-Sasson Furstenberg of the New Israel Fund, an equalities organisation, the Haredi’s impact is spreading, with them having more and more say over public life.

Her organisation fight against the “erasure” of women from public advertising, and have launched a “Women should be seen and heard” campaign.

At one of its recent events, some of Israel’s most famous female vocalists were on show, in a unified display against the edict of those religious extremists who seek to outlaw women singing in public.

“Silence is not an option. I love my country and my Jewish heritage and I will not allow the equivalent of the local Taliban to humiliate us women,” said a defiant Ahinoam Nini, well-renowned Jazz singer.

Gershom Gorenberg, author of The Unmaking of Israel, believes it is a mistake to see the Haredi as one homogenous group, and points out that gender segregation has always existed within the ultra-orthodox community:

“What we're seeing is the actions of the most hardline elements. Within the community, legitimacy comes from how strict you are. So it's hard for more moderate elements to openly oppose the extremists."

"But what we're seeing is an insistence on a more stringent interpretation and a stronger expression of that publicly."

Yet, rather than seeing this assertion of orthodoxy wane anytime soon, the opposite is more likely true. Orthodox Jews comprise 40% of the ruling coalition government, over 40% of new army recruits, and a birth rate more than double that of secular Jews.

In short, Israeli society, and those residents of Jerusalem, of which the ultra-orthodox count for more than one-in-five, is going to have to get even more used to such public spats.

Secular and women’s groups have their work cut out.

This article was first published by Liberal Conspiracy on Thursday 15 December 2011

Human Rights Abuses in the New Libya

I'll begin by saying that I was never a supporter of the West's military intervention in Libya.

All I could think of were ulterior motives: oil, defence contracts, geo-political influence in such a vital and unstable part of the world.

Also, why help Libya but not other countries rising up against tyranny? Why not intervene in Syria or Yemen or Bahrain, where there were some equally appalling abuses taking place? Why do we pick and choose which countries to help and which to not?

At the time, The Economist wrote that not intervening everywhere was no reason not to intervene somewhere. I accepted this as a plausible argument, but still found myself against intervention.

Another reason I gave was that whilst we were defending and arming Libyan rebels one day in their fight for freedom, these could be the very same people in power, many months or years down the line, ruling just as brutally and fiercely as Gaddafi before them. We've been here many times before haven't we?

A Human Rights Watch report out this week backs up some of these reservations. It builds on similar reports that have gone before it, detailing instances of dreadful human rights abuses committed by the rebels against supposed Gaddafi loyalists:

"Militias from the city of Misrata are terrorizing the displaced residents of the nearby town of Tawergha, accusing them of having committed atrocities with Gaddafi forces in Misrata. The entire town of 30,000 people is abandoned – some of it ransacked and burned – and Misrata brigade commanders say the residents of Tawergha should never return."

"Human Rights Watch interviewed dozens of Tawerghans across the country, including 26 people in detention in and around Misrata and 35 displaced people staying in Tripoli, Heisha, and Hun. They gave credible accounts of some Misrata militias shooting unarmed Tawerghans, and of arbitrary arrests and beatings of Tawerghan detainees, in a few cases leading to death."

As Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, rightfully pointed out:

"Revenge against the people from Tawergha, whatever the accusations against them, undermines the goal of the Libyan revolution."

This report came off the back of one released a few weeks ago by Amnesty International telling of torture meted out against anyone suspected of being tied to the Gaddafi regime.

They found that:

"Captured Gaddafi soldiers, suspected loyalists and alleged mercenaries [were] being tortured into ‘confessing’ to pro-Gaddafi crimes."

A pattern was found of '...arbitrary detention and widespread abuse of detainees.'

The report, Detention Abuses Staining the New Libya, worryingly found that:

"...sub-Saharan Africans suspected of being mercenaries make up between a third and a half of those detained.

Many were released, with little evidence found to back up these accusations.

Back in September, the BBC drew attention to reprisals being waged against black African migrants living in Libya's capital, Tripoli. Many had been accused by the rebels of working for Colonel Gaddafi as 'mercenaries,' rather than doing the casual manual labour that they claim they had been doing.

Hundreds of migrant workers were rounded up and imprisoned, with claims that their homes had been looted, and women and girls subjected to beatings and rape.

The lessons of all these reports is surely that we know very little about the people we've supported. I know we've helped in removing another tyrant (although the manner of Gaddafi's death is also profoundly disturbing), and of course Libya and the world is much the better for it, but what's going to come next?

Whatever it is, surely we've already given it our tacit approval.


A slightly edited version of this article was published by Liberal Conspiracy on Monday 7 November 2011

The UK's Role in The Arms Trade

It’s business as usual in the murky world of the arms trade. This week, ahead of the biennial Defence and Security Equipment International exhibition, Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, delighted in telling us just how “proud” he is of the UK’s arms manufacturers.

Despite its huge controversies, it still had a “key role” to play, particularly in “enlightened international engagement.” This ‘engagement’ sees Britain exporting arms to some of the world’s most repressive and authoritarian regimes.

Many of whom were present – including representatives from Bahrain, fresh from killing its own citizens in a crackdown on anti-government protests back in the Spring -  and showing off their fighter jets, missiles, tear gas, drones and other weaponry, all on display at the Excel Centre in London’s Docklands.

Trailing well behind the US, the UK is home to the world’s second largest defence and security sector. A report out this week by Aerospace Defence and Security, a UK trade organisation, showed why, irrespective of their political leanings, governments see it as a cherished industry. It revealed that in 2010, the defence sector was worth around £22bn to the UK economy, of which £9.5bn was made in exports. It provided jobs for some 110,000 people.

Saudi Arabia - number 160 (of 167 countries) in the Democracy Index -, is the biggest buyer of UK weapons, with its contracts bringing the latter £300m last year. According to Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), earlier this year, Saudi Arabia: “sent scores of UK-made armoured personnel carriers into Bahrain to aid the government’s bloody suppression of pro-democracy protestors.”

Arms destined for Bahrain, as well as Libya, were suspended in February. Commenting at the time, Foreign Office Minister, Alistair Burt, said:

“we will not authorise any exports which, we assess, might provoke or prolong regional or internal conflicts, which might be used to facilitate internal repression.”

In April, a report by MPs, hailed as ‘ground-breaking’ by its committee chair, and issued at the height of the Arab uprisings, spelled out the bleeding obvious:

“both the present government and its predecessor misjudged the risk that arms approved for export to certain authoritarian countries in North Africa and the Middle East might be used for internal repression.”

It highlighted the fact that in the months and years leading up to the uprisings, the UK had approved £2.3bn worth of deals in arms exports to countries such as Egypt and Yemen.

In particular in Libya, another report showed that licences had been granted for the sale of items used for ‘crowd control,’ such as smoke canisters, stun grenades and anti-riot/ballistic shields. Indeed, these weapons were being sold to the Gaddafi regime right up until the end of last year.

Yet in July, the government themselves concluded that “there was no evidence of any misuse of controlled military goods exported from the United Kingdom.” But in response to these claims, an incredulous Sir John Stanley, chairman of the arms controls committees said:

“I am not surprised by the Government’s stated outcome of its review. Given that there has been, understandably, an almost total absence of official observers in close proximity to the violent internal repression that has been taking place, and given also the fact that the UK Government approved arms exports including machine guns, sniper rifles, combat shot-guns and ammunition as detailed in Annex 4 of our Report were not emblazoned with Union Jacks, it is hardly surprising that the FCO could safely conclude” [this].

Depressingly, things continue as before. Liam Fox’s strong support for the defence sector merely sits neatly alongside a previous quip by the Defence Equipment Minister, Peter Luff, that:

"there will be a very, very, very heavy Ministerial commitment to (arms sales). There is a sense that in the past we were rather embarrassed about exporting defence products. There is no such embarrassment in this Government."

Or by Gerald Howarth, the International Security Strategy Minister:

 “this Government has been clear from the outset, and so have I: we are proud to support the biggest defence exports drive in decades.”

And of course David Cameron, who used his chance as the first world leader to visit Egypt following the toppling of Hosni Mubarak, to take along a delegation of some of Britain’s leading figures in the defence industry.

No doubt the UK will continue to play lip service to human rights concerns when exporting weapons, suspend trading if and when a controversy arises, wait for the dust to settle, and recommence sales as soon as it possibly can. To do otherwise would be, in the Prime Minister’s words, “at odds with reality;” a reality that puts money and a supposed ‘national interest’ above all else.

This article was first published by Left Foot Forward on Friday 16 Setpember 2011

Civil Liberties and Human Rights After 9/11

As far as some of our Western leaders were concerned, the aftermath of September 11^th was not a time for reflection or debate; little room was afforded for complexities.

If you couldn’t unconditionally offer your support for whatever course of action came next, you were as good as an apologist for terror. 

This desire to polarise was very quickly extended to the field of civil liberties: were the public prepared to sacrifice some of their civil liberties in return for greater security? The political rhetoric was blunt and unashamedly direct: the greatest liberty was the right to life, the right to live free from terror.

What then followed made human rights groups, campaigners, and anyone wary of an abuse of state power, aghast. George W. Bush’s America and New Labour’s Britain became privy to some of the most regressive and authoritarian legislation ever passed.

Centuries’ worth of rights were steadily eroded. The human rights of terror suspects outside the US and UK, when they came up against the “war on terror” machine, were treated with equal disdain.

In the US, dissenting voices (i.e. those asking the ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions following the attacks) were slapped down. Those looking for any sort of explanation were demonised.

Thus, against this background, merely six weeks after 9/11, and with barely any chance to debate it, the absurdly named “Patriot Act” was passed. Unbelievably, most members of Congress later admitted to having never even read its contents before voting it into law. And of course to oppose it was to be unpatriotic, even traitorous, when your country is under attack.

Its powers were wide-reaching, and included the right for a government agency to go through any individual’s personal records, be it their bank or hospital records, or even checking what books they were taking out from the library.

Before 9/11, the government at least had to suspect someone of being a terrorist or spy. Now, any records deemed “relevant to an investigation” could be sought.

It also gave widening powers to email and telecommunication wiretaps, and the right for the government to enter its citizens’ homes unannounced. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, these measures were simply ‘unconstitutional.’

Outside of America, Guantanamo Bay went from merely being a harbour located in south east Cuba, to a place where America detained hundreds of men in orange jumpsuits, picked up from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and accused of being terrorists with links to Al-Qaeda. Labelled ‘enemy combatants,’ their status therefore fell outside legal protections offered to prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention.

Secret US military files obtained earlier this year confirmed what many had suspected and reported for a while: detention without trial based on ‘the flimsiest grounds,’ the ill treatment of prisoners, and the use in certain cases of torture (or ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ to use its sanitised moniker) to extract information.

Since 2002 between 750 and 800 have been held there, yet only two have ever been convicted of a crime. Over 150 still remain, seemingly in a state of legal limbo.

The term ‘extraordinary rendition’ also entered the post 9/11 lexicon and applied to terror suspects being forcibly taken from one country and flown to certain locations around the world, where intelligence was gleaned using instruments of torture such as ‘waterboarding,’ something that both President Bush and his deputy were more than happy to admit took place.

All this against a backdrop of supposedly fighting to defend Western values and freedoms: for Messrs Bush and Cheney, the rule of law, habeas corpus and other enshrined human rights, were clearly not meant to be universal principles.  

Over in Britain, civil liberties were attacked with the same gusto by the Blair administration, as successive Home Secretaries sought to outdo each other for the title of ‘most authoritarian Secretary of State since…’

Even though Britain had only just passed the Terrorism Act 2000: “the first permanent counter-terrorist legislation in the UK,” aimed at combating terrorism in Northern Ireland as well as widening the definition of terrorism to cover both the domestic and international, after 9/11,  Labour felt compelled to pass a whole new swathe of anti-terror legislation.

We had the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001, the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, the Terrorism act 2006, and the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, to name but four.

Other pieces of legislation, such as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, “while not aimed explicitly or primarily at countering terrorism” as The Guardian explained, “nevertheless had a significant impact on the powers available to the police and security services.”

The impact of these led critics to accuse the government of riding roughshod over a whole litany of civil liberties. The principle charge was that much of this legislation lacked proportionality and was indeed counter-productive.

The human rights group Liberty have regularly argued that much of the counter-terrorism legislation is: “dangerously broad and has affected vast numbers of people, in particular peaceful protestors and ethnic minority groups.”

In December 2004, the government’s policy of indefinite detention without trial of foreign nationals accused of terrorist offences was deemed illegal by the House of Lords, with one of the Law Lords, Lord Hoffmann, delivering his now infamous rebuke that:

“the real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these.”

In response, egged on from the right wing press and fear of the dreaded charge of being ‘soft on terror,’ and for the need to try and outmuscle the Tories on issues of national security, pre-charge detention became another controversial tool in the fight against terror. Terror suspects faced the prospect of 28 days (up from 7) in prison without charge.

Research revealed this to be the longest detention without charge of any democracy, and yet the government had wanted this increased to a staggering 90 days.

‘Stop and Search’ was widened to gave police even more powers, but was deemed to be a completely ineffective ‘crude instrument.’ Figures revealed that it was used 101,248 times in 2009/10, resulting in 506 arrests, of which not a single one was for a terrorist-related offence.

Last summer it was deemed to be illegal by the European Court of Human Rights, and ditched by the present government.

We have also seen the right to protest and freedom speech treated with similar contempt. Legitimate and peaceful demonstrations have also come up against anti-terror laws, whether they be climate change activists, students or a lone protestor outside parliament.

The “encouragement of terrorism” became an offence. Whether somebody or a group says something that wasn’t intended to glorify terrorism, they still could face up to seven years in prison.

According to the international human rights group, Article 19, the definition of terrorism in UK law is ‘both vague and excessively broad in reach,’ with a potential wide range of acts criminalised.

In short, the years following September 11^th have seen a betrayal of a whole raft of civil liberties.

Rather than standing up for these fundamental rights, the UK and US governments have abused them without pause. And they have managed to do this by playing on the public’s fear of that possible next attack, safe in the knowledge that - because of this fear - they are likely to retain their support almost whatever they do to restrict their liberty.


This article was first published by Left Foot Forward on Sunday 11 September 2011