Bollocks.

[mrph]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2360319.stm

I hope this gets overturned again. It's a knee-jerk response that shouldn't have been approved in the first place.

Comments

[taoist-goth.livejournal.com]

It does seem a bit... heavy handed. Indefinitely? That's like "at Her Majesty's Leisure"!

Surely some kind of limit should be imposed.

[mrph.livejournal.com]

It's not just that - it's the fact that they're not allowed to see the evidence against them, and so can't mount an informed appeal (the argument used being that this might endanger government intelligence sources - but presumably the same issue comes up in many big organised crime trials, and they manage...).

And, of course, the fact that the law only applies to those who aren't UK citizens.

Oh, and best of all (and, to my mind, the bit that really proves it's a bad law...) - these people are being detained because they're supposed to be dangerous terrorists. But if they choose to leave the UK, they're promptly released without charge and expelled from the country. That hardly seems a sensible way to treat dangerous terrorists...

That makes it sound very much like it's more of a "we don't want you here 'cos you're a political embarrassment - we'll lock you up until you choose to go away". Which is consistent with the profiles of some of the named detainees - hardline Islamic leaders who say bad things about Israel & the West...

[taoist-goth.livejournal.com]

So they can secure their immediate release by agreeing to leave the UK?

I guess that's why it got passed. It's not really imprisonment if you can walk free any time you like...

Having said that it's still a crap piece of legislation.

[giolla.livejournal.com]

To be honest it's not all that different from some of the provisions of the Prevention of terrorism act, when did that cease to be "temporary measures" BTW, which does apply to UK citizens.

Must get a new copy of the explanatory guide to the PTA

Never

[odubtaig.livejournal.com]

The PoT act (well, effectively the PoT act) has been in force on a "temporary" basis for decades in Northern Ireland. Go figure.

Re: Never

[giolla.livejournal.com]

I thought the last governemtn or the one before dropped the temporary bit.