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Terrorlovenes pris: sig sandheden, få en bøde
En lille frontberetning fra dagens London: To mennesker går forbi en metaldetektor i undergrundsbanen, den ene siger lavmælt til den anden, at denne her metaldetektor er noget skrammel, som ikke kan standse nogen som helst angreb og pludselig ... bliver de omringet af en større flok politifolk, som gerne lige vil "forhøre sig" og ender med at give den ene en bøde for at "optræde truende". En scene fra en dystopi á la Huxleys Fagre nye verden?
Nej, London 2006 - vi giver ordet til The Londonist:
My friend Phil and I were going through a metal detector on the way out of Highbury & Islington tube on Friday evening around 8.30pm, on our way to a gig. Phil, who has a degree in physics, said to me in a low voice that the metal detector was a "piece of shit that wouldn't stop anyone". Obviously, someone was listening, as all of a sudden, half a dozen policemen jumped on him and hustled him over to the corner of the tube station, where he was detained for about 20 minutes for the grave crime of swearing in public, and fined £80 for the privilege. For swearing! On the tube! If it's such a crime, then I owe them about a million pounds, as swearing on and at the tube is the only way to deal with the pain of having to travel on the dratted thing every day.Også i Danmark har vi vore terrorlove, der allerede har gjort betydeligt indhug i ytringsfriheden.
The police were fucking rude, too, and treated Phil like he was a hardened criminal - they were really aggressive, and clearly wanted him to lose his temper so they could charge him with something worse. They said repeatedly he was very close to being arrested. For the terrible crime of swearing and calling their machine a piece of shit - which, as a physics graduate, he actually knows about. Phil co-operated fully and gave them every piece of ID you could think of, and allowed them to search his bag, but that wasn't enough for them - they just had to keep on firing questions. I got really upset and started crying through rage, frustration and fear. I also asked them very politely if this was the UK or the People's Republic of China. They then told me I was very close to being arrested, too.
(...)
Of COURSE stopping suicidal idiots with bombs is justifiably the focus of the police's efforts, as well as protecting the public from ordinary, run-of-the-mill criminals. Of course, they should go to every effort to stop future attacks like the disgusting, cowardly bombings that cost 52 innocent lives almost a year ago. However, I fail to see how fining my friend £80 for the despicable crime of questioning their methods via the use of a four-letter word is making Britain safer. Hands up if you've never sworn in public. Anyone? Anyone at all? Well, watch out – power-tripping police with nothing better to do might decide they don't like the look of you (it took five officers twenty minutes to write up the offence, and to ascertain that Phil is who he says he is – that's over an hour and a half of police time that could have been used to make our streets safer).
Men, vi kan være ganske rolige - det bliver værre endnu. The Independent har for nylig skrevet udgivet The article that may get you arrested, der handler om, hvordan regeringen Tony Blairs "antiterrorlove" og retspolitiske stramninger har afskaffet almindelige borgerrettigheder i en udstrækning, næppe nogen havde forestillet sig for blot femten år siden:
Last year - rather late in the day, I must admit - I started to notice trends in Blair's legislation which seemed to attack individual rights and freedoms, to favour ministers (politicians appointed by the Prime Minister to run departments of government) over the scrutiny of Parliament, and to put in place all the necessary laws for total surveillance of society.Men læs endelig hele historien om, hvordan almindelige, elementære rettigheder biver afviklet i et vanvittigt retscirkus, der formentlig ville have fået Winston Churchill - manden, der indførte menneskerettighederne i britisk lovgivning for at indføre en form for garanti mod overgreb som dem, man havde set i Nazi-Tyskland og Sovietunionen - til at rotere i sin grav.
(...)
The law banning people from demonstrating within one kilometre of Parliament is contained in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005. The right to protest freely has been affected by the Terrorism Act of 2000, which allows police to stop and search people in a designated area - which can be anywhere - and by antisocial behaviour laws, which allow police to issue an order banning someone from a particular activity, waving a banner, for instance. If a person breaks that order, he or she risks a prison sentence of up to five years.
(...)
there's more, so much in fact that it is difficult to grasp the scope of the campaign against British freedoms. But here goes. The right to a jury trial is removed in complicated fraud cases and where there is a fear of jury tampering. The right not to be tried twice for the same offence - the law of double jeopardy - no longer exists. The presumption of innocence is compromised, especially in antisocial behaviour legislation, which also makes hearsay admissible as evidence. The right not to be punished unless a court decides that the law has been broken is removed in the system of control orders by which a terrorist suspect is prevented from moving about freely and using the phone and internet, without at any stage being allowed to hear the evidence against him - house arrest in all but name.
Freedom of speech is attacked by Section Five of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, which preceded Blair's Government, but which is now being used to patrol opinion ...
Og som vi er godt på vej til at efterligne i Danmark. Samtidig med, at man går klager over, at "ytringsfriheden" er truet, fordi nogen vover at kritisere folk, der sviner muslimer til - samtidig med, at vi lader den ene terrorlov efter den anden slippe uhindret forbi. Samidig med, at man sier myggen fra og sluger elefanten, som gode, nyttige idioter for de totalitære tendensers stormskridt.