Jeremy Corbyn
JEREMY CORBYN explains how the government is planning a fresh assault on our rights
GORDON Brown's increasingly strange odyssey around the country for a non-existent leadership contest is fast becoming an exhibition of macho posturing on law and order.
His announcement that it was necessary to review anti-terror laws was merely an echo of a continuing agenda by the security interests in Britain and the constant demand for ever-more stringent anti-terror laws.
The last attempt by new Labour to introduce detention without trial for up to 90 days was eventually defeated with an unsatisfactory compromise of 28 days. This is already far too long.
The idea that we would go back to debate the 90-day option is completely unnecessary, yet it is apparently supported by people who ought to know better.
Lord Carlisle - former Liberal MP Alex Carlisle - is paid to oversee Britain's anti-terror laws. He has come up with the wholly unconvincing argument that the police need these three months to construct an evidence trail against terrorist suspects because of the complexities of computers and emails.
As a supposed guardian of the public in respect of anti-terror laws, he should know better.
The danger is that the parliamentary coalition that defeated 90 days will decide that Gordon Brown as new Prime Minister should not suffer the embarrassment of defeat on this matter. It is, therefore, important to set out the arguments.
First, the "judicial oversight" argument used by Peter Hain, Harriet Harmon and others to support Brown's proposal is not the same as a court process. It is nothing more than a judge sitting in private listening to the police and deciding whether or not they can legitimately carry on with their inquiries against an unnamed individual as a terror suspect.
Second, allowing detention for 90 days would put Britain on a par with the least libertarian states anywhere in the world and, quite simply, would make it very difficult for any government to make arguments against illegal detentions in other countries. It is actually internment.
The effect of such a law on police relations and different communities is likely to be far reaching. There have been many examples of ethnic profiling in anti-terror operations over the past six years and young Muslim men feel that they are being unfairly targeted by the police.
Botched operations such as the notorious Forest Gate raid do nothing to dispel these thoughts. Ninety-day detention is more likely to drive young people in the direction of irrational terror activities than anything else.
On the same day that Brown was making these proposals, the media gave great prominence to a story from the US concerning an alleged attempt to blow up a fuel pipeline leading to JFK airport.
'Further descent into the murky ways of anti-terrorist laws affects all our freedom.'
Obviously, an explosion in a fuel pipeline leading to an airport would have catastrophic effects and would be an appalling thing to do. However, on closer examination of the story, even the US authorities admitted that the plan had not been developed at all.
They had very little evidence to go on, but used what they did have to encourage countries in the Caribbean region to co-operate with them on anti-terror activities.
This is only the most recent in a long line of interesting coincidences concerning this kind of story.
Last year, there was the lockdown of Heathrow airport during the holiday period and in 2003, on the eve of the great anti-war demonstration, tanks were deployed at Heathrow to foil an alleged plot to down planes about to land.
It is the duty of Parliament to protect civil liberties and to ensure that everyone has a right of access to an independent judicial process where all of the evidence against them is laid out in public.
Further descent into the murky world of anti-terrorist laws affects all our freedom and makes us all less secure. In the long run, these laws are more likely to encourage a backlash in terrorism.
Stand up and be counted on Palestine THIS Saturday, London will host the Enough demonstration to call for an end to Israel's occupation of Palestine.
Among the speakers at the rally will be Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti, who has done incredibly brave work in trying to mediate between Hamas and Fatah and to ensure that a functioning government is in place in Ramallah.
He is a very welcome visitor to London and I hope that there will be a huge turnout to support him and the Palestinian people in their demand for peace and justice.
It is 40 years since the Israeli-Arab Six-Day war, a conflict where the Israeli military had the active support and connivance of all of the Western countries, including Britain and the US.
The war encouraged Israel to massively boost its military arsenal and created a culture where paranoia over security dominates every other concern.
The Palestinian people have been the main victims. Hundreds of thousands were driven into exile in neighbouring Jordan or further afield and those who remain, particularly in Gaza, are consigned to a life of misery and poverty and frequent air attacks.
The purpose of the demonstration on Saturday is to unite many organisations and people in calling for an end to the occupation.
This must be followed up by practical measures on the part of all governments.
The EU-Israel Trade Association Agreement provides Israel with substantial trade privileges in Europe. In return, it is supposed to abide by human rights clauses in the agreement.
Clearly, it is not doing so, as the bulging Palestinian prison population in Israeli jails amply testifies.
The construction of Israel's apartheid wall is as obscene as it is absurd, yet the government continues to build it in defiance of international calls for it to be dismantled. How anyone can claim that Israel is merely defending itself when this wall divides Palestinian communities and lands and consigns those living in refugee camps to even greater misery than they have suffered during the past 60 years?
The tragedy of the Palestinian people's poverty and misery, which has created internal strife, including what we are witnessing in Lebanon, is a result of the world simply not being prepared to recognise the rights of the Palestinian people.
Channelling economic aid via the "temporarily internal mechanism" does little to help Palestine's economic and political crisis and merely ensures that Palestinians are treated as permanent victims by the international community, rather than a people demanding autonomy and freedom from occupation.
Saturday presents the opportunity to express our international solidarity through a united demonstration of Jews, Muslim, Christians and people of wider political persuasions, all of whom will be showing their support for the Palestinian people and demanding an end to occupation and that the governments of the world agree to recognise the democratically elected government there and begin peace talks.
GET INVOLVED
The Enough demonstration will see a broad range of groups, from trade unions to political activists and faith groups of all creeds, descend on London for a march and rally.
Speakers include: Manuel Hassassian (Palestinian Delegation to the UK), Bruce Kent, Jeremy Corbyn MP, George Galloway MP, Caroline Lucas MEP, Dr Daud Abdullah (MCB), Ismael Patel (Friends of Al Aqsa), Dr Azzam Tamimi, Mairead Corrigan Maguire (Nobel Peace Laureate), Keith Sonnet (UNISON) and Netan'l Silverman (Combatants for Peace).
Assemble 1.30pm in Lincoln's Inn Fields for march and rally at Trafalgar Square.
Jeremy Corbyn is Labour MP for Islington North. He can be contacted at corbynj@parliament.uk
