Britain – Highs and Lows in the War on Terrorism
by Adrian Morgan

Britain's commitment to the war on terror is certainly less strong under the unelected leadership of Gordon Brown, who became prime minister on June 27, 2007. As soon as he became the premier, Brown ordered his cabinet ministers to avoid the term "War on terror."

A sign of the current administration's lack of realism came in January this year, when Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced that Islamic terrorism was "anti-Islamic activity." She said: "As so many Muslims in the UK and across the world have pointed out, there is nothing Islamic about the wish to terrorize, nothing Islamic about plotting murder, pain and grief. Indeed, if anything, these actions are anti-Islamic." Smith's Islamic scholars seem to ignore the evidence of the Hadith of Bukhari, in which Mohammed's last words included the statement: "I have been made victorious with terror."

Despite previous bland statements about terrorism, Brown and Smith are now facing rebellion from Labour party ranks for trying to be "tough" on terror suspects. On November 9, 2005 Tony Blair was defeated when he tried to extend the time that terror suspects could be detained without being charged. Blair wanted suspects detained for 90 days, but Parliament only accepted a compromise of 28 days. Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith want the time to be raised to 42 days in a bill to be discussed next month.

In 1998 the Labour Party introduced the Human Rights Act, which ensured that all of British law had to comply with the European Convention of Human Rights. Already this legislation has proved to be disastrous when dealing with terrorism. It has allowed Afghan terrorists the right to remain in Britain indefinitely.

Control orders were introduced by then-Home Secretary Charles Clarke in 2005. These measures were brought in to monitor and regulate the activities of terror suspects who could not be prosecuted, often in the form of a partial house arrest. In May 2007 it was revealed that three individuals – Cerie Bullivant, Lamine Adam and Ibrahim Adam – had escaped, despite being under "control orders."

A month later, it was revealed that another individual had escaped a control order. Zeeshan Sidique, like the Adam brothers and Bullivant, had connections with the individuals convicted in the Operation Crevice trial of trying to cause explosions in Britain. Sidique had gone to Pakistan to commit "Jihad." He had been admitted to a lunatic asylum while on a control order, but had escaped through a window in September 2006. He has not been found. His diary entries record the rantings of a disturbed individual, desperate to return to "the battlefield" of Jihad for the sake of Allah.

On December 12, 2007, Cerie Bullivant was cleared by a jury on seven counts relating to his breaching his control order. He admitted he had absconded, but claimed that the control order had made his life miserable. He was placed on another control order, but his lawyer announced that he would appeal against the original order on the grounds that it breached Bullivant's human rights.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Britain – Highs and Lows in the War on Terrorism