Murphy's letter from Edinburgh

 

House arrest and dual nationality

Our Government seems to have got itself into a bit of a quandary just now as it tries to bring in its new powers of house arrest for suspected terrorists.  This came about when the people who were locked up in Bellmarsh prison under the anti- terrorism laws went to the courts on appeal and the law lords ruled it was illegal to hold them, because it breached their human rights.  

House arrest has never been part of the British way of life or law, and it must be said it is totally alien to the people of this country.  They are rightfully concerned that once these laws are brought in, they can then be adapted and used for other cases that are not related to terrorism.  So I can understand why there is a lot of opposition at the speed they are being rushed in by our government.

I am from the school of thought that you must fight terrorism, and if it means putting them in prison, then that's where they should be.  House arrest would take our police off other duties when their time would be better spent tracing anyone who intends to commit acts of terrorism against our country along with their other policing duties.

Sir John Stevens who is the retired Metropolitan Police Commissioner stated that there may as many as a 100 to 200 Islamic terrorists in this country primed and ready to go.  They want to do as much damage as they possibly can in our country.  A chilling thought by anyone's standards.  How can we put them all under house arrest if we catch them without draining our regular police resources?

If they are locked up in a secure environment they can be watched and secured properly.  We must surely have the powers to do this if they are such a threat to our country or any other country in the world.

I keep on hearing that one mans freedom fighter is another mans terrorist.  But someone who blows people up in acts of terrorism is no ones freedom fighter in my eyes.  They are terrorists and that's the way they should be treated.  Do they think about our human rights?  They don't care about anyone's human rights, and the sooner people start understanding that, the sooner they will get an idea of the problems that we are facing in the future.

I think our government should have also questioned the need of dual nationality in this day and age, and does it serve any purpose to any country in their fight against terrorism?

We had a case recently where someone had dual nationality.  They had a British passport and a Tanzanian passport.  They went too Pakistan where their British passport was lost, they then moved on to Tanzania on the Tanzanian passport.  All legal and all above board according to the rules of dual nationality.  But if they had only one passport, they might have been a bit more careful with their passport.

Dual nationality lets people cross borders on whatever passport that they want too, and that's something I can't quite get my head around.  You come from one country or the other, therefore one passport is all that should be required.

If the government were to look at this properly they could maybe tighten up on the laws against terrorism, although I am not saying that everyone who has dual nationality is a terrorist.  But have any steps been taken to find out if this could also be part of the problems that we are facing?  If not, we need to look at all the loopholes that allow people to cross borders from one country to the other with impunity, especially with terrorists.

We have laws of treason in this country which state that anyone trying to bring instability to our head of state, the government or our country is one of the most serious crimes that one can commit.

It may be that we need to look at all the options in our fight against terrorism, and the charges that are brought against the perpetrators even if it means using emergency powers.

Written by Andrew Murphy 7 March 2005

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