Muslim resistance movements are terrorists, occupiers are not
Home Secretary, David Blunkett, tells the Editor of The Muslim News, Ahmed J Versi, in an exclusive interview that the Terrorism Act does not stifle freedom of speech, nor does it target the Muslim community. He also answers questions on outlawing of religious discrimination; Bradford sentencing and a lot more.
David Blunkett with Muslim pupils at the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre
(Photo: AJV/Muslim News)
Ahmed J Versi: Who is a terrorist? How do you define a terrorist?
David Blunkett: Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism as the use of threat for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause, of action which involves serious violence against a person or serious damage to property, endangers a person’s life, creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.
AJV: Why have you proscribed mainly Muslim groups and not terrorist Jewish or Hindu groups? Information regarding terrorist activities of such groups have been presented to you. The perception is that you are just targeting Muslim groups and no other faith groups.
DB: We’ve never proscribed and would never proscribe a group because of their particular faith. We would only proscribe them if the evidence presented warranted it in terms of the threat to ourselves or to the rest of the world. And I have not ruled out further proscriptions and when we did the additional four proscriptions late last year, I made it clear that we are doing this because of their associated links with the network arising out of the growth of Al-Qaidah as opposed to any particular Islamic or geographic base. I think that that’s very important that we have to be absolutely clear that are not actually dealing with people on the grounds of their faith or their background but their intent and the links that they have and the support that they’re giving to terrorism. The great strength in this country has been the leadership of the Islamic faith being clear to distinguish themselves very clearly from those who have misused Islam in terms of terrorism. We’ve repeated again and again that we promote the notion that Islam is a peaceful religion, its doctrines and the Qur’an teach that and that those who break it, are breaking from the true faith. We have to deal with situations as we did with this man who claims to be speaking for the Islamic faith, who is Jamaican based, who was misusing his religion. Now that is not unfamiliar to us with Christianity. People have misused the name of Christ over the centuries so we’ve all had a dose of this ourselves, and we’ve just got to be rigorous in distinguishing the two.
AJV: Evidence has been given to you of Hindu terrorist group(s) and funds being sent to such groups in India from the UK. Last year in February, over 2000 Muslims were massacred in Gujarat and this was done by one of these groups, the Gujarati Muslims who made representations to you and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw (by his constituents in Blackburn), say. Straw told them he would take this up with you. He assured them that the Government would look into it.
DB: I made it clear that I’ve not rule out proscribing further groups I need to have comprehensive evidence and recommendations from the security and intelligence services before I would proscribe. But I would not hesitate to do so, were that evidence to be substantiated.
AJV: There are many groups who might be considered as terrorist by the Government but as liberation movements by the Muslim community. For example, the military wing of Hizbullah who are involved in liberating their land (Lebanon) from Israeli occupation since 1982, and the groups in Palestine who are fighting to liberate their land from occupation by Israelis since 1967. However, the Government now considers them as proscribed groups. Muslims believe that the Palestinians are being occupied by a foreign country and they want to liberate their land. The UN way has not worked and so they’re fighting to liberate their land. Why is it wrong for British Muslims to support their movement just because the Government has proscribed them, whilst other groups like the Iraqi opposition groups have Government support. They are also involved in armed struggle against the Government of Iraq. However, they are not proscribed.
DB: We tried to lay down in the Anti-Terrorism Act 2000 and subsequent update of that in Part 4 of Anti Terrorism Crime and Security Act. We sought to ensure that we deal with threats proportionately; we sought to ensure that there is a clear distinction where groups pose both an international threat and are engaged in this country in promoting that terrorist threat, either by raising resources or support or actually posing a threat themselves outside the region to which you refer. We’re trying to do that on logical bases. Now that’s quite different to saying, ‘is there a very real issue in terms of an independent state of Palestine that should be free from attack and in turn should free others from the threat of attack’, in other words, to stabilise the situation in the region and to provide people with freedom and democracy to run their own lives, which we’re totally in favour of, and which Tony Blair spent a lot of time trying to find a solution in relation to Saddam Hussein’s regime. The pressure on us is that we are suppose to be trying to solve the whole of the world’s problems from the United Kingdom. The irony is, we are trying to help in peacefully resolving these issues. I just think that it would be quite useful sometimes to have some credit for it.
AJV: Yes, but Israel is occupying Palestinian land since 1967! In Iraq’s situation we went for military action to force them to withdraw, and rightly so, from Kuwait. Israel has been occupying Lebanon since 1982 and Palestine since 1967, so surely don’t they have a right to liberate themselves because the United Nations has failed.
DB: They have a right to live….
AJV: So, why is it wrong for British Muslims to support them to liberate themselves?
DB: There is a big difference between supporting the drive for a free and independent state, from supporting people who are encouraged and who are facilitated in becoming human bombs. There is an enormous difference between those two things. We would never countenance on someone from outside promoting, for instance, the Real IRA blowing people up either in Ireland or on the mainland of Britain.
AJV: Israel is doing the same; it is blowing up civilians in Palestine. We don’t proscribe them (as a terrorist state).
DB: We can only deal with the situation as it faces us. Are we to promote, support and allow people to use as a terrorist base this country, either financially or in other ways, because two wrongs make a right. Of course we can’t.
AJV: We have only recently defined the Palestinian groups as terrorist groups. That is why I asked earlier how you define a terrorist. For example, the Iraqi opposition are not considered as terrorists because we support them to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein, whilst in other groups are considered as terrorist groups even though they want to liberate their land from occupation.
DB: But we are not promoting or allowing anyone to use our territory or to provide support in anyway from this country to engage in terrorism. We’re not doing that. We’re not allowing people, whether the organisation is proscribed or not, to actually do that knowingly. If we find out that people are involved in terrorism, we will freeze their assets. That was one of the other aspects of the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act. It doesn’t matter whether they’re proscribed or not, we can freeze their assets and if there is evidence that other groups are promoting other forms of terror, whether it’s in the Middle East, or whether it in Gujarat, or whether its in Kashmir, we would endeavour to stop it
AJV: So if, for example, the Muslims get up and say we support Hamas to liberate Palestine, without giving them any financial or armed support. Would that, under the Anti-Terrorism Act, be illegal?
DB: No, we have been very careful to distinguish between freedom of speech and the promotion of terror. I’ve gone out of my way to indicate that those who shout the loudest aren’t always the ones who are the threat, and I will stick to that because we have the privilege, all of us, of living in, contributing to, and God willing, maintaining and promoting a free democratic society. That’s a great blessing.
AJV: Because of the Anti-Terrorism Act, a lot of people have been arrested and if it is discovered later that they’re innocent of any crime, like the Guilford 4 and Birmingham 6 and Sally Clarke, etc. Are there any provisions to safeguard them and what redress would they have?
DB: For those who are engaged in criminal activity, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act from ’84 and subsequent changes, including recording and detailing in terms of how evidence is taken and dealt with, promotes in a way, no where else in the world has, in terms of protecting the innocent from wrongful convictions. Those who are accused of or associated with terrorism and who can’t be removed from the country go through a Special Immigration Appeal’s Commission. The reason why it’s taking so long to go through, is because the lawyers on behalf of the people who are currently held under Part 4 of the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act, decided that they would challenge the principle, which they have done and they lost in relation to that challenge. Individual cases will now be heard and if people are found not guilty then they will be free. I mean it’s as simple as that.
AJV: Are you talking about those who have been arrested for over a year now without charge?
DB: No, they have not been arrested without charge. The lawyers are very clear what cases have been laid against them, they’re going through the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, which is chaired by a High Court judge and all the procedures were agreed long before the terrorism of the 11 of September 2001. This institution, Special Immigration Appeals Commission, was set up in 1997 unanimously by both Houses of Parliament, nobody opposed it, in order to provide just such a tribunal, having learnt the lessons of the Diplock Courts in Northern Ireland. It was established as a tribunal with the ability to hear in private the evidence but for full representation to be given to those who were accused and for them to have the right of appeal to the Court of Appeal from that Special Immigration Appeals Commission. So there is a proper open legal process.
AJV: Last year the MI5 Special Branch visited quite a few Muslims in various parts of the UK. They were interrogated for up to 2 hours in some cases. The perception has been is that we are targeting the Muslim community. The security services are visiting them because, they say, of suspicion that they may be involved in terrorist activities by having connections with terrorist groups. Those I spoke to who were visited by the security services say there were no such connection, and the community believes that we are being targeted because we are Muslims.
DB: I don’t think anyone will have said to them we are visiting you because you are a part of the Muslim faith. They’d have actually said to them we are visiting you because we have some reason to believe that you may have links with people who themselves are related to those who are threatening or carrying our terror. If they found out they don’t then there is no further action taken and there is no danger whatsoever of them finding themselves in a difficult situation.
AJV: Is there a different way of approaching this rather than going to people’s homes without warning. As Muslims do not know what their rights are, they do not know what to do. Can’t another procedure be set up?
DB: I think there’s a real difficulty for them, because you don’t want people being asked to come into a police station, you don’t want people around the neighbourhood to see that someone is being interrogated if it turns out that there is absolutely nothing to worry about. So, the least fuss and the least known facts about it to other people, the better. If there is a complaint about the way in which anyone was approached, or the way in which such a conversation took place or whether they feel in any way threatened, then I would be very happy to have that taken up and to provide a mechanism for an independent assessment of that.
AJV: During the passage of the Anti-Terrorism Bill 2001, you agreed to remove the incitement of religious hatred section of the Bill, because of pressure from oppositioni parties. What was the reason behind that? The majority of the Muslim community wanted to have incitement to religious hatred outlawed because of the backlash we suffered post-September 11.
DB: I was the one who promoted putting this in the Bill and at the time I did this in the beginning of October 2001, I though that we would have universal support for doing so. That turned out not to be the case, there was a split in the Muslim community about whether this was appropriate policy and was appropriate vehicle. I was defeated in the House of Lords and it was absolutely clear, given the majority in the Lords, it was going to be defeated again. And because it was an emergency measure, there was no way of using the 1911 Parliament Act, to bring it back through in the next session of Parliament. So, the way I had to decide to deal with it was either was that the Clause had to be dropped because it was defeated, or the whole Bill fell. Everybody knew that and the House of Lords knew that. And I think it was a great shame that people didn’t back me in doing that because we would now have it on the statute. But we did manage to retain part of that proposal which was the aggravated offence; so at least now people can now be punished more severely. They can be sent to jail for longer and the crime can be seen as more heinous in terms of aggravation.
AJV: When are you going to reintroduce the Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill?
DB: Well, there is a Private Members Bill at the moment, which is being scrutinised by the House of Lords Committee. I can’t be anything else but be sympathetic to it, because it was my idea in the first place.
AJV: All reports, including the Home Office ones, show that there is evidence of religious discrimination, especially against Muslims. When are you going to outlaw religious discrimination, by public bodies, as well in employment, education, the provision of goods and services and the disposable of premises.
DB: The Race Relations Amendment Act took effect last April and we’re prompting that vigorously now through public services and we’re seeking monitoring of how that amendment to the original Act is being implemented and whether people are doing it in the way it was intended. Secondly, we are picking up through Article 13, in terms of the European Union Directive, on race discrimination in employment in relation to other aspects of discrimination as well and we will be putting that through this year so that there will be action on that. There is a wider issue in relation to discrimination, we’re looking now with Barbara Roche in the Cabinet Office at wider changes to the enforcement powers, and of course there is debate taking place as to whether we should have one major commission or whether we should retain the three separate commissions in relation to discrimination.
AJV: Who’s going to deal with monitoring discrimination in employment under Article 13, which includes religious discrimination. Normally if it’s racial discrimination, the CRE deals with it, but it doesn’t have the remit on discrimination on religious ground.
DB: The Department for Trade and Industry are the responsible department in relation to the enforcement on employment.
AJV: Muslim Asylum seekers are perceived as terrorists, what steps are you as Government taking to change such perceptions?
DB: I’ll give you copies of The Sun newspaper from January 27, onwards in terms of what I’ve said and what they’ve said about me in demanding we do not have statements that associate Asylum seekers with terrorism and that we avoid statements that inflame and mislead and I’ve done that vigorously and I’ll continue to do so.
AJV: The Prime Minister said that the Government would re-examine its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights on deportation of Asylum Seekers to countries were their lives may be in danger, what’s your opinion on this? Are you going to go ahead with this?
DB: My objective at the moment is to implement the legislation that we received Royal Assent for in November to ensure that we have a fair system that provides for a massive expansion of economic migrations to the country through work permits, the new routes that we’ve established over the last twelve-months and the new United Nations gateway route for people who are facing discrimination, facing terror, facing death and who they will nominate from the region of origin. We’re setting that in trend from April and at the same time clamping down on clandestine entry, which is causing so much havoc in terms of being able to administer the system people who are trafficked by organised criminals and I’m trying to get that through. The Prime Minister has not
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indicated that we would breach or pull out of the European Convention. We are talking to the United Nations about what the UN High Commission for Refugees describes as “convention plus”, which is the modernisation of the Convention, and it that route that I wish to go down on, and it’s that route that I’m discussing both with the UN and with the European Union. There is no suggestion at the moment of either breaching or pulling out of those Conventions.
AJV: The sentences that were meted out in the aftermath of the Bradford sentences were harsh. A person in Bradford who threw one stone got four and a half years prison sentence, whereas in Northern Ireland, those throwing petrol bombs were either cautioned or given a lighter sentences. The perception is that there is one law for Muslims and another for non-Muslims. In many cases those who were convicted had committed crime for the first time and they gave themselves up to the police voluntarily. The parents who told their children to give themselves up to the police, are now saying they’re losing trust and confidence in both the judiciary and the police. All this is leading to anger among the younger generation.
DB: I don’t defend for a moment variations and variability in sentencing, I’ve been very strong since coming to the Home Secretary’s job in saying that we need to iron out the discrepancies that exist so that people know precisely what sentences they’re likely to get what the signals are. My robustness about sentencing in relation to riots, is that we have to send those signals that people know that if they destroy their own community, and it was their own community they were destroying, then we would expect very harsh sentencing indeed. Secondly, where it was judged on Appeal that sentences had been inappropriately tough, where there extenuating circumstances like guilty pleas or those who co-operated in coming forward, their sentences were reduced and the eleven cases went to appeal four were reduced, seven were upheld. So in that instance, the Appeal actually demonstrated that the system worked. I have to say though, that it’s very important not to see this in Islamic terms, in faith terms. It was people rioting, all be it they may be incited be other people who deliberately egged them into doing it. It was people destroying their own community, their own livelihood, their own future; I think we have to defend the community against that. And if that’s defending Muslims against Muslims that’s no different to defending those who are Christian, Agnostic or Jews against their own community being destroyed. So I think we have to draw a really big breath hear and say in the end, we must make sure that the same rules apply, that there isn’t discrimination, one way or the other, that we’re neither tougher nor more lenient, nor that we get into a position where we ask for a change because of someone’s faith, nor that we ask for leniency because of somebody’s faith. In other words, we’re absolutely clear that what ever it is, we judge on the demerits of what they’ve done and the signals that we send, so that the people don’t do it again.
AJV: Exactly, this is what they’re saying that they should be treated exactly like others are, but they feel as if they’ve not.
DB: And I don’t dispute that. I don’t want variations to distort what sentences are provided in different parts of the country.
AJV: There have been raids on three mosques in the last year. The Muslims are not saying you should not pursue the matter if there are terrorists inside the mosques, but the manner in which it was staged, like the one in the Midlands last year where the raid was done in the glare of publicity, the police went after breaking down doors. Whilst Churches are not raided for giving sanctuary to asylum seekers. On the contrary, the crises in are resolved peacefully, after months of negotiations. The manner it which Finsbury Park Mosque, was raided, ie, 2 o’clock in the morning, with 150 police officers, with forced entry, again in the glare of publicity.
DB: I make no bones about the handling of Ahmadi case, where there was a raid in the West Midlands last year. There were many lessons to be learned from that and I don’t seek to defend the particular nature of the approach adopted by the Police and I think the police learned a great deal from it. I would, on the other hand, defend the way in which the Metropolitan Police approached the action they took in respect to the Finsbury Park Mosque the careful advise they sought from those from within the Islamic faith, the way in which they avoided areas of the Mosque which could have caused offence, and the way in which they subsequently dealt with the issues. I think there are two very different issues there and I think one, we had to learn real lessons and in the second, I think they did their upmost in the circumstances, to behave rationally and reasonably and to be sensitive to the needs of those who would have been outraged had they got it drastically wrong. So I think there were two different approaches.
AJV: The new immigration legislation to strip people of citizenship. What are the criteria you would be using to strip people of citizenship.
DB: If somebody fraudulently obtains citizenship, under the new rules we automatically are able to withdraw it. If someone is a threat to National Security, the we also have the right to use the power in the Act. I would do so very sparingly indeed. The first is straight forward, where someone had used false documentation or falsely gained citizenship, we would have the right to withdraw citizenship. Secondly, where someone poses a threat to National Security and to the state, then we reserve that right. I expect that myself and my successors would use that very sparingly. But it would be in relation to previous regulations, including those passed in 1971, which related to non-conducive to public good.
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