In case you hadn't noticed, this is not North Korea

Nice to see such a strong reaction against Abu Bakr's claims on Newsnight last night that we live in a "police state" (although I have heard such claims before from sources other than people who have been arrested on suspicion of terror offences, and there hasn't been any outcry ... just something to think about). Downing Street calls it a "gross caricature" and "categorically wrong"; Gordon Brown calls it "unacceptable"; Jack Straw calls it "absolute, utter nonsense"; even David Cameron has called it rubbish.

I call it offensive; not particularly offensive to me or people living in freedom in Britain — where, last I checked, Muslims had freedom to assemble, worship and say whatever they like, short of inciting terror — but offensive to people the world over living in fear of their governments. Are radios here preset to the Government's state propaganda, as in North Korea? Are people here ratted on by their neighbours and then hung from lamposts with their tongues cut out, as they were in Saddam's Iraq? Are we banned from flying kites, or going to the cinema, as people were under the Taliban? Er, no.

Proposing a system of identity cards, for example, or trying to address the problem of terrorism without limit by bringing into law control orders, or 28 day detention overseen by a judge every 7 days, is emphatically not the same as living under a repressive murderous regime which actually justifies the "police state" tag. Arguing that it is only adds to the sum of intellectual laziness which seems to characterise so much of our political discourse — and it's not something limited to former terror suspects (yes, I'm looking at you, Chakrabarti).

Also on this, I'm reminded of all the outcry when he had the debates on 28/90 day detention last year. Then, it was argued that this was internment by any other name, and that the level of judicial oversight was not sufficient. A year later, and we have a judge, to whom the police are required to present evidence justifying continued detention every week, ordering the release of two men because the police haven't got reason to detain them further. This sounds to me like the system of judicial oversight over detention without trial is sound, and works. Nothing of this will be considered in the press or in the conversations of the chattering, cynical classes.

Comments

[Adele]

The Chakrabarti woman strikes again.

[yucca]

funny: people arrested during the last raid were charged. and for forestgate even indipendent studies said they had to act, given the evidence.

i guess the rationale behind "we live in a police state" is: hey, not only we have to have a police, but sometimes this police even intervenes and does stuff... it must therefore be that we live in a police state