Select Committee on Home Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)

9 NOVEMBER 2004

MR BEN WARD, MR LES LEVIDOW, MR GERRY GABLE AND MR PAUL DONOVAN

  Q1 Chairman: Good afternoon, gentlemen, and thank you for our invitation to give evidence. Just by way of background, this is the first evidence session of the inquiry by the Committee into the impact of terrorism on community relations in this country. We did take evidence on a one-off session in the summer on police use of stop and search powers under the terrorism legislation. We will obviously draw on some of that session for the forthcoming hearings, but we are very grateful to each of you. It would be helpful for the committee and for the record if I go to each of you in turn and you briefly introduce yourselves for the record.

Mr Ward: My name is Ben Ward. I am counsel in the Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, and I am based here in London.

  Mr Gable: I am Gerry Gable, a publisher of Searchlight magazine. I am also a Vice-Chair of the Independent Advisory Group to the Metropolitan Police Service, and I have been doing this for 40-odd years.

  Mr Donovan: I am Paul Donovan, a freelance journalist. I have done work on terrorism coverage in the media.

  Mr Levidow: I am Les Levidow. I represent the Campaign against Criminalising Communities.

  Q2 Chairman: Could you say a little more about what that campaign is?

  Mr Levidow: Yes. Our campaign was founded in response to the Terrorism Act 2000. It brings together a range of human rights activists, lawyers, other NGOs and people from the various migrant communities which are being targeted and affected by the so-called anti-terror laws.

  Q3 Chairman: Could I set this in context, and I ask all the witnesses to be quite brief. It would be helpful background to today's session if each of you in turn could give a very brief assessment of what you feel the terrorist threat is at the moment in this country. I know none of you are expert witnesses on terrorism per se but it would be useful to know what your own assessment is and that of your organisation of the extent of the terrorist threat.

  Mr Levidow: It is extremely difficult to give an answer to this question. It is much easier to challenge all the claims that have been made about types of terrorist threats, and I will speak to this later.

  Mr Donovan: It is a difficult question to answer because all we really have to go on is what has happened in foreign countries: 9/11 in 2001, obviously Bali, the Saudi Arabian attacks and Madrid more recently. That is the threat we are seeing outside. Nothing has actually happened here, so it is difficult to tell what the threat is. That is part of our problem in trying to evaluate what the threat is and whether the measures being taken are adequate and that is why nothing has happened here or whether they are over the top. It is difficult to equate. There is definitely a threat, but it is very difficult to equate what that is.

  Mr Gable: I would take it in a slightly broader way. It is about how one defines terrorism. I think everybody thinks of terrorism today on the basis of 9/11. I would want to include in that the David Copeland incident, which in itself was a terrorist act.

  Q4 Chairman: He was the nail bomber?

  Mr Gable: Yes. I would hope you would look at that as well as the question of extremist people of various faiths. I would add that whilst my colleague here says there is nothing happening here, maybe there has been a certain level of prevention but there were British nationals involved in at least one of the bombings overseas, and I think we have to take cognisance of that.

  Mr Ward: Firstly, obviously, I must note that my organisation does not have access to any of the information upon which the Government's decisions are based. Clearly, when the Special Immigrations Appeals Commission looked at the evidence in closed session, it was satisfied that there was a threat. However, I would endorse very strongly the view of the Joint Human Rights Committee that the Government should consider ways to increase scrutiny of that evidence so that those of us who have not had access to classified material can better evaluate the nature of the threat and therefore better evaluate what the appropriate response to it should be.

  Q5 David Winnick: The Campaign against Criminalising Communities, Mr Levidow, seems to question whether there is in fact any terrorist threat at all. Can I just get quite clear in my own mind: was 9/11 terrorism?

  Mr Levidow: The claims being made of threats of large-scale political attacks—

  Q6 David Winnick: Could you answer my question, with respect. Was 9/11 terrorism or not?

  Mr Levidow: Of course it was. We are not talking about other countries now. We are questioning the claims being made, especially in the mass media but also from representatives of the police, about terrorist threats in this country, by which I assume they mean threats of systematic violence against the public. That is what we question.

  Q7 David Winnick: Mr Levidow, if I can, with respect, because obviously whatever goes on abroad in our view, the view of the House of Commons collectively, whatever other views we take on the subject, has some impact or possible impact on the United Kingdom. Was 9/11 an act of terrorism?

  Mr Levidow: Of course.

  Q8 David Winnick: You agree it was?

  Mr Levidow: Of course.

  Q9 David Winnick: Was what happened in Istanbul an act of terrorism?

  Mr Levidow: Of course.

  Q10 David Winnick: In Madrid?

  Mr Levidow: Of course, we do not dispute that. We dispute the claims being made about the threat.

  Q11 David Winnick: Do you dispute the remarks yesterday by the Head of MI5 who said that we should not take in any way lightly the threat of a terrorist attack on this country, remarks which have been made persistently by Ministers and other senior officials, police chiefs, since 9/11? Do you believe there is a terrorist threat to the United Kingdom?

  Mr Levidow: It is impossible to know but it is possible also to challenge, as we have done, the various claims being made. Can I speak in some detail on this now? I did prepare a statement in reply to the questions that were helpfully provided to us. The letter announcing this whole inquiry asks the question whether terrorist threats harm community relations. Our view is that the main harm to community relations comes from the so-called anti-terror laws and their use. The problem starts from the exaggeration and fabrication of terrorist threats, including the mass media. I suggest you read the statement by Martin Bright of the Observer, which we included in the submission that we gave to the   Privy Council a year ago.[1] From first-hand experience, he reveals the Government's mass media strategy, which was one of your other questions to us. Namely, MI5 circulates disinformation about threats or even specific accusations against individuals who are being arrested by labelling them as an Al-Qaeda cell. Then the journalists publish the information because they do not know what else to do with it, but implying that they had investigated the matter and had found out this information. Newspapers have not been charged with contempt of court for this character assassination as they normally would be in other types of cases. Then the Government cites the mass media reports as evidence of a terrorist threat and as evidence of public concern, which the Government itself has encouraged. I will just give you a couple of examples. I am coming on to the question of evidence. Here are just two of many examples. "Terror gas attack foiled. Deadly chemicals were targeted at the tube in Gatwick". That was from the Evening Standard (6 April 2004). In the Daily Mail (24 January 2004): "London time bomb plant, five held. Al-Qaeda suspects had enough explosives to kill hundreds". There are numerous mass media reports like this about specific individuals who are arrested, but then what happens? Often the charges are withdrawn, and that is not reported, and there is an enormous gap between these reports and prosecutions.

  Chairman: Mr Levidow, I need to chair the meeting and give other witnesses a chance to continue. You have made your point, I think. I will let Mr Winnick come back on this.

  Q12 David Winnick: I have one last question, Mr Levidow, in this section. Do you accept in any way that those who are responsible for 9/11, for what happened in Bali, Madrid and Istanbul, if they could, in your view, would commit the same terrorist atrocities in the United Kingdom?

  Mr Levidow: Of course that is possible but let me emphasise that there is an enormous gap between all these claims and prosecution evidence in court.[2]

  David Winnick: We will take that as a yes.

  Q13 Chairman: As a committee, I hope we will have a great deal of opportunity to look at some of those more specific points. I would like to pursue some of the issues that come out of that exchange with other witnesses. To each of the other witnesses, could I ask you this question: do you think that there has been a deleterious effect on social cohesion since 9/11, Bali, Madrid and the sense of a heightened international terrorist threat? Do you think community cohesion has got worse?

  Mr Donovan: I think particularly the Muslim community feels that it has been targeted by some of the tactics that have been used since 9/11 to prevent terrorism.

  Q14 Chairman: Can I ask you what the evidence is for that?

  Mr Donovan: The stop and search figures are one example.

  Q15 Chairman: We will obviously be taking evidence in due course from Muslim organisations. You have said that the Muslim community feels certain things. I just ask what the evidence is for those feelings.

  Mr Donovan: That has just come from my speaking to people in the East London area in particular.

  Q16 Chairman: Mr Gable, do you think it has got worse?

  Mr Gable: I think a number of things come together here. Yes, social cohesion has been seriously damaged, but again, going back on to my hobbyhorse, if you look at what has happened in this country in the last four years, you have had serious racial disturbances in the north-west and other parts of the country. Evidence in the trials of BNP and Combat 18 supporters after Oldham and Burnley was absolutely conclusive, and the evidence is not hearsay, this is in a court of law, that they had instigated those riots, tearing up the social fabric of those cities and towns by using Muslims as a scapegoat in almost every situation you come across. I have seen in local council elections BNP leaflets with pictures of a mosque on them saying, "This is the terrorist centre in your community. Why do they have CCTV cameras? It is because they are looking at you because you are their next targets" and no action has been taken on some of this material. Having said that, and I have had an interest in stop and search for well over 20 years, there are a number of things. There is the way, overall, you look at stop and search. Is it a good tool for the police or is it not a good tool for the police? My belief is that, properly used with intelligence and intelligence-led policing and the officers going out to do that job in the streets, it can be of value. The other point is that all Asian communities have been suffering from stop and search since 9/11 and the anti-terrorist laws because often policemen cannot tell one Asian person from another, whether they be Muslim, Hindu or Sikh. The final point is that I would say the police should be using that power in this situation—

  Q17 Chairman: I am trying to avoid us getting too far on to that but we get the general point you make. Mr Ward, what is your view about whether there has been deterioration and why?

  Mr Ward: Plainly there has. In terms of pointing specifically to evidence of it, in the briefing paper that I submitted to the committee on behalf of Human Rights Watch, there are references to statements by the Muslim Council for Great Britain, the Commission for Racial Equality, Islamic Human Rights Commission, and indeed the Newton Committee, all indicating disquiet in the Muslim community as a consequence of counter-terrorism and in particular as a consequence of the indefinite detention of foreign terrorism suspects.

  Q18 Chairman: Can I ask each of you to respond to this last question from me very briefly. Listening to the four of you together, there is a range of views but everybody is agreed there is some deterioration in community cohesion. There is a range of views about the extent to which that stems primarily or entirely from what the Government and the police have done to Mr Gable's view that we have to take into account other people in the community who may be exploiting the situation. Can I ask each of   you where you would put the balance of responsibility and to what extent you regard it as entirely the responsibility of Government and the police and to what extent we should be focused on the role of other agencies, the media as Mr Levidow referred to it, and so on? Mr Ward, I will start with you.

  Mr Ward: As an international human rights organisation, we are necessarily concerned with the compliance with governments and with their obligations under human rights law, so that is our focus. We simply have not looked at the views of communities and what they may be. It may well be that they are equally problematic. However, our view is that when we look at the issue of counter-terrorism measures on behalf of the Government, they plainly have contributed negatively to community relations.

  Q19 Chairman: Mr Gable, is there anything you would like to add to what you have said before?

  Mr Gable: I think Government, and much more so the media, has a very bad role in all of this. There has been some media reaction on legislation and the consequences in terms of social cohesion that have often not been thought through. There is also a huge amount of speculation and hearsay around in Muslim communities. I see this through my work with the Independent Advisory Group. People come to us with stories about attacks on Muslims. Obviously, we take them seriously. A reasonable amount of the time, those stories turn out to be rumour and not true at all. I have given the committee some background stuff we have published about attacks that we do know have happened, and they are very serious attacks.

  Mr Donovan: I think the Government and the policing authorities have played a big role in this. I   also think the media have played quite an irresponsible role in many cases in fanning the whole thing along. One thing I would like to say is that I think we really need to recognise what we have in this country, which is very precious, and that is racial harmony. It is really something to hang on to and we should be very careful before we damage it.

  Chairman: Mr Levidow, you had a fair crack. I am going to move on to the next questions. I am sure you will have plenty of opportunity to come in.


1   Note by witness: Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC), "Terrorising Minority Communities with `Anti-Terrorism' Powers: their Use and Abuse", Submission to the Privy Council Review of the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001, September 2003, Appendix V by Martin Bright, http://www.cacc.org.uk/ATCSA-consult-final.pdf Back

2   Note by witness: See report by the Institute of Race Relations, "New study highlights discrimination in use of anti-terror laws", http://www.irr.org.uk/2004/september/ak000004.html Back


 
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