What do you think of holding a suspect without charge for 42 days?

[stan1980]

Today in the UK, our government has passed a bill meaning all terror suspects can be held for 42 days without charge. Fine you might say, but to me 42 days seems like an awfully long time to hold someone without even a charge. If the police say you're a terror suspect, then that's it, up to 42 days banged up. Guilty until proven innocent.

Can we trust our government or our police over something like this? I think not. Just off the top of my head I can think of quite a few people who have already been detained under The Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Some guy who heckled Tony Blair at a Labour conference.
The cyclists who had chained their bikes to a pier in Westminster
Some man who camped outside parliament for years to protest against the war in Iraq

Today, you can't even get anywhere near parliament to protest, and if you do, you will be arrested under the terrorism act.

I realise not everyone here is British, but just wondering what you would think if this was happening in your country. Could you trust your government or security not to abuse their powers?

 

[keith99]

42 days?

Sounds like they are reducing the time they can hold people without charges!

BTW did I mention my heritage is Irish?

 

[oneofthem]

Well, it's better than an unlimited period, such as several people at Guantanamo Bay. I know there was a Brittish guy recently, and you may have heard of David Hicks (Aussie) who was there for five years until the Australian Prime Minister finally folded under pressure from his unpopularity over the issue.

I think it's shocking. If guilty until proven innocent, then that should apply across the whole justice system, but if that were to happen, that would be a violation of human rights.

 

[καλλιστι]

It could go either way.

I do know, however, that MI5 and MI6 are monitoring 30(?) Islamic terrorist cells and are waiting for enough evidence to incriminate them.

 

[Robbie_James_Francis]

This really makes me wonder what exactly we're fighting the terrorists to defend.

42 days is an absurd period of time to hold someone without charge. I can accept that in an apparent emergency it might be necessary to detain someone for a few days before there is enough evidence to actually charge them. But 6 weeks?!

This is moving the threshold for detention well below the that of reasonable suspicion and into 'guilty until proven innocent'. Unless we're going to hold to that way of acting, in which case we ought to abandon our entire legal system, then IMO we must accept that if the police don't have sufficient evidence to charge, as far as the judiciary is concerned they have no evidence and therefore no grounds for detention.

And I missed the opening of your post at first and thought you said they were trying to pass it...I can't believe it actually passed! I can't say I'm surprised the Unionists voted like fascists (oh, should probably mention my Irish heritage too!), but I can't believe only 36 Labour MPs had the guts to vote against the government.

 

[stan1980]

This really makes me wonder what exactly we're fighting the terrorists to defend.

Is it just me, or is this government acting on what is printed in the tabloids, rather than what is actually happening. To be honest, I'll be glad when Gordon "I'll spend millions on reports, then ignore every damn word in it" Brown gets kicked out of leadership (see cannabis reclassification).

I can't say I'm surprised the Unionists voted like fascists

Ironic really, if Sinn Fein had bothered to show up then this wouldn't have passed. Yes, yes, I know why they don't attend parliament.

 

[TheManeki]

I heard about this change in law this morning on NPR. I found it very interesting that the law enforcement forces had not asked for this; the government decided to just go ahead on its own and extend the time one could be detained without any charges pressed. Sad.

 

[Robbie_James_Francis]

Is it just me, or is this government acting on what is printed in the tabloids, rather than what is actually happening. To be honest, I'll be glad when Gordon "I'll spend millions on reports, then ignore every damn word in it" Brown gets kicked out of leadership (see cannabis reclassification).

That's exactly what I think. He needs to realise that the tabloids are sensationalist not for any good reason but just for the sake of it. No matter what he does, the Daily Mail will still find some reason to be quivering little cowards afraid to leave their front door for fear of some imagined horror or other. Today it's cannabis crazed asylum seeking Middle Eastern fundamentalist gypsy yobs with bird flu trying to steal our jobs, tomorrow it could just as easily be pointy Martians with x-ray vision high on caffeine and out for revenge.

Ironic really, if Sinn Fein had bothered to show up then this wouldn't have passed. Yes, yes, I know why they don't attend parliament.

It still would have passed since Sinn Fein have only got 5 seats.

 

[stan1980]

That's exactly what I think. He needs to realise that the tabloids are sensationalist not for any good reason but just for the sake of it. No matter what he does, the Daily Mail will still find some reason to be quivering little cowards afraid to leave their front door for fear of some imagined horror or other. Today it's cannabis crazed asylum seeking Middle Eastern fundamentalist gypsy yobs with bird flu trying to steal our jobs, tomorrow it could just as easily be pointy Martians with x-ray vision high on caffeine and out for revenge.

It still would have passed since Sinn Fein have only got 5 seats.

Yep, my mistake, someone told me they had overtaken DUP.

 

[Maxwell511]

The bill will be killed in the House of Lords or failing that the Courts. I'm thinking Brown is going to have to move really soon.

Btw if the DUP gave its support for money for the water charges in the North, fair play to them.

 

[Allister]

Is it just me, or is this government acting on what is printed in the tabloids

Since it is rare that any tabloids agree with each other I would assume it is just you.

 

[Allister]

The bill will be killed in the House of Lords or failing that the Courts. I'm thinking Brown is going to have to move really soon.

It does seem likely that the Lords will scrap this bill. Brown's a dead man walking, politically, although the idea of Davy Cameron running our country is equally disturbing.

 

[Maxwell511]

Since it is rare that any tabloids agree with each other I would assume it is just you.

I've heard that the next bill Brown is introducing is to change the Union Jack into a pair of [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]. There is going to be a battle between the tabs between whose it should be.

I'm going for Michelle Marsh.

 

[cantata]

I'm hoping that the choice of 42 days is an hilarious Douglas Adams reference.

 

[Robbie_James_Francis]

Since it is rare that any tabloids agree with each other I would assume it is just you.

Well, Brown doesn't have to be taking the position of all the tabloids at once, just bits from different ones. And I think there's a lot of evidence that this could be pretty much what he's doing.

Let's take the example of cannabis reclassification...the Daily Mail's front page says one drag of a joint leads to psychosis for 1 in 40 people. The media constantly tells us that various violent teenage criminals had been smoking cannabis before committing their crimes (never mind that they'd also been drinking heavily, that the education system had failed them, that they were being abused at home, that there was a history of violent crime in the family...).

However, the medical authorities almost universally agree that cannabis should remain class C, and even the police point out that the reclassification will have little effect on their policy and they'll still choose to issue cautions as they did before.

And yet Brown reclassifies it to class B. Where exactly did that come from if not shameless populism and opportunism as epitomised in the tabloids?

 

[Yusuf Evans]

Didn't you guys imprison inncoent people before under an anti-terrorism law back in the 70's? The movie "In The Name Of The Father" is based off this.

 

[EnemyPartyII]

They wouldn't arrest them if they weren't guilty, right? come on, the trial is a waste of time right?

 

[stan1980]

They wouldn't arrest them if they weren't guilty, right? come on, the trial is a waste of time right?

Exactly. It's not like our police would mistake a civilian for a terrorist and follow him to an underground train, then fire 8 bullets into his skull from point blank range... oh wait..

 

[stan1980]

Didn't you guys imprison inncoent people before under an anti-terrorism law back in the 70's? The movie "In The Name Of The Father" is based off this.

Bit different. More to do with bent police than any particular changes in the law (as far as I'm aware)

 

[EnemyPartyII]

Exactly. It's not like our police would mistake a civilian for a terrorist and follow him to an underground train, then fire 8 bullets into his skull from point blank range... oh wait..

each round was just more confirmation of guilt