A Police State?
I watched a fascinating documentary last night about how our liberties are being taken away, primarily as a response to the threat we face ‘from terrorists’. New Labour seem to be the culprits and since 1997 when they came to power, many of our most important rights have now been taken away from us – including our right to protest, right to trial by jury, detention without charge… and the list goes on.
Boris Johnson manages to come across as sensible for once, when he advises the Government on identity cards: “Just butt out of it.”
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/taking-liberties
Here is what the producers of the programme have to say about it:
Riding in on a wave of optimism and real belief in their mantra that things can only get better, the New Labour government proceeded to enact some of the most authoritarian legislation in recent history. With fast-paced satirical style, this Bafta-nominated film shows how, in just over a decade, some rights and freedoms that took centuries to build up have been rolled back or cut away through a personal journey into the decline of civil liberties.
The 82-year-old holocaust survivor Walter Wolfgang was lifted bodily from a debate at the Labour Party conference for, as Tony Benn points out, ‘rightfully’ saying that Jack Straw is talking ‘nonsense’ about Iraq. We see a man who tries to protest against the treatment of Mr Wolfgang also set upon by security, and learn that he was later handled roughly – and that poor old Wolfgang was next detained by the police under the 2000 Terrorism Act.
We meet Moulad Sihali, an Algerian refugee. He was cleared of all charges relating to a non-existent plot to manufacture the poison ricin, but has now been made a prisoner in his own home. He’s been fitted with a tracking device, is only allowed outside at certain hours – and then only within a one mile radius of his house – and is forbidden to meet anyone who hasn’t been vetted by the Home Office. The specific charge against him? There isn’t one. Read the rest of this entry »