Are Western nations becoming a coalition of Police States?

It is appearing increasingly obvious to any thinking person that the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on 9/11 were the trigger event that provided George W. Bush with the excuse to launch his "War on Terror" - a mythical and mis-named "war" that has been used as cover (through the ubiquitous "national security" argument) to introduce measures into Western societies that are far too reminiscent of the establishing of Police States...

Press Statement on G8 summit in Rostock
published at dissent.org.uk and elsewhere

During the G8 summit, held in Heiligendamm from the 6th to the 8th of June 2007, a great number of German lawyers belonging to the RAV (Association of Republican Lawyers), the Strafverteidigervereinigung von Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (association of defence lawyers) as well as lawyers belonging to the EDL (European Democratic Lawyers) and to the Legal Team Europa have committed themselves to defend the fundamental rights of those who had come from all over Europe to express their dissent.

The number of demonstrators arrested during the protests is impressive: more than 1000. Only nine of them were tried and condemned during the summit. One man is still detained. Hundreds of expulsions were handed out. The great majority of the arrests were made without connection to illegal activities but for security reasons.

Apart from the international demonstration of the 2nd of June, none of the demonstrations experienced moments of high tension, and most of the protest actions were blockades around the gateways to the fenced zone of Heiligendamm where the summit was taking place. These blockades were encountered with an impressive police apparatus.

Nearly all the arrests were made on the sides of the protests and to small groups or isolated demonstrators. Arrested were people found in possession of pieces of clothing that the police retained to be used for the purpose of masking. At the time of the arrest these people were not masked but had with them scarves (for protection against the sun), bandanas or maybe even sun glasses.

The police arrested also those who they claimed to recognize as participants of previous events. Near the convergence centre or on the streets groups of policemen would arrest single persons who were “recognized” by a piece of clothing in particular, others were detained and photographed, the photos were passed by a software capable of facial recognition and the detainees thus arrested.

The evidence collected in this manner was absolutely inconsistent and as previously noted everybody detained was released after brief periods of time. In fact, it all amounts to an illegal system of mass-indexing and psychological terrorism. The police was aware that the judicial authority would not have confirmed these arrests but proceeded equally with a different objective. The aim was not to arrest presumed offenders but the indexing of a great number of demonstrators, the psychological intimidation of the protesters and the creation of false records to be used in other occasions.

A new element of police activity was the presence of “anti-conflict teams” formed by agents without helmets and with special jackets to identify them who acted as mediators with the demonstrators while on their side there were other agents filming the scene.

The EDL denounces these systems that appear “soft” but that show another face, maybe even tougher, of police repression. It is true that it is a positive outcome that only few people were gravely hurt, but hundreds of demonstrators were lightly injured. On the other hand more than 1000 demonstrators were arrested without a reasonable indication of their guilt and the conditions of detention were inhuman as has already been denounced by various associations and by the EDL itself.

The EDL denounces as well the attacks on the freedom of defence as evidenced by the intimidation of lawyers of the Legal Team from various nationalities that seriously obstructed the work of our colleagues and put in danger their physical integrity. Our solidarity goes to them.

Finally, the EDL denounces the serious obstacles the authority posed to access detention centres, which partly prevented lawyers from assisting the detainees. The Legal Team have demonstrated in protest against this illegal behaviour.

25/6/2007
EDL – European Democratic Lawyers
www.aed-edl.net

Issued by www.gipfelsoli.org
5th June 2007

An Open Letter to the Press Rostock, G8 2007: There is Something Terribly Wrong Here

Here in Germany, as major protests begin against the G8, the world press is not looking beyond the story of the battle – a partial story at best – and asking how or why it is happening.

Summit after summit, we have seen the same pattern in the media. The images of black clad protestors hurling rocks at police, the stories of senseless hooligans—those whom the government says should be punished and locked away.

These stories and images of street fighting do nothing but spread fear, criminalize protests, divide social movements, and distract the public from the story of the G8 and their unaccountable polices that are spreading militarism, poverty, violence, environmental destruction and climate change.

It is easy to condemn those who throw a rock or burn a car, but most of what we are seeing in Rostock is police blatantly provoking violence, using that same violence to justify ever more heavy-handed repression. Each day we are experiencing constant harassment, searches and humiliation imposed on us in the streets and on bikes, trains and borders, with no evidence of crime.

According to an official statement 13,000 police were present in Rostock on Saturday – all were well-armed and wearing lots of protective gear. There were small bands of police running into crowds, pushing, shoving and encircling protestors in a legally permitted rally. We saw nonviolent protestors who were trying to de-escalate the situation bludgeoned with batons and pepper sprayed. We saw huge water cannons infused with toxic chemicals spraying indiscriminately. Why is the press not reporting these acts of violence by the police? If violence makes such good headlines, why does the violence of poverty created by G8 policy go un-condemned?

Perhaps we might begin to understand if we look deeper. We may see that such violent confrontations have become a symptom of social and economic systems that values property over life, prisons over education, sprawl over sustainability, borders over migration, war over peace. We might see that it is in the interest of the police and the G8 to have such street fights, to justify the 90 million euros spent on security (in Germany alone). We might understand that repression and the violence of police is designed to thwart democracy and silence dissent.

But we who oppose the G8 will not be silent and we not be stopped. We understand that things are terribly wrong and that without such protests our voices will not be heard at all.

A Police State? Britain? Surely not...

by Taji Mustafa
Hizb ut-Tahrir

A climate of fear

A telling, yet unremarkable exchange occurred on the BBC’s 10 o'clock news after the arrests of 9 men in Birmingham in early February. The BBC reporter, Rajesh Mirchandani said that some Muslim students had told him they would no longer discuss politics in case they are branded as terrorist suspects and arrested. Their dilemma highlights the differing perceptions of ‘the state’ in modern day Britain.
In the 70s, 80s and 90s, long before 9/11, 7/7 or any other such event, Muslims in Britain identified with and supported the struggles of fellow Muslims in the Muslim world – in a manner not dissimilar to how many in Britain have supported struggles in South Africa and South and Central America over decades. India’s occupation of Kashmir, the Palestinian and Chechen suffering and resistance, were subject of heartfelt prayers in mosques, dinner table conversations and charitable collections for innocent victims. To many other Britons, Kashmir and Chechnya were distant issues which got the occasional mention on the news. However with Bush and Blair’s declaration of their ‘war on terror’, support for the legitimate resistance movements has been criminalised and some have been arrested under new anti-terror laws, not for targeting civilians, but for supporting those fighting occupation in their lands, just as Britain did in the Falklands; resistance which the vast majority of Muslims – and many non Muslims - continue to see as legitimate. Without question, these legal changes not only fail Ken Livingstone’s famous ‘Mandela test’, but they do so in a way that disproportionately affects the Muslim community.

Socially divisive surveillance society is here, says privacy chief

OUT-LAW News, 02/11/2006

Constant surveillance by companies and government is in danger of creating a socially divided society, the Information Commissioner has warned. A reliance on databases will carve society up according to social and economic status, according to his report.

"Two years ago I warned that we were in danger of sleepwalking into a surveillance society," said Commissioner Richard Thomas. "Today I fear that we are in fact waking up to a surveillance society that is already all around us."

Thomas commissioned a report which outlined the present and immediate future of surveillance in the UK. It found that companies already discriminate between customers according to social profiling. With government keen to share data with the private sector, that process is likely to accelerate, it found.

"It's a big business, the business of data aggregation in the private sector, bringing together information on people's habits and activities to sell commercially," Assistant Information Commissioner Jonathan Bamford told OUT-LAW Radio, the weekly technology law podcast.

"With the public sector we see an increase in pressure for information sharing, the government has its transformational government agenda, the idea that if only public authorities shared more information, they'd do better things for the public. I think we have to be clear on what the boundaries are in terms of data protection rules and public acceptability."

The social profiling that is performed with the collected data could have severely adverse affects on individuals, the report warned. It described a near future where wealthy, educated people would be mobile, would be fast tracked at airports and in electronic sales processes. Those same methods would be used to slow down the physical, social and economic movements of poorer people, it said.

"If you are talking about building up profiles of people you are going to find there's an element of social sorting going on," said Bamford. "You actually see that some people become favoured and others treated with suspicion."

"You could be the best behaved child in the class but if the profile that's generated on you based on your relatives show you as being a risk of being disruptive or being one of the 20% of people who commit 80% of the crime in later life you're going to be treated in a particular way whoever comes into contact with you, however you are. There are worries there for the future for social stigmatisation, social exclusion, a society of haves and have nots," he said.

One fear expressed in the report is of 'mission creep', where information projects created for specific reasons are expanded to gather more and more data and share it more and more widely for reasons other than those originally stated.

One of the scientists behind the UK's DNA database said that he believed that that database had suffered 'mission creep' and has become far too large. Designed to hold DNA data on convicted criminals, it now holds information on many people who come into contact with the police, whether guilty or innocent.

"Now hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent people are populating that database," Professor Alec Jeffreys told the BBC this week. Civil rights campaigners believe that a third of black males in England and Wales are on the database. Jeffreys said that the socio-economic and ethnic imbalance in the database is "discriminatory".

For all friends in the UK... Aggressive photographing of peaceful protesters and demonstrators is a tactic that has been increasingly adopted by the police. However, activists are now beginning to rise to the challenge and have started to develop their own counter-strategies. Tilting at Windmills is pleased to be associated with one such initiative, further details of which can be found on the "FitWatch" page of our main website, and all UK activists are invited to participate in the project.

Many in this community have either been stopped and searched in the street, stopped and questioned at airports or have been arrested - or else personally know someone who has experienced something similar. Ask a black person if they have been stopped and searched and they are far more likely to say yes than a white person. Ask someone if they have been questioned about their personal beliefs on social, political and religious issues at an airport, and most people will wonder what you are talking about, except people from the Muslim community for whom it is an increasingly regular occurrence.

The shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes led many Muslims to not unreasonably conclude that a shoot to kill policy has been applied to people who look Muslim. Muslims are also acutely aware of the detention of people who are designated as ‘foreign suspects’ and detained without charge for up to 3 years, based on secret evidence which was not disclosed to them and which they were unable to challenge, forcing some to decide to take the risk of going back to countries like Algeria which practice torture, rather than face indeterminate house arrests (control orders) in the UK.

Since the introduction of stop and search profiling, which Hazel Blears famously told the Muslim community to be prepared to accept, and the adoption of 28 day detention without charge, peoples’ lives have been ruined by these arrests. Some detained for a mere two days have lost their jobs and reputations. It appears people are no longer innocent until proven guilty - rather we now have trial by a presumption of guilt and trial by media. The term ‘terrorist suspect’ has all the emphasis on ‘terrorist’ and none of the cautions of ‘suspect’. Against the backdrop of creeping state authoritarianism for all of society and anti-terror policies that disproportionately target one community, is there any wonder that some feel that Britain is becoming a police state for Muslims?’
Adding to the sense of alienation, many Muslims feel that some in society are relentlessly demanding that they solve ‘the problem’ – as if the whole Muslim community is responsible for the July 7 bombings. Rarely a day goes by without someone telling the British public that some Islamic value or practice threatens the very life of the nation.

A growing authoritarianism and a growing McCarthyism

For many, the proposed introduction of ID cards, 28 day detention without charge and the proliferation of CCTV cameras has led to talk of growing authoritarianism in Britain. The arrest of John Catt, an 80-year-old peace campaigner, for wearing a t-shirt with anti-Blair and Bush slogans and the arrest of 84-year-old Walter Wolfgang at the Labour party conference under anti-terror laws, led a national newspaper to craft the headline: Blair’s Britain 2005 – where peaceful protest can be costly. Keith Shilson, a Student Union leader at Middlesex University, was frog marched off campus for daring to organise a public meeting for people to question Hizb ut-Tahrir, after Tony Blair had only proposed banning the group. Such was the effect of Blair’s statement, that the ‘policing’ of thoughts did not even require a change of law in this McCarthyite atmosphere.
New laws against ‘glorification’ were criticised not just by the usual ’liberals’ but by many eminent personalities in the House of Lords who accused the government of using them to create an atmosphere that silences legitimate voices of dissent and which would have led to Nelson Mandela being branded a ‘terrorist’. The war on terror has led to the erosion of basic principles which were believed to prevent society descending a slippery slope. These were the basic principles that Western nations used to preach, and more recently tried to enforce by military means, to the world. At one time, these were presumed to be principles worth fighting for, but now these principles have become casualties of war.

With some calling for 90 day detention without charge and America’s use of torture ‘lite’, many wonder where this will end, and no one should feel surprised that both the Archbishop of York, who escaped Idi Amin’s Uganda, and an innocent man whose life and reputation have been shaken by a wrongful arrest in Birmingham, use the words ‘police state’.

A benign state

When the Birmingham man Abu Bakr said Britain is a 'police state for Muslims', some strongly disagreed with his characterisation. They argued that there is due process. After all, the courts freed Abu Bakr against police wishes and he was able to speak to the media about his experience afterwards. They argued that the threat society faces is from Muslims, hence inevitably some innocent Muslims will be arrested.

It is worth repeating that they are not from a community where many (young and old) now expect to be taken aside at airports and questioned by Special Branch, at the end of which they ask you to work for them. They are not from a community where we all know someone who has been arrested under anti-terror laws, stopped and searched on the streets or repeatedly detained at airports. They are not from a community which is disproportionately targeted primarily because of its opposition to the policies of the government against their co-religionists abroad. They are not in a community where people are now afraid to voice their support for legitimate resistance struggles of their fellow Muslims because the government has branded that ‘terrorism’.

A police state?

In short, different sections of British society now have quite different experiences of security in Britain. In Egypt, some sections of society do not ever experience the oppressive nature of the state. Similarly, many in Idi Amin’s Uganda, or South Africa under apartheid never tasted the true nature of the state. In Britain, the fact that this increasingly affects a minority and not the majority should be of concern because what starts small inevitably grows.

In Egypt, some – including British tourists - do not feel it is a police state because they are uncritical of the government and hence don’t get touched by the state’s repressive measures. However, bloggers, guests who criticise the regime on satellite TV stations and the masses who bear the brunt of arrests and torture - are clear that Egypt is a police state.
At the height of the lurid reporting after the Birmingham arrest, with mounting public anxiety, John Reid suddenly resurrected plans for 90 day detention having said two months earlier that he did not see a case for it. What we are seeing is the deliberate politicisation of 'terror' - so that politicians can talk tough for political gain and new draconian measures can be forced through. Some of the speeches by police chiefs, the head of MI5, the questions asked about beliefs by the police and the briefings from the security services all betray the politicisation of these services.

Conclusion

Some will see the rehearsal of these arguments as more whinging. Some will see the criticisms of the security services as irresponsible and ignoring a real threat. Some see the case as an exaggeration. Whatever people think, it would be prudent to listen to this ‘whinging’ objectively if anybody really cared about security. Ignoring the arguments because they do not match your experience does not in any way remove the validity of the sentiments of many that, in this current climate, Britain does feel more like a police state for many of its citizens.

Taji Mustafa
Media Representative, Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain

The "Use of the Armed Forces" in America under a National Emergency Unrestricted & Arbitrary Powers conferred to the President & Vice President
by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, June 27, 2007

In October 2006, Bush signed into law the Department of Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007.

DDAA 07 includes specific provisions which allow the military to take control of normal policy and law enforcement functions at the federal and State levels.

Sec. 1042 of the DDAA 07 overturns the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prevents the military from intervening in the conduct of civilian government activities including the conduct of Justice and Law Enforcement. Posse Comitatus has been central to the functioning of constitutional government.

What is significant in these specific provisions of DDAA 07 (Sec. 1042) is that they dovetail the provisions of Bush's National Security Presidential and Homeland Directive (NSPD 51, HSPD 20) enacted on May 9, 2007.

NSPD 51 would essentially scrap Constitutional government in the case of a so-called "Catastrophic Emergency". .

If an emergency situation were to be called by the President, NSPD 51 would instate martial law under the authority of the White House and the Department of Homeland Security. It would suspend constitutional government under the provisions of Continuity in Government (COG). It would establish extraordinary powers for the president and vice-president.

The provisions of NSPD 51 are consistent with an existing body of legislation and regulations pertaining to alleged terrorist attacks on the Homeland and the declaration of martial law. Sec. 1042 of DDAA 07, however, goes much further in defining the role of the Military in the case of a "Catastrophic Emergency."

Sec 1042 essentially defines the discretionary powers which would be conferred to the president and the vice president under NSPD 51

Sec. 1042 of the DDAA 07, which was apparently slipped in at the last minute at the request of the White House as an amendment of Sec. 333, pertains to the "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies."

Sec 1042 is extremely explicit; it virtually creates a Pinochet style environment for the arrest of political dissidents without trial, the storming of public rallies, etc.

It provides specific details regarding the powers conferred to President and Vice President in a "Catastrophic Emergency" as envisaged under NSPD 51

The president "may employ the armed forces ... to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States"

Unrestricted powers are granted to the White House. The President would have the authority of suspending civilian law enforcement at the federal and state levels and calling in the Military, with a view to suppressing "domestic violence" "insurrection"( e.g. public rallies), or "conspiracy", meaning anybody who might express dissent, indignation or opposition to the Bush Administration for having scrapped the Constitution.

Taken together, NSPD 51 and Sec 1042 of the DDAA 07 define the contours of a "democratic dictatorship" in America (in the case of a National Emergency) under the authority of the White House.

We are not dealing with "Military Rule" or "Military Government" as normally understood, because the authority to govern is still vested in the President and Vice President. What is at stake is the unrestricted and arbitrary "Use" of the Military by the President /Vice President in the conduct of police and law enforcement functions.

Below is the full text of Sec 1042 of DDAA07 which amends Sec 333.

Full text of DDAA 07: Department of Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007.

SEC. 1042. USE OF THE ARMED FORCES IN MAJOR PUBLIC EMERGENCIES.

(a) USE OF THE ARMED FORCES AUTHORIZED-

(1) IN GENERAL- Section 333 of title 10, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:

..Sec. 333. Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law
..(a) USE OF ARMED FORCES IN MAJOR PUBLIC EMERGENCIES- (1) The President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to--

..(A) restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that--

..(i) domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order; and

..(ii) such violence results in a condition described in paragraph (2); or

..(B) suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy if such insurrection, violation, combination, or conspiracy results in a condition described in paragraph (2).

..(2) A condition described in this paragraph is a condition that--

..(A) so hinders the execution of the laws of a State or possession, as applicable, and of the United States within that State or possession, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted authorities of that State or possession are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; or

..(B) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.

..(3) In any situation covered by paragraph (1)(B), the State shall be considered to have denied the equal protection of the laws secured by the Constitution.

..(b) NOTICE TO CONGRESS- The President shall notify Congress of the determination to exercise the authority in subsection (a)(1)(A) as soon as practicable after the determination and every 14 days thereafter during the duration of the exercise of the authority.'.

(2) PROCLAMATION TO DISPERSE- Section 334 of such title is amended by inserting ..or those obstructing the enforcement of the laws' after ..insurgents'.

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