Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
9 NOVEMBER 2004
MR BEN
WARD, MR
LES LEVIDOW,
MR GERRY
GABLE AND
MR PAUL
DONOVAN
Q20 Mrs Dean: I will turn to Mr Levidow
first, if I may. Could I ask this? Islamic extremist groups have
been condemned by responsible Muslims but should not groups in
the UK that condone international terrorism and Al-Qaeda be policed
vigorously in your opinion?
Mr Levidow: What do you mean by
"policed vigorously"? Do you mean watched?
Q21 Mrs Dean: There should be investigations
into their activities if they are actually condoning international
terrorism and Al-Qaeda?
Mr Levidow: Here a distinction
needs to be drawn between verbal statements and involvement in
preparing acts of violence. In the view of many people in this
country, the Government, this Government, not only condones international
terrorism but also helps carry out such activities, which can
be seen to fit the UK's own definition of terrorism in the Terrorism
Act 2000.
Q22 Mrs Dean: Could you give examples?
Mr Levidow: The attacks on Afghanistan,
on Iraq and so on.[3]
Q23 Mrs Dean: That is your view.
Mr Levidow: And the view of many
people in this country, as you will see today in the response
to the attacks on Fallujah. But in that overall context, if some
people here verbally condone acts of violence elsewhere, then
that is not in itself a proper matter for the law. It may be a
matter for surveillance but it is not a proper matter for the
criminal law.
Q24 Mrs Dean: What you are saying is
that there should be no action taken against people who, for instance,
support what happened on September 11?
Mr Levidow: It is not a proper
matter for the criminal law. It may be a proper matter for surveillance
to find out whether any such people are actually involved in violent
activities. But, from what I can see of the report of prosecutions
of people under anti-terrorist laws, as I tried to explain before,
there is virtually no evidence—and this is now three years
since the ATCSA in 2001 and four years after the Terrorism Act
2000—presented in court of anyone planning violent activities,
except perhaps loyalists in Northern Ireland.
Q25 Mrs Dean: With respect, that was
not the question I asked. I asked you whether it was right that
those who condoned what happened on September 11 and the other
atrocities around the world should not be looked at carefully
by the police. Did they put forward the opinion that those atrocities
are not wrong?
Mr Levidow: Police surveillance
is one matter; the criminal law and prosecutions is another matter.
Police surveillance of course is needed on people who might be
planning violent activities.
Q26 Mrs Dean: My question was: should
they be policed vigorously? We may need to move on.
Mr Levidow: I am drawing a distinction
here between surveillance and use of the criminal law to prosecute
people.
Q27 Chairman: Criminal law can be used
to prosecute people, so you accept that if people have broken
the law they should be prosecuted. You also accept, if I understand
rightly, that if people are advocating support for the type of
terrorism we saw in 9/11, it is quite reasonable for the police
to pay them particular attention, more so than other members of
the public who do not advocate support for terrorist activities?
Mr Levidow: The police do not
need any special laws to do that. You can be sure they do surveillance
on all sorts of people, including all sorts of NGOs and political
activists. The police do not need special powers to do that.
Q28 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: Mr Levidow, did
I hear you correctly: did you accuse the British Government of
being terrorists?
Mr Levidow: This is a widespread
view in this country.
Q29 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: It is your view,
is it?
Mr Levidow: Yes, well, particularly
of the attacks on Iraq.
Q30 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: What do you think
ought to be done to the UK Government in relation to these notional
terrorist attacks, as you say?
Mr Levidow: The Department of
Public Prosecutions does not share this view, so probably nothing
will be done.
Q31 Chairman: What proportion of the
British public do you think holds the view that the British Government
is a terrorist government?
Mr Levidow: In particular cases,
in the attack on Iraq.
Q32 Chairman: What proportion of the
British population do you think holds this view? We should not
spend too long on this.
Mr Levidow: Something like one-third
to one-half of the people opposed the attack. I am not sure what
proportion of them—
Chairman: I am going to move this on.
Given that I resigned from the Government over the war but I do
not actually regard the British Government as a terrorist government,
I would not like to be lumped in to those who regard this as a
terrorist government.
Q33 Mrs Dean: May I turn to Mr Donovan?
In the absence of a breakdown of police statistics by region,
is it likely that, for example Hindus as well as Muslims are being
stopped and searched under the Terrorism Act, a subject referred
to earlier? Do you have any evidence of alienation of his and
other minority communities?
Mr Donovan: I do not really have
evidence of different communities other than the Muslim ones that
I have met in East London, but I have no doubt that there are
other communities that do feel alienated in that way because there
is a lack of breakdown. I would suggest the stop and search figures
ought to be broken down into more definite race categories and
region probably as well, and then we would have more basis to
argue on.
Q34 Mrs Dean: Mr Gable, I think you raised
the issue earlier: do you have any evidence?
Mr Gable: I just feel that when
it comes to stop and search and stopping people, what do you do
in this situation where there is a terrorist threat? Anybody in
their right mind will see there is a perceivable terrorist threat
all over the world at this stage. I just draw your attention to
police practice during the height of the various provisional IRA
bombing campaigns on the mainland. I used to commute into Liverpool
Street Station at the height of that and you would see Special
Branch officers in plain clothes and uniformed officers and railway
police stopping about one person in 30 or 50 in the rush hour,
whether they were wearing jeans or a bowler hat or were young
or old. That had a deterrent effect. You can say this is a fishing
expedition. Maybe if there was a bit more knowledge and more sound
intelligence, there might be more people who are really dangerous
behind bars at the moment.
Q35 Mrs Dean: Do you have anything to
add, Mr Ward?
Mr Ward: On the issue of stop
and search, I would like to draw the attention of the committee
to the work of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination,
which has expressed concern generally about the disproportionately
high number of stops involving ethnic and racial minorities, and
its recommendation that the UK record all such stops and give
a copy of the record to the person who is stopped. Human Rights
Watch would take the view that that is a sensible recommendation.
Very briefly, I would also like to comment about your earlier
point in relation to effective counter-terrorism measures and
effective policing. It was certainly our conclusion from examining
this in our briefing paper—and I know that it is also the
conclusion of the Newton Committee and others—that one of
the consequences of alienating Muslims is that that actually undermines
the willingness of that community to co-operate with the police
and the security services, and then actually has a negative impact
on the ability to police the sorts of groups that you were describing
in your question.
Q36 Chairman: To pursue it slightly further,
if we can, it seems reasonable to suggest, as one of you did earlier,
that a number of minority ethnic groups were being disproportionately
stopped alongside Muslims, particularly Hindus and perhaps some
Sikhs, those not wearing turbans perhaps, who would not easily
be distinguished by some police officers from one community or
another, yet the resentment, as you described it earlier, appears
to be held specifically within the Muslim community. Can you identify
for us more precisely why it is that the sense that you describe
to us of alienation or resentment is concentrated in the Muslim
community even though they are very unlikely to be the only Asian
population that is being stopped and searched more than the white
population?
Mr Ward: I would suggest that
it arises primarily from the policy of indefinite detention of
foreign terrorism suspects. Although my organisation has not examined
in detail the use of other conventional counter-terrorism measures
in the Terrorism Act 2000, we have looked in detail at the use
of indefinite detention and plainly that is regarded as a great
injustice. This is very much an anecdotal point but I participated
in a Radio 5 call-in programme and I was very struck by
a number of callers who identified themselves as being British
Muslims who felt that the use of indefinite detention was a great
injustice. All they were asking for was for those people who are
guilty of offences to be prosecuted, to be put on trial and punished
or otherwise released, so clearly there is a link.
Q37 Mrs Dean: Mr Gable, could I ask you:
if the rise in community tensions can be put down to the threat
of terrorism, why has there been a rise in anti-Semitic attacks?
Mr Gable: I find this very interesting.
If you look at the immediate period after 9/11, certainly in the
Metropolitan Police area, there were far fewer incidents involving
the Muslim community than any of us expected, but there was a
rise in attacks on the Jewish community. I think we have a problem
here. It is something I would like to talk about this afternoon.
We have a situation where the Muslim community, and I do not think
it is entirely laid at the door of Government but much more so
at the media, are targeted and targeted. If you pick up even up-market
papers, you get this anti-Muslim hysteria. If I was a Muslim,
I would feel it in my heart and my head. All right, this is a
bad situation and many young Muslims are looking for leadership
in coming to terms with this. This is something I have put in
my notes for today: maybe people like Richard Desmond should be
here answering a few questions about the behaviour of their papers
because it is intolerable. Some of the headlines are as bad as
some things you would read in the BNP paper. Having said that,
why is it that even the most respectable of the Muslim community
organisations in this country fail to 100% to condemn terrorist
bombing and suicide bombing? What happens is that a bomb goes
off somewhere and everybody pays lip service across all the communities,
across all the faiths, saying, "This is a terrible thing;
this has got to stop". The Muslim community leadership of
the most responsible and respectable people says, "Yes, we
go along with that, but . . .", and it is that "but"
that is the signal to young Asian kids and young Asian students
at universities to go and have a go at the Jews. It is not a question
of Palestine/Israel. This is a question of cohesion between the
Muslim community and the Jewish community and all of us in this
country. I think some serious talking needs to take place. The
Jewish community has a very good history in this country of reaching
out to other faiths. It still continues today, I am glad to say;
it has not fallen away but it is hampered by these irresponsible
remarks being made that might not affect Muslim adults but certainly
has an impact on young Muslims who feel under threat and they
are looking for somebody to hit back against.
Q38 Mrs Dean: May I follow up that with
a question? Is that related to any particular groups that have
an effect on young Muslims groups? You mentioned universities.
Are there any particular groups?
Mr Gable: There is the group that
has now wound itself up, but one goes and another one comes.
Q39 Chairman: That is Al-Muhajiroun?
Mr Gable: Yes. These groups have
existed since the year dot. They existed before there have been
these terrible conflicts between Palestinians and Israelis. If
you go to the bookshops, you can buy the Protocols of the Elders
of Zion, you can buy all sorts of stuff that is really strong.
Just to change tack slightly, I think the police since 9/11 have
been running to catch up for two reasons in relation to the Muslim
community. One has been social cohesion and concerns that the
rest of us have. The other thing is intelligence failings. There
was no real intelligence about what was going on in some of these
communities. You could say the police moves are cynical. I do
not think they are entirely cynical. I think it might be 60% wanting
fresh intelligence and 40% actually being very concerned about
social cohesion. If you look at the Met and other services up
and down the country, there is a whole range now of inter-faith
groups working with the police, and I think some good should come
out of that.
3 Note by witness: For many other examples of
support for terrorism, see the book by Mark Curtis, Web of
Deceit: Britain's Real Role in the World, Vintage Books, 2003,
especially Chapter 3. Curtis is currently director of the World
Development Movement. Back
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