Turkeys for Thanksgiving
June 10, 2008
Lo and behold! Gordon Brown, the man who has been forlornly playing the pipe still wet with Tony Blair’s spit, has failed to lure many vermin with his call for for more draconian legislation. So when finally a rat does come out, it bears a Muslim name. According to the Daily Telegraph, Brown’s call for 42-day detention — a political move according to Jacqui Smith to present the Tories as soft on terrorism — has received the endorsement of one Khurshid Ahmed, Chairman of something called the ‘British Muslim Forum’. ( It is worth reading the current article in conjunction with this article by Gareth Peirce; it provides necessary context about the draconian “anti-terror” legislation in Britain). My friend Paul de Rooij comments:
The British government is seeking to pass a law allowing 42-day-detention without trial for “terror suspects”. Note, that Britain already has draconian “anti-terror” legislation in place from the days it fought Irish nationalists. All the recent measures added to this legislation are specifically targeting Muslim “terror suspects”, and thus it is truly bizarre to find a Muslim organization favoring the government’s proposed measures. It is a bit like an organization of turkeys popping up stating that they are in favor of Thanksgiving.
The history of terrorist arrests in the UK is appalling. Many wrongful convictions, brutality in prison and under questioning, horrendous conditions in jail causing prisoners to lose their minds… and the cases that led to many arrests and were trumpeted in the media resulted afterwards in the release of suspects without charges and without any apology. And there are other frivolous cases: imprisoning a woman who wrote a poem lauding the resistance fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan…
