Throwing down a new challenge to the British government's tactics against terrorism, a High Court judge ruled Wednesday that so-called control orders - a form of house arrest without trial - were incompatible with European human rights laws.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/28/news/brits.php


From Information Clearing House

In the guise of fighting terrorism and maintaining public order, Tony Blair's Government has quietly and systematically taken power from Parliament and the British people. The author charts a nine-year assault on civil liberties that reveals the danger of trading freedom for security - and must have Churchill spinning in his grave.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1129827.ece


From Information Clearing House

A key plank of the government's anti-terrorism laws has been dealt a blow by the High Court.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5125668.stm


From Information Clearing House

Independent [UK]

01/17/06

Peers have dealt a devastating blow to the Government's proposed anti-terror laws, throwing out plans to create a new offence of 'glorifying' terrorism. The House of Lords set the scene for a fresh showdown in the Commons after they voted to remove the offence by 270 to 144, a majority of 126. Tony Blair's majority was cut to just one in the Commons last year when he narrowly thwarted a backbench attempt to block the planned offence. Yesterday, peers backed the former law lord Lord Lloyd of Berwick who condemned the measure as 'unworkable.' He told the Lords: 'We are creating a new criminal offence in this section which should not be on the statute book.' Peers lined up to attack the proposed offence, claiming it was unnecessary and could erode free speech...

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article339311.ece


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

By David Leppard

SPYMASTERS warned Tony Blair before the July 7 suicide bombings that Al-Qaeda was planning a “high priority” attack specifically aimed at the London Tube. A leaked four-page report by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which oversees all spying, is the first definitive evidence that the intelligence services expected terrorists to strike at the Underground.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11333.htm

Suspected of plotting terror, a group of men have been held for four years but never charged. Now, in their first testimonies, they reveal the authorities have not even questioned them since their arrests.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121505N.shtml

Auch in Großbritannien wurden einige Ausländer Jahre lang ohne Anklage eingesperrt, jetzt stellte sich heraus, dass diese angeblich so gefährlichen Terrorverdächtigen nie verhört wurden.

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/21/21580/1.html

Guardian [UK]

11/21/05

Tony Blair warned the House of Lords last night not to defy public opinion by moving to wreck the government's terror bill today as further objections to the measures emerged from chief police officers and the civil liberty lobby. On the eve of the second reading in the Lords, leaders of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties gave Downing Street notice that they would give the bill 'a thorough going-over' and scrutinise its provisions line-by-line before sending it back to the Commons. After a revolt by 49 Labour backbenchers, MPs have already modified a central clause of the bill. It would now permit the police to hold terrorist suspects for 28 days without charge pending further investigation -- instead of the current 14 and the 90 days initially proposed. But the much-trumpeted support senior police officers gave that clause does not extend to the entire bill, the Guardian has learned...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1647283,00.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The Anti-Terrorism Bill 2005, now pending in the Senate, further entrenches severe risks for the operation of a free press in this country. We cannot preserve our democracy if we destroy institutions that serve it.

http://tinyurl.com/8g5n5


From Information Clearing House