A quick Google news search for “Theresa May and “Abu Qatada” reveals over 2,000 mainstream media articles in the last three days combining both. This is hardly surprising, as in her speech announcing her candidacy for Tory leader (and thus PM) May dwelt on her deportation of Abu Qatada as evidence she was qualified for the job. The May supporting Tory MP who was put up for Sky to interview immediately afterwards managed to say “Abu Qatada” three times in a two minute interview.
Abu Qatada should indeed be a powerful symbol – but not the symbol he has become, a hate figure. He should rather be a symbol of the hate-filled and intolerant place Britain has become, and the dreadful injustice meted out to individuals both by the state and the media.
Abu Qatada spent, over a thirteen year period, a total of nine years in jail in England despite never being charged with any crime. It is not just that he was not convicted. He was never charged. Nine years, think about it. In all that time, neither he nor his lawyers were ever permitted to see the accusations or evidence against him.
Britain has draconian anti-terrorism laws that would make a dictatorship blush. It is an offence to “glorify” terrorism. It is specifically “terrorism” for me to write, here and now, that Nelson Mandela was justified in supporting the bombing campaign that got him arrested. I just knowingly committed “glorifying terrorism” under British law. It is specifically “terrorism” to deface the property in the UK of a foreign state with a political motive. If I spray “Gay Pride” on the Saudi embassy, that is terrorism. We also have secret courts, where “terrorists” can be convicted without ever seeing the “intelligence-based” evidence against them. We have convicted young idiots for discussing terror fantasies online. We have convicted a wife who “must have known” what her husband was doing (at least that one was overturned on appeal).
Yet even with the bar so low it is resting on the ground, from his first arrest in 2001 to his deportation in 2013, through innumerable arrests, police interviews, wiretaps, computer seizures and searches, no evidence against Abu Qatada was ever found which would stand up in court. It is worth noting that if almost any of the vast number of accusations the tabloids made against him had been true, for example if he had actually said in sermons the things he was stated to have said in the UK press, he could have been charged and convicted. But investigation by the police and security services found every single one of these claims to be false.
It is true that Theresa May did succeed in deporting him. To Jordan, where he faced charges of association with terrorist groups. In two trials, one before a military tribunal, Abu Qatada was found not guilty of association with terrorism and all other charges. It should be very plainly understood that the Jordanian monarchy is no friend at all to Palestinian salafist clerics like Abu Qatada, and he had good reason to fear being deported there. But even they found that the evidence Abu Qatada is a terrorist does not exist.
Now I have never met him, though I have met his lawyers and doctor. Abu Qatada holds views with which I do not agree; I dislike the bigoted in any religion. But his main crime appears to have been to be a Palestinian cleric with a perfect comic opera appearance for the right wing media to make up quotes and hate stories around.
This picture is taken from a hilarious Daily Telegraph article in which that author complains that Abu Qatada had “fooled us again” – by the dastardly expedient of not actually committing any crimes.
So if you are proud of a world in which people against whom there is not one shred of court-worthy evidence, who have never been charged, can be detained for nine years and then deported, vote for Theresa May as PM. I expect the Tories will, happily.
Abu Qatada should indeed be a symbol. He should be a symbol of the deepest national disgrace of unjustified imprisonment and of the foul place the United Kingdom has become under successive far right Labour and Tory governments. And I say far right with deliberation. In what other kind of country could the story of Abu Qatada happen?
Peter Hitchens in oppo to Blairite May and supportive of Corbyn’s lone stand against the Blairites is worth a read.
Apologies, I had not meant to kick off comments without actually responding to Craig’s post. I accept his points as good ones save for the conclusion that we are somehow alone in our hyporacy and standards. I don’t have a view on next Tory leader / PM yet. Like many I had wanted to deliver a reform shock message to EU and am now mulling over who best to take both that EU reform agenda forward and manage our own interests, and also considering whether perhaps we move pragmatically forward without serving A50 one foot in and one foot out (like Jack of Kent buried half in and half out of a church, sold his soul, but the devil couldn’t claim him, or so the myth goes).
“am now mulling over who best to take both that EU reform agenda forward and manage our own interests”
Presumably the EU will take care of any EU reforms while we manage our own interests. The two are unconnected.
yir in good compamy my friend Fwl
Maybe so and maybe not. As it stands we are still in the EU.
Brian, I see we share fat finger syndrome too!
it’s not islamophobia, its totalitarianism.
nickj – good point, though I would say not only islamophobia but also totalitarianism
Is it not Islamophobia (which should have a capital “I”) when “Fortress Europe” has compelled EU member states to raise their barriers against immigration from outside Europe and has recently led to the dirty deal with Turkey to turn away refugees. We now need to fight to ensure that a Britain outside the EU uses its freedom to welcome people to work, study and live here from around the world and leads Europe in providing a safe haven for asylum seekers and refugees.
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-056f-Pro-EU-Labour-and-Tories-aim-to-sabotage-EU-exit
Was it not Islamaphobia when Blair sided up with the Texan to start a war in the ME?
It’s like your strange logic that regards Scottish Nationalism as something benign, but any other country’s Nationalism as something terrible and to be feared. More of the “it’s not ‘evil’ when we do it” shit that the likes of Theresa May come out with. “We’re just protecting our own interests”. Yea right! We’ve heard it all before.
Second both of your thoughts, Alan.
But that’s where you get it wrong Alan, Craig’s not so much nationalistic more that he wants Scotland to get the hell away from Westminster. Can’t blame him there myself.
However being I don’t agree, I’d much rather that we all fought Westminster together and imposed a fair and just Goverment over the whole of the U.K. – with Scotland onboard and a movement like the Corbyn one taking hold we could change democracy for the better and make the 21st century a good place to be.
I can’t help thinking if Scotland ever were to break away then Mi7/CIA would just keep overthrowing the government by backing right wing coups there like they do with all countries they want a piece of.
So it’s alright for the UK to maintain special forces in Syria on the ground to support “””””bigots”””””” – J S-D please note the length of beard of my quotation marks – and Cameron to have used them against Gaddaffi in Libya and Theresa May to take up the baton of US hegemony rules ok.
Are boots on the ground not more dangerous than mere ideas? Ms May ( I used to have a teacher who picked small boys up by the hair by the same name, or supported her over-generous bosom on their heads while correcting their sums) should lock herself up.
Question is , would those long skinny arms of the law be long enough to turn the key on the outside through the bars with rest of Theresa May on the inside.?
The back story to Craig’s excellent post is the European court. Abu Qatada, deportation was blocked by the ECHR until Jordan agreed not to use evidence obtained by torture.
That decision and others (i.e.Aso Mohammed Ibrahim) gave me many sleepless nights considering Brexit…
I have heard Mrs. May may be back-peddling on getting out of the E.C.H.R. ?
POI: the ECHR is quite separate from the EU. Sleep well.
Bless MJ – together with Craig we may (no pun) have left Mrs May naked and exposed her disdain for human rights and her affinity with torture. IMO This woman is unfit to govern.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36149798
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?doclang=EN&text=&pageIndex=0&part=1&mode=DOC&docid=160882&occ=first&dir=&cid=240894
“This woman is unfit to govern.”
Most members of the House of Commons are unfit to govern, legislate or even serve on a jury.
Yes MJ
you are quite right the E.C.H.R. is not the same as the E.U.
I am aware the recent United Kingdom Referendum was an in or out vote on the E.U.
However Mrs. May until recently claimed that she was very keen to ditch the ECHR,
I believe she said it would happen as soon as she could make it happen.
However she seems to be somewhat rowing backwards.
Great post Craig, the musical chairs power game, played to the ringa rigna roses tune has so far seen that various contenders exit the scene leaving the stage for Theresa of May the guardian saint of all that is hateful and mendacious. Whilst in the backgroun we are witnessing the lamentations along with the crocodile tears of “Brexit” has emboldened the racists is a narrative tin a bid to cover up the extent of the success of the racist and decisive policies of the last fifteen years in particular in our lands.
This country is no longer a safe place for any Muslim. Muslims’ shops are being set on fire, their persons getting spat on, beat up senseless, that is when they are not murdered and even their dead is not left alone as these dead Muslims remains are defiled too!
Yet in this climate of hatred of Muslims laws specifically designed to catch these Muslims on trumped charges of all manner have been enacted as the “anti terrorist” laws which are then selectively applied to Muslims only too. In fact the number of “white terrorists” caught attest to the selective application of the anti terror laws. Furthermore St T. of M has been the most vociferous Muslim hating functionary post the Reed presidency of the Home Office, and thus she now has progressed to become a favourite for the prime minister’s job, and probably the Tories will be enjoying her coming crusade against the moon god worshipping, poopy pant Muslims along with the rest of the far right supporting cretins of all creeds.
“Yet even with the bar so low it is resting on the ground, from his first arrest in 2001 to his deportation in 2013, through innumerable arrests, police interviews, wiretaps, computer seizures and searches, no evidence against Abu Qatada was ever found which would stand up in court.”
I too have never met Abu Qatada, but the information about how his wife and family were mistreated and abused by our security services, came to me through the advocacy group Cage. It enabled this comparison of Abu Qatada and Shaun Patrick Breach who the security services leave alone, despite him being a wife-beater and knife carrier. May’s profession of Christianity and the right to practice it freely is called into question by her bigotry which does not extend that right to practice freely to certain Muslims, Qatada included.
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2013/05/03/is-hatred-of-islam-the-uk-home-secretarys-religion/
Since the deportation of Qatada the security services (presumably) have closed down the bank account of Cage (as well as the Palestine Campaign Group). Unfortunately this is the state of the UK today, a state which purports to be free.
Thanks for pointing to the two faced policy dilemma of the FCO, Craig,one set of Muslims are cherished and dined for their arms buying, their children are schooled here with the best of all worlds and their international terror actors are lavishly received by the establishment and high society. They are more safe and secure here than in their own country.
whilst the other kind of Muslim is being watched, spied upon, frustrated and subjected to large scale public ridicule via the same papers whop egged on the Brexit, and some are groomed by our security services to fit into the ‘terror frame’, ready to be pounced upon for when the media demands/needs another example to blanket over some other important news or placate the Atlanticist terror drive to advance their neocon agenda.
next Wednesday would be just such a day to bury bad news for Miranda T. Blair
“… Muazu, a failed asylum seeker who was said last week to have been near death after a 100-day hunger strike, was taken off by stretcher and returned to Harmondsworth detention centre near Heathrow. The flight is estimated to have cost the Home Office £95,000- £110,000. Muazu was the only detainee on board, according to sources.
…
Lord Roberts, a Liberal Democrat peer, told the Observer he was delighted Muazu was back in the UK but horrified that he had been forced to endure the attempted removal. “I saw him on Tuesday when a doctor had judged him too sick to fly,” he said. “Goodness knows what state he must be in now the poor man. He needs hospital treatment. We should know the cost of this private jet. We’ve already heard this case has cost some £180,000.
“[The home secretary] Theresa May must consider her role immediately. She has caused immense harm to one individual and spent an extraordinary amount of taxpayers’ money. ”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/30/theresa-may-hunger-striker-ifa-muaza-asylum-uk
Idries Shah’s satirical wry and humerous look at who we are Darkest England (written before the dark days if this C21) is due for republication.
The late Idries Shah, a Scottish Indian Afghan Sufi, writer, publisher and businessman was criticized (sometimes deservedly so) but he helped introduce Sufi ways of living acting thinking being to 1960s and 70s England without proselytizing. I appreciate that many Muslims may reject Western perennial sufism, which operates outside of the rules of Islam. There is much to be said for order and discipline, but it is in any event worth considering the real power and benefits of tolerance, patience, humour and intelligence. These basic qualities are so lacking in how we consider Islam these days.
“Abu Qatada spent, over a thirteen year period, a total of nine years in jail in England despite never being charged with any crime. It is not just that he was not convicted. He was never charged. Nine years, think about it. In all that time, neither he nor his lawyers were ever permitted to see the accusations or evidence against him.”
_____________
Excellent article Craig, I find your above paragraph most disturbing, you could in esence replace Mr Qatada with anyone else who falls fouls of Britain’s terrorism laws. Which by the sounds of it, gives the security services and the judicial system carte blanche, over ones life.
To hold a person for nine years without charging them, surely must contravene human rights laws. The terrorism umbrella in the UK, appears to have wide and far reaching consequences. Meanwhile the press play their part by demonising those caught in the crosshairs, sometimes I’d imagine unfairly.
It does, Rep, it does. Julian Assange celebrates his 45th birthday today, four years in the Ecuadorian embassy, nearly six years held in the UK without having been charged with any crime in any country. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention spent 16 months investigating the “investigation” against him and concluded it has been unlawful and illegal from the very start.
https://justice4assange.com/UN-Working-Group-Decision.html
If this increasingly common tactic of the UK government’s of detaining the people it doesn’t like for YEARS without charging them and trying to push them into unjust and secretive ‘trials’ appalls you, then today would be a very good day to register your disgust by giving a small birthday gift to Julian Assange’s legal defence fund:
https://justice4assange.com/Donate.html
thanks for giving us an update Arbed, and happy birthday to Julian, lets hope the new president is not being used or persuaded by outside forces….
Let me echo nevermind’s comment and wish Julian Assange a happy birthday. Let me also welcome you back Arbed. It is always a pleasure to read your informed and informative comments regarding the UK government’s deplorable, illegal and arbitrary forced detention of Julian Assange. It is a fine example of how extreme recent governments have become in replacing long-established laws meant to protect civilians in favour of laws which give us no rights (or very few). The detention of innocent people could not have legally happened in the past. I feel shame just by being British.
Shameful as this treatment of one person is, it pales to insignificance compared to the deportation of 50,000 students http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/theresa-may-wrongly-deported-48000-students-after-bbc-panorama-exposes-toeic-scam-a6958286.html
Tom.
Thank you for that article, it makes for a interesting read.
I must say that Theresa May has form, when it comes to immigration.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15632423
May, instead of resigning tried to place the blame on the UK Border agency.
In the near future if May becomes PM, and negotiations with the EU don’t go quite as smooth as she hopes they will, who will she then blame?
Actually no, it’s the same atrocity 50,000 times over, we’re not utilitarians you know.
The state is fascism and fascism is the state.
It’s not only under terrorism laws that you be unjustly imprisoned. Look at the case of Wang Yam whose entire defence during retrial was heard in secret after the government claimed it had to be heard behind closed doors to protect national security. Yam was found guilty of the murder of Allan Chappelow.
According to the Guardian 29 January 2009, ‘Yam,….,denied the killing as well as stealing cheques and bank cards.,,,,, Yam had spent a month cloning Chappelow’s identity using documents from the house but attempts to get cash failed when his Chinese accent alerted bank staff.’
Last year the supreme court refused Yam’s application to communicate his defence to the European court of human rights in support of his claim that his trial was unfair.
Yam had claimed criminal gangsters had given him the stolen cards and cheques. ‘Before the PIIs were granted it was reported that MI6 had requested secrecy, that Yam was a “low-level informant” for the intelligence services and that “part of his defence rested on his activities in that role”.Guardian 28 April 2016.
So was Wang Yam working for MI6 running a group of criminals to bring in revenue for the state? Going by my research into VAT and other frauds I’d say that it was more than likely.
Yes, exactly, but it really makes no difference which of the Tory stooges is imposed on us, without troubling to face the country. The whole Conservative Party is rotten to the core, just as the entire mainstream media, which fails to question this afront to democracy, is rotten to the core. The personalities (or, more accurately, the lack of them) are irrelevant until the people pulling the strings are banished.
As many here warned and feared, the chief threat to the country’s democracy comes from the Conservative Party and the media, not the EU.
Craig
You were VERY lucky to get away with slapping..Uzbekistan
I went to court… My ex wife was a wee hero…. my community were ever thankful
I think totalitarianism is the natural level all societies eventually descend to. Just as water always finds its way downhill so do we. The problem is all governments are eventually usurped by powerful interests be they money, landowners, the military, the church or whoever. They become so corrupted it becomes necessary to ensure the law is not only so bent it protect themselves but at the same time it must watch everybody else, many of whom want to prosecute them for their lawlessness. It’s a natural regression.
I suspect there is a plot among Tories, all of them, to make Britain the ugliest, most barbaric, violent and intolerant, least educated and enlightened country in the world so that nobody will want to set foot here any more except ignorant American tourists and those unfortunate enough to have been born on the islands.
Remember the bombs and bullets sent to a football manager, a MSP and a lawyer in Scotland recently. Terrorist offences anywhere else and rightly so. In Bonnie Scotland the guilty men were portrayed as “The A-Team ” clowns and were given derisory jail terms. if you are a Rangers supporter it’s not terrorism in Scotland.
Yeah, quite agree, but isn’t the argument for May that she’s the least worst? Leadsom is a complete hypocrite over her financial affairs, which are definitely not Brexitish. Gove is dead, and the others have little support.
Bit of a shame to vote for someone on the grounds that she’s less of a pillock than all her colleagues.
Rather begs the question of who you do vote for, though. Unfortunately any non-pillock Tories are low-profile, non-self-promoters, and for the same reason, have no front bench experience either.
Anyhoo, Tony Blair has just offered his wisdom to the grateful people on Radio 4, and will probably be offering to stand for the Tory leadership if his machinations re Corbyn fail and no-one else wants him. Excuse me, he’s back on. I need to kick the radio through the window.
Isn’t that what happened with Corby?
Vote? The only people voting for the next PM are members of the conservative party who have been members for three months prior to Cameron’s bailing out announcement. The rest of us are effectively facing a fascist coup.
Wasn’t it the Blairites who passed all these oppressive laws that Theresa May now has at her disposal? Blair himself and Big Brother Blunkett?
For example, a link from The Blunkett Files: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~lawf0081/blunkett/
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/dec/07/immigration.immigrationandpublicservices
“It said the line became even tougher when David Blunkett took over as home secretary and started telling immigrants how he wanted them to behave, including speaking English in their own homes and abandoning the practice of making arranged marriages in their country of origin.”
Blair – 54% More New Laws Than Thatcher.
https://www.sweetandmaxwell.co.uk/about-us/press-releases/260607.pdf
Theresa May is, after all, simply continuing what Blair started.
It was the Theresa May Home Office which organised the infamous bus billboard several years ago shouting at [illegal] immigrants: Go Home or Face Arrest.
At the time, even Nigel Farage commented that it smacked of Big Brother. Now the political establishment is oh so shocked about xenophobia that not they, mind, but the evil Nigel and the defenestrated Bo Jo have whipped up.
You only have to “google” the word “draconian” and the name “Theresa May” and you’ll be of and running.
Even UKIP were worried that, under May’s “Anti-Extremism Pledge”, they themselves could be banned !
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/10/01/theresa-may-extremism-laws_n_5912012.html
(Is it a capital “G” in “google” or is it now officially a verb !)
In case you have forgotten, Blair stated that the “rules of the game” for terrorists were changing. May is just continuing what Blair started.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/aug/06/terrorism.july7
https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2013/05/the-uks-legal-response-to-the-london-bombings-of-77/
Isn’t the truth of the counter terrorists, being so obsessed with getting Abu Qatada , especially MI6, because he, apparently innocently, helped persuade them that Al_Qaeda was going to attack Biritain, in 2004 when Asnar was seeking re=-election in Spain, when it was planning to have four suicide boomers blow up those commuter trains in Madrid which made them so mad that they made similar types in Operation Crevice carry out similar attacks in London in July 2005.
Abu Aqtada has helped make such fools out of Braitan’s counter terrorists that they went bananas in the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes.
Britain would have been happy if the Jordanians had finally tortured him.to death.
Abu Qatada is actually a case where the existing laws could have been used instead of resorting to terrorist laws. If the Home and Foreign Offices had got their acts together he would have never been granted asylum on the basis of religious persecution – particularly given his own advocacy of religious persecution and violence before he arrived here. And he would then have been prosecuted for inciting hatred and violence when in 1999 he told his congregation at the Finsbury Park mosque that American citizens “should be attacked, wherever they were” and that “there was no difference between English, Jewish and American people.” and then in 2001 he said in another “that it was not a sin for a Muslim to kill a non-believer for the sake of Islam”.- and the deported when he had served his sentence.
You make it sound like Abu Qatada’s serving as an MI6 informant was to help smoke out potential Al Qaeda recruits,
The SIS should have been more dubious about what Al Qaeda’s agents were telling him about what they were up to in Britain.
No you make it sound like Qatada was an MI6 informant – I tend to del in the real world.
That is the real world bubs.
Al-Qaeda cleric exposed as an MI5 double agent – Allies say warnings were ignored
By Daniel McGrory and Richard Ford – the Times, republished on Indymedia (avoiding paywall):
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/10/324963.html
Cache of original (incomplete):
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:R6uRmR6cBdIJ:http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/article1969239.ece
I left a reply to this comment which shows it to be inaccurate and ignorant of the true facts. It was removed. Letting this comment stand while removing an accurate comment which showed it to be wrong is unjust. I suspect it was removed because I referrred to the commenter as being an ‘ignoramus’ a perfectly legitimate 16th century word meaning ‘to be ignorant of’ (Collins Concise Dictionary, 21st century edition) with no insulting connotations – which I checked before posting the reply. It points out that the Wikipedia entry from which Resident Dissident got his information was shown to be wrong in law. The key sentence from Craig’s post being: “But investigation by the police and security services found every single one of these claims to be false.”
If you wish you are perfectly at liberty to go on Wikipedia and to seek to delete the sourced comments to which you object and to insert your’s and Craig’s unsourced comment about “the police and security services having found every single one of these claims to be false” Good luck, please let us know how you get on. You might also wish to put up the claim he was an MI5 informant.
” It points out that the Wikipedia entry from which Resident Dissident got his information was shown to be wrong in law.”
Perhaps we could have a link to court case/judgement that demonstrated this – rather than someone’s interpretation of a the case, so that people can make up their own minds?
If there had been any substance they would have taken him to court and prosecuted him. Instead they persecuted him, and his family, without justification. But then he’s a Muslim and I cannot recall you ever showing support for targeted Muslims, be it Abu Qatada, Talha Ahsan, Moazzam Begg, Shaker Aamer or Babar Ahmad.
Fail – opinions without any evidence I’m afraid. Some of the targeted Muslims you refer to were convicted as terrorists – so their targeting was highly appropriate in my view.
“I referrred to the commenter as being an ‘ignoramus’ a perfectly legitimate 16th century word meaning ‘to be ignorant of’ (Collins Concise Dictionary, 21st century edition) with no insulting connotations”
Please let this stand – it speaks volumes about the writer.
RD, had the allegations in the tabloid articles you quoted from Wikipedia been true, Abu Qatada could have been prosecuted and convicted under the laws against hate speech and inciting violence. He was not. Indeed, he was never even charged.
John Goss, that’s how to refute without getting personal. You could also add something like “though he was never charged with this” at Wikipedia since the lack of charges is easily verifiable – references merely support verifiability.
The sources quoted in Wikipedia were not tabloid articles – if you don’t think they are supportable you are free to go and challenge them on Wikipedia – perhaps the authorities wanted to go for the more serious charges so Qatatada could be sent back to Jordan – rather than the Maldives/Singapore/Pakistan ffrom where he actually fled.
Resident Dissident, John Goss:
RD, I apologise. Of the six references cited at Wikipedia, one is a transcript in Arabic of a sermon, posted on Twitter (1). Three reference a single Guardian article by Robert Booth (2). One is an unattributed article in The Week UK, based upon articles in the tabloid Daily Mail, Israeli propaganda source MEMRI, and that same Robert Booth article (3). The last is merely a timeline.
RD, you should be able to recognise the process of “churnalism” proceeding here. Not that I support Abu Qatada in any way; I just disagree with magnifying and amplifying angry, brutalised religious nutters and I expect that the courts know better than our wonderful “mainstream media”, ever ready to sensationalise anything.
JG,
(1) – You could challenge and remove this reference from Wikipedia since Twitter accounts aren’t WP:RS.
(2) – You could edit these into a single reference to remove their appearance of Undue Weight, another WP policy.
(3) – You could challenge this reference as being based in turn on unreliable sources.
Hope that clarifies. Can’t you two sort out this sort of thing between yourselves and save me much time?
Resident Dissident, John Goss, the correct procedure is to go to the Wikipedia article’s Talk page, and thrash out what is well-sourced and what is not there. When you have reached consensus (!) edit the article accordingly. The pair of you will then have contributed more clarity than the sum of you as two parts.
I have no problem with Wikipedia or its sources on this matter – as to going to the talk page and thrashing out the issue I think you will find that this has already happened to an inordinate extent and what you see is the conclusion that was reached.
RD, Wikipedia isn’t about reaching overall “conclusions”; that’s one of the best things about it. We can however conclude that Robert Booth (who he?) did write those things about Abu Qatada, and that the Guardian published them. It is reasonable to think that more deliberation was given to the matter in court.
Abu Qatada is actually a case where the existing laws could have been used instead of resorting to terrorist laws.
FACT. Indeed, most if not all specific terrorism legislation is superfluous. It criminalises the intention, rather than the crime, and that is completely wrong. Thanks*, Blair.
* from lawyers looking for new income streams
Theresa May, a sworn member of the Privy Council is also congruent with the CFR or Council on Foreign Relations whose member, James Traub recently writing in a column for Foreign Policy Magazine, argues that the elite need to “rise up” against the “mindlessly angry” ignorant masses in order to prevent globalization from being derailed by the populist revolt that led to Brexit.
Concerned that, “Today’s citizen revolt in Britain, and Europe may upend politics as nothing else has in my lifetime,” Traub notes that Brexit was an “utter repudiation of….bankers and economists” and an example of how “extremism has gone mainstream”.
Recalling it was Home secretary May propensity to ‘rings of steel’ as protection against protesters it is also used as ‘zoos’ to house immigrants, preventing them from entering Britain.
Such ‘rings of steel’ or FEMA type camps or ‘zoos’ with be used to house dissidents and protesters as part of a NSC secret plan against revolt, major riot or uprising in Britain; a strategy that will call on 5,100 troops to be deployed to support armed police in the event of massive public disorder. The territorial army as stated some years ago will also be trained in crowd control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa19-82BBjw
Project Fear will expand exponentially when PM May enters No. 10; forewarned is forearmed…
Oh, let’s face it.
Theresa May is just a tool for whatever SIS chiefs like Sir John Scarlett and Richard Dearlove tell her.
“Britain should withdraw from the European convention on human rights regardless of the EU referendum result”, Theresa May has said, in comments that contradict ministers within her own government.
Theresa Villiers was asked about this, post-referendum. She said (she mumbled, fumbled and grasped at straws) “…there will be a reform.
Reform ?
That’s means “to alter”, “to change” “to replace”.
Or ….to not use what there is already there…and have “something else”.
Gulp !
Tbh Craig…I don’t really see how all this is evidence that Theresa May is Islamophobic. The anti-terror laws may be draconian compared to certain other countries, but they equally apply (at least theoretically) to nominally Protestant and Catholic terrorist groups from Ireland, atheistic far-left wannabe Baader-Meinhof copy-cats or far-right neo Nazis like the deranged psychopath who recently murdered Jo Cox. The problem is probably more an Islamophobic British tabloid press – which has continually scapegoated Muslims to the extent that now in the popular mind if one mentions ‘terrorism’ then it is automatically expected that one is talking about Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. It’s probably more the case that politicians latch onto this and feel the need to jump through hoops and perform a circus act so that they can please the right wing, tabloid British press by being seen to be as tough as they can. I tend to think that it is the media controlling the politicians in this country and it has been for a very long time rather than the other way around.
“The Home Secretary Theresa May MP has been voted the year’s worst Islamophobe at the IHRC’s Islamophobia awards.”
http://5pillarsuk.com/2015/03/08/home-secretary-theresa-may-voted-islamophobe-of-the-year/
The squeaky-wheel of Islamic terror gets the grease while the peaceful and very quiet majority has little in the way of organized voice to counter the Islamaphobic zeitgeist. The psychopathic tail wags the dog and that’s a genuine quandary for all parties seeking a genuine solution. Until we all recognize our responsibilities as human beings nothing will change.
Qatada was an MI5 asset. Here’s the quote to Google: “Indignant French officials accused MI5 of helping the cleric to abscond. While he remained on the run, one intelligence chief in Paris was quoted as saying: “British intelligence is saying they have no idea where he is, but we know where he is and, if we know, I’m quite sure they do.”
Think you are mixing up Abu Qatada’s spying for MI6 with what MI5 was attempting when SIS agent Matthew Gould on secondment was trying to get all Muslims suspects in the fallout from Operation Crevice to flee.
A copy of the article by Daniel McGrory and Richard Ford , originally published in The Times, is available on Indymedia. “Al-Qaeda cleric exposed as an MI5 double agent”:
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/10/324963.html