- The experience of terrorism in the United Kingdom:
“I against my brother
I and my brother against our cousin
I, my brother and our cousin against the neighbours
All of us against the foreigner.”
The experience of terrorism in the United Kingdom is mostly (in fact nearly exclusively) linked with the Catholic claims for independence in Northern Ireland. These claims are in majority upheld by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), also responsible for the birth of the Irish nationalist feelings in Ulster. In 1922, out the independence of Ireland, 6 counties in the North of the country, mainly inhabited by the Protestants decided to remain part of the United Kingdom. The IRA, as a catholic militant faction, rejected the results of the partition and started a long-lasting armed struggle against the British authorities and actions of retaliation against the protestant population. The organisation was also supported by a political branch called Sinn Fein and created in 1905. The struggle for independence reached a dead end after a classic campaign in the fifties against “the occupier”. But the sixties allowed the movement to experience a new blossoming.
In 1969, the IRA was split between the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and the Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA).
If the latter favoured a political solution of the conflict, the former remained faithful to the tradition of armed resistance and the use of force. In 1970, the PIRA was joined by a part of Sinn Fein in its fidelity to the principle of breaking British occupation by the deterrent use of force and coercion. The seventies can be seen as a peak in the activities of the PIRA. In 1974 (often described as the most violent year England experienced, regardless of wartime), 44 people were killed in an ambitious campaign of terror on the mainland (i.e. the English island).
This campaign started on the 4 February with the explosion of a bomb in a coach on the M62. The body count was of twelve deaths including a whole family (a mother and her two children). In July, the target was the armoury of the Tower of London, were one more person was killed and forty-one others injured. Then, in October and November, two pubs were struck by terrorist attack in Guilford and Woolwich (seven deadly casualties). But the climax was reached in Birmingham on the 21 November 1974, with two bomb explosions in pubs again. Twenty-one people lost their lives and one hundred and sixty-two others were injured.
This tide of terrorist assault still remains unchallenged on English ground in the history of the Northern Irish terrorism. But it did not amount to an end of the violence in the area. In fact some others high profile action took place during the 1980-1990 decade, especially with the bombing of the Brighton Hotel during the Tory Annual conference, nearly killing the whole cabinet. Moreover, despite a decline of the violence campaign in the late eighties, and the signature of the Good Friday Agreement 1998, the Northern Irish issue is far from settle.
As a matter of fact, the political institutions have been shunted in October 2002 as a result of the impossibility of the protagonists to reach a ground of common understanding.
- The consequences of terrorism in the United Kingdom on the legislative level:
The early stages of the PIRA’s holy crusade were already responsible for the adoption of the Special Powers Act 1922 and the Prevention of the Violence Act 1939, which persisted until 1954. But the major turn was brought after the bloodbath of 1974 on English soil. The huge traumatism resulting from the abuse of blind violence in the motherland resulted in legal retaliation of, at least, equal political violence. The Prevention of Terrorism (temporary provisions) Act 1974 is one of the harshest pieces of legislation ever adopted against terrorism in a democracy (it has actually became law in 1976). The provisions of the Act are, in substance, the following:
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The potential ban of organisations that “appear to him [the Secretary of State] to be concerned with terrorism in any part of the United Kingdom, relating to Northern Irish affairs”.
- The possibility of adopting exclusion orders (i.e. the exclusion of a person from Great Britain and his ban from entering the territory again) against a person, in order to prevent acts of terrorism, if the person is suspected of prepare such acts, or if the person tries to enter the United Kingdom for such purpose.
- Some special dispositions concerning the powers of police for arrest (without warrant) or detention (the augmentation of the delay of custody without any charges).
- The penalisation of withholding information concerning acts of terrorism.
The next major law enacted by the British Parliament was the Terrorism Act 2000. According to “the broad approach implicit in” that act, “there is a continuing need for legislation for political violence now and for ever after”. The dispositions of the Act are, as stated supra, a direct continuation of the legislation about Northern Ireland. Hence the following measures:
- Proscription of organisations: as in the formerly studied Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974, the Secretary of State have in substance, the power to ban organisations that commit, prepare, promote acts of terrorism or are concerned in the later.
- The rules concerning the terrorist property: persons that are raising funds, possess and use, make funding arrangements, or launder money for the purpose of acts of terrorism are considered committing an offence. Moreover, the terrorist funds can be seized by the state and detained.
- The new counter-terrorist powers: they are all but new and amount to arrest without warrant persons suspected of terrorism, search premises (with warrant) of suspected terrorist hide-outs, and the search persons suspected of terrorism. Parking and motorised circulation are also regulated.
This Act has been completed by the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 taken in the aftermath of the terrorist assault over New York. This Act extends the provisions of the former one to fit the nature of the newly born international terrorism. Hence it is dealing with immigration, race and religion, biological or mass destruction weapons, security of aerial transport, etc…
- Necessity of Counter-terrorist legislation and breaches of civil rights:
There have been strong objection to the adoption of strong anti-terrorist legislation on the ground of ‘no emergency, no law’ (No Emergency, No Law, Belfast 1995).
In fact, if it seems legit for the government to adopt laws to protect the civil society from terrorist troubles, a problem arises when this set of laws are seriously handicapping the exercise of fundamental rights, distorting the very nature of a liberal, democratic society. As it has been seen in the precedent paragraph, the existing legislation in the United Kingdom is restricting if not seriously endangering rights as important as the freedom of information, freedom of movement or freedom of expression. More surprisingly, the extent of the breaches even reaches the occidental sacrosanct respect for the right to individual property. Indeed, the different acts all allows nearly arbitrary seizure, detention and trespassing of private property.
In its opposition to the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974, The National Council for Civil Liberties stresses out the fact that the police and Home Secretary powers could not be challenged in courts (and at the time, the concern was made greater by the inexistence of a Bill of Rights), that the respect of the human dignity of prisoners is ignored (the extended powers give greater opportunities to police abuses like torture) and that instead of having a deterrent effect, these set of laws can power the resentment of potentially active terrorists and lead to much more violence (an argument sustained by the statistics and the bombings like the London City Bombings and the Brighton Hotel events). To end with, the purpose of the Act has been challenged: there was no evidence that this statutory instrument was used for the purpose of counter-terrorism. Indeed the vast majority of arrested people were released without being charged or excluded, when those kept in custody and tried could have been charged under normal police powers.
This concern about the way anti-terrorist legislation impedes on the civil liberties arose again in the wake after Ground Zero.
Once again, the very core of fundamental rights is struck by the adoption of such laws as the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. The most criticised provisions of the Act are dealing with the retention of communication data (freedoms of information, communication and expression are directly targeted); with the changes on asylum and immigration (made stronger than ever); and, of course, with the extension of police powers (gone arbitrary as usual).
The need of special terrorist laws, which has been contested by many, be can be justified for three reasons:
- It is justifiable for states to protect their existence and their values, even at the cost of a limitation of the rights. This is illustrated by the incorporation to the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001of a state obligation to act against political violence.
- Terrorism must remain an illegitimate form of political expression.
- Terrorism can be seen as a different and specific form of criminality, difficult to police and bring through the criminal process.
If there is nothing obviously wrong with such an opinion (after all, terrorism is not the only crime submitted to a special legal regime, the drug traffic is, for example), a problem lies in the extent of the conferred powered and the need for certainty that this special set of laws will not be used for everyday policing, behind the mask of counter-terrorism. Some of those guaranties are missing even if an improvement is to be found in the certainty that the extension of powers granted by the Act and the Act itself are temporary measures.
To conclude with, it must be reckoned that the anti-terrorist legislation starts being redundant: it already exist “plethora of anti-terrorist offences available to prosecute people…”
- A global tendency towards the utilisation of authoritarian anti-terrorist measures in occident:
According to John Strawson, “In some way, September 11 has returned law to Ground Zero. The attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania appear to have disturbed legal cultures. International law has been revealed as feeble, constitutional law as insecure while Human rights law has become negotiable”. Indeed, surfing on the incredible shock caused by the destruction of the legendary edifices, the USA and the United Kingdom, took the opportunity of turning their legal arsenal into the strongest set of rules known on the matter. George W. Bush, describing his conception of “Axis of Evil” and of “War against terrorism” set up the most ambitious imperialist campaign of America since the highlights of the Cold War. If the assault against Afghanistan could have been (with quite much difficulty) legally sustained, the war in Iraq was pretty much assumable as a terrorist action, and the ambitions of an intervention in Syria and North Korea seem even more remotely linked with international terrorism and definitely contrary to the principles of international law as stated in the UN Charter for example. An inquiry into legislation against terrorism reported:
- Legislation against terrorism should approximate as possible to the ordinary criminal law and procedure.
- Additional statutory offences and powers may be justified, but only if they are necessary to meet the anticipated threat. They must then strike the right balance between the needs of security and the rights and liberties of the individual.
- The need for additional safeguards should be considered alongside any additional powers.
- The law should comply with the UK’s obligation in international law.
As we can see, even such basic and insufficiently demanding tests have already been violated by the laws adopted, the praxis of these laws and the actions of the United Kingdom in the past three years.
In other occidental countries as Spain and France the situation is hardly more enjoyable. Spain as always responded to the ETA violence with the harshest severity in its laws and actions. In France, despite a questionable lack of reaction towards the Corsican armed nationalism, the 1996 Paris subway bombing and Islamic “wave of terror” empowered the government to launch the Plan Vigipirate, mixture of parking restrictions (in front of schools, public buildings, etc…), increasing of police powers (police can arrest, control and search people at will) and military intervention (armed military squads are patrolling the train stations, the airport, etc…) under the direction of police officers.
Despite the end of the 1996 -1997 bombing campaign, France has nearly never declared the end of the state of emergency. And, the events of the 11 September made it quite improbable for that end to be proclaimed in the near future.
Conclusion:
Terrorism raises unusual issues in societies that by their very liberal nature are more vulnerable to its effects. Indeed, it is probable that the non-recognition of the fundamental rights can bring some improvement in the results of the police actions against terrorist. But the gain is not comparable to the losses. On the first hand, the negation of those rights also amount to terror, and state terrorism is not more enjoyable than the actual form of terrorism preying on liberal countries. On the second hand, the harsher the laws are, and the more they seem to fuel the terrorist propaganda as well as the adherence to the principle of armed and violent action. Moreover, criticism and rejection of the emergency legislation does not imply support for terrorist: “emergency legislation diminishes the rights of all citizens by providing the government, the police and the army with” exceptional powers “and by corrupting the standards which are central to the administration of Justice”.
However, in the actual climate, following the biggest terrorist attack of all history, despite all the voices raised to underline the necessity of more Human Rights respectful courses of action and legislation, the politics and part of the public opinion find no difficulty in following the harshest line of conduct possible.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
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Peter Chalk, West European terrorism and counter-terrorism, Macmillan Press, 1996.
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Richard Clutterbuck, Britain in agony, Faber and Faber, 1978.
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Lawrence Freedman, Superterrorism: policy responses, Blackwell Publishing, 2002.
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Jeff Goodwin, No other way out: State and revolutionary movements, 1945-1991, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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Catherine Scorer and Patricia Hewitt, The Prevention of Terrorism Act: the case for repeal, NCCL, 1981.
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John Stawson, Law after Ground Zero, Glasshouse Press, 2002.
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Clive Walker, Blackstone’s guide to the anti-terrorism legislation, Oxford University Press, 2002.
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Stuart Woolf (ed), Nationalism in Europe 1815 to the present, Routledge, 1996.
Peter Chalk, West European terrorism and counter-terrorism, Macmillan Press, 1996, p. 1.
Clive Walker, Blackstone’s guide to the anti-terrorism legislation, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 1.
Catherine Scorer and Patricia Hewitt, The Prevention of Terrorism Act: the case for repeal, NCCL, 1981.
See Amnesty International reports on the conditions of detention of the Northern Irish prisoners.
Clive Walker, Blackstone’s guide to the anti-terrorism legislation, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 4.
Peter Chalk, West European terrorism and counter-terrorism, Macmillan Press, 1996, p. 91.
Bruce Chatwin, The songlines, quoted in Stuart Woolf (ed), Nationalism in Europe 1815 to the present, Routledge, 1996.
Richard Clutterbuck, Britain in agony, Faber and Faber, 1978, Chap. 12.
Catherine Scorer and Patricia Hewitt, The Prevention of Terrorism Act: the case for repeal, NCCL, 1981.
Clive Walker, Blackstone’s guide to the anti-terrorism legislation, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 11.
Clive Walker, Blackstone’s guide to the anti-terrorism legislation, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 13.
Rhiannon Talbot, The balancing act: counter-terrorism and civil liberties in British anti-terrorism law, in John Stawson, Law after Ground Zero, Glasshouse Press, p. 129.
John Stawson, Law after Ground Zero, Glasshouse Press, p. 1.
Catherine Scorer and Patricia Hewitt, The Prevention of Terrorism Act: the case for repeal, NCCL, 1981, p. 1.