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Detention of terror suspects: Case is ‘flimsy’ for extending detention

Reports by Glyn Paflin, Pat Ashworth, Bill Bowder, and Margaret Duggan Photos by Geoff Crawford

members of the House of Bishops © not advert
Crossed: above: members of the House of Bishops


Dr Philip Giddings addresses the Synod © not advert
Crossed: above: Dr Philip Giddings addresses the Synod

THE SYNOD has warned the Government against extending beyond 28 days the maximum period of detention without charge for suspected terrorists.

After a debate on Thursday afternoon last week, it also recommended an early review of the restriction of individuals’ rights under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, and deplored the continued holding of prisoners without charge or due process in Guantanamo Bay.

The trigger for the debate, said Dr Philip Giddings (Oxford), was the Government’s proposal to extend the minimum period for detention of terrorist suspects from 28 to 42 days. Liberal democracies had to contend with sophisticated international terrorism capable of inflicting indiscriminate violence in civilian populations, most dramatically through the use of suicide bombings, and needed to deploy intelligence and surveillance to monitor suspected terrorist activity. On occasion it meant that arrests took place before there was sufficient evidence to bring changes.

So the question was how to reconcile the duty to protect the public with the requirement that persons suspected of an offence, including terrorism, should be either charged or released as soon as possible.

So far, a limit of 28 days had been enough, but the Government suggested that it soon might not be. But hard cases made bad law, and four weeks’ detention was already a considerable disruption in the life of an innocent person. Other measures could be used, he said, such as continued surveillance, and even a control order was a lesser evil than detention. They weakened the force of the argument for further extending detention without charge.

The Government had said that a 42-day maximum would be an exceptional measure, but the safeguards were flimsy. There was widespread argument that the creation of the Guantanamo Bay camp had been an affront to legal principle and human dignity. Christians needed to be vigilant about demands to sacrifice liberty on the basis of unexamined or exaggerated fears.

The Revd Andrew Watson (London) said that if the Government continued to make life harsh, or to give a knee-jerk reaction to the threat of terrorist violence, it was in danger of creating a breeding-ground for terrorism.

Every effort should be made to protect security, other than this inexorable increase in the number of days for detention without charge.

Canon Ruth Worsley (Southwell & Nottingham) had many asylum-seekers in her congregation. She recounted the experiences of those who, she said, had ended up in detention centres, having committed no crime, and having not yet had their asylum applications processed.

One pregnant woman had suffered the extreme distress of being dragged naked to the bus for deportation, having by way of protest refused to dress. Canon Worsley said: “I believe it is right that we press HM Government to press the US Government to close Guantanamo Bay. However, we must recognise the duplicity of the Government in detaining without charge people who only seek sanctuary and refuge in this country.”

The Bishop of Ripon & Leeds, the Rt Revd John Packer, welcomed the expression of grave concerns in the document, but would have liked to see it pay special attention to lifting the bar on interception of phone calls in evidence. The bar to police questioning suspects after charge was also less than appropriate.

The prevailing culture was one in which individuals could be sacrificed for the common good: “a few people deported to torture . . . a few detained without charge . . . a few wrongly convicted — it is the specific Christian insight which we need to bring to bear to combat that view of the dispensability of human beings. This why this is a crucial matter for civilisation today.”

William Nicholls (Lichfield) spoke to his amendment, which sought the abolition of all time limits on the detention of terrorist suspects without charge, and sought, instead, a weekly review of the police evidence by a high-court judge.

He said that the number of days someone might be legally detained, be it two, or 28, or 90, or 56, or 42, was “fairly meaningless”. Instead, he wanted “a return to the principle of Habeas Corpus”, the principle that unlawful detention could be challenged by recourse to a judge by telephone even in the middle of the night. He sought “judge-managed investigations”; for “who knows what length of time is needed to find the evidence?” Twenty-eight days might normally be long enough; sometimes the evidence would be immediately available; but in other cases, where evidence might need to be found in other countries, it could drag out for longer.

If the police were compelled to appear before a high-court judge “within a few days”, the judge could decide if the police were fishing for evidence, and free the individual immediately; or, if he or she decided that progress was being made, could allow it to continue, but ask for it to speed up.

David Jones (Salisbury) spoke of the need, for the sake of the security forces, the armed forces, and the people of this country, that Britain keep the moral high ground.

In treating terrorists differently from ordinary criminals, the Government was glorifying terrorism. The present anti-terrorist legislation was not aimed at a re-emergent IRA, nor was it aimed at armed animal-rights terrorists: it was aimed at Muslim extremists. It could be compared to that used in South Africa against Nelson Mandela.

The Bishop of Burnley, the Rt Revd John Goddard (Northern Suffragans), likened to Jesus in Gethsemane those who lived in fear that they would be seized by the police on suspicion of terrorism. He believed in the dignity of all human beings, even if they were suspects. Fear was corrosive and destroyed communities, and in the end destroyed nations.

The Bishop said that there were large areas of Lancashire that had high ethnic-minority populations, and, of these, the population was 90 per cent Islamic. The Church sought to build bridges, but the increasing level of fear in these communities had resulted in greater separation.

In Burnley and Blackburn, the wearing of veils had gone up 20 per cent among young women. “It is a way of identifying yourself in a community that is threatened,” he said. The extension of detention would create further fear and breed terrorism.


In the gallery: representatives of other faiths were invited to listen to the detention debate © not advert
In the gallery: representatives of other faiths were invited to listen to the detention debate

Dr Anna Thomas-Betts (Oxford) took a different view. She was not gravely concerned with the extension of the period of detention without charge. She had become aware how easily information could be replicated on websites across the globe and encrypted and translated into many different languages by those with the skills to do so.

She had “great concern” for one of her colleagues, Babu Ahmed, who had been held in custody for four years, and was facing possible extradition to the US. He was a gentle and helpful person. She found it hard to believe that he could possibly have been involved in any terrorist activity. Nevertheless, he had the necessary IT skills, should he have become involved.

She had been involved in the independent monitoring of the condition of people held in Belmarsh Prison. She said that when she had visited the “Belmarsh Five”, they had looked cheerful and well. She believed that Guantanamo Bay would not have remained if it had been subject to decent monitoring.

“I don’t have a grave concern about extending detention without charge to 42 days if it is properly monitored with safeguards,” she said.

“If we concentrate on the 28 or 42 days, we are missing the point,” said the Revd John Chorlton (Oxford). Having lived in Jerusalem, he had seen the results of suicide bombing, the human parts that needed to be picked up. Now he lived in Slough, but there was still crime. Cars were broken into, people were mugged, women were raped, and there were drugs. The police worked hard, but there was a logjam of cases. Villains were locked up and released.

He knew of a case of one white man detained for eight months before the case against him was dropped, which made a mere 28 days seem insignificant. “We have plenty of law, and good police, but it is the processes that cause the logjams.

“Let’s support our police, but attack the Government in a way that is good. We don’t want more law, but law that is just. We must not demonise suicide bombers, but we must have good law, good police, and good processes.”

The Bishop of Bath & Wells, the Rt Revd Peter Price, said that, in the many conflicts around the world, power and violence on one side brought violence on the other, and so they got coercion, rendition, secret processes, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo Bay. Seeking to combat terrorism had brought about waterboarding. People were being brought to trial and convicted on evidence acquired by torture. But torture was not only wrong: it was counter-productive.

What, in the present state of the world, did it mean to pray, “thy will be done on earth”? What did “peace on earth” mean, he asked. He wondered whether the ambition that goodness would overcome evil would ever be achieved.

The Revd Gill Henwood (York) described the aggressive tactics used by police to arrest student demonstrators protesting against globalisation at the Edinburgh G8 summit. They had been detained 22 hours, intimidated, and required to report. When their case came to court 16 months later, their arrest was judged to have been unfounded.

It was an example of how anti-terrorism laws were used to arrest those making lawful protest. The laws were routinely used against demonstrators, including well-intentioned students. She urged the Synod to “resist with every fibre” extension of the limit.

Mr Nicholls’s amendment was lost. The Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu, was one of its chief critics.

Replying to the debate, Dr Giddings emphasised that it was not an attack on the Government for wanting to extend the 28 days. It was that the case was not yet proven. During the troubles in Northern Ireland, the limit was seven days, but the motion acknowledged that Government faced more difficult challenges today because of the international and technological aspects. To move to processes that had dubious justification made the task more difficult and alienated people who otherwise would be on the same side.

The unamended motion was put to the Synod and carried by 235 to 2, with 7 recorded abstentions. It read:

That the Synod, mindful both of the Christian teaching that enforcement of law should be just in process and outcome, and of the challenge that the advent of suicide attacks poses for the general public and for those who bear responsibility for protecting the public from terrorism:

(a) emphasise the importance of society maintaining a careful balance between the liberty of the individual and the needs of national security;

(b) express grave concern that an extension to the current 28-day maximum period for detention without charge of terrorist suspects would, in the absence of the most compelling arguments, disturb that balance unacceptably;

(c) while welcoming the release of most UK prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, deplore the continued holding of prisoners there without charge or due process and encourage Her Majesty’s Government to continue to use all available means to press the United States administration to close the Guantanamo Bay facility and restore the full application of the rule of law; and

(d) affirm the desirability of an early review by the Government of the restrictions and other obligations that may be imposed on individuals under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 and the use of undisclosed material in control order proceedings.

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