The Rule of Law and the "war on terror"

Over the past few days there has been plentiful coverage in the media of the press conference last week by civil rights campaign group CAGE at which they disclosed their communications
with the killer nicknamed ‘Jihadi John,’ who US media have named as Mohammed Emwazi, a Londoner of Kuwaiti origin.

CAGE made public their knowledge of the young Briton who had been in touch with the group following his travel abroad to Tanzania and his claims of being approached by a security agent during the return leg of his journey where he was allegedly propositioned with recruitment by a British spy.

CAGE, revealing the details of email communications with Emwazi in which he complained about the impact of a control order on his quality of life and of restrictions imposed on his free movement, have said: “Like Michael Adebolajo, suffocating domestic policies aimed at turning a person into an informant, but which prevent a person from fulfilling their basic life needs would have left a lasting impression on Emwazi. He desperately wanted to use the system to change his situation, but the system ultimately rejected him.”

The campaign group have come in for considerable criticism for their claims about the impact that unintended consequences and a lack of regard for encroaching on civil rights without due process have on individuals and their mental health.

The group have been derided in the media with indignation expressed at the mere suggestion that security agencies may be going too far and without robust parliamentary oversight of their activities to detect bad practice before its consequences are felt.

The Daily Mail in a leader comment last Friday stated: “[I]t is the Muslim community which must ask itself the most searching questions about whether it’s doing enough to combat the fanaticism in its midst”, adding “Muslim leaders insist they are doing everything in their power to root out extremism, but are they? This survey – and the creation of monsters like Jihadi John – suggests not.”

The point, surely, that CAGE were making is that asking Muslims to play their part in challenging extremists is futile if the factors explaining a person’s radicalisation are establishment in origin, not communal.

The Times in an editorial last Friday in an attempt to discredit CAGE criticised those foundations and trusts which have offered it financial grants (the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Roddick Foundation) and its choice of partners, the Stop the War Coalition. The Times puts this as, “How apt was the joining of worshippers of the one God with worshippers of the one-party state.”

Little does it occur to the newspaper that the Stop the War Coalition attracted a swathe of young Muslims to political protests for opposing the war in Iraq and the wider “war on terror”.
The Daily Mail on Saturday did much the same with an article recounting the financial support given to CAGE by various donors.

Lord Carlile of Berriew, former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation told BBC News, “Before they [CAGE] can command any credibility from the wider community, they should make it clear that they reject the murder by ISIL of Christians and of Muslims who disagree with their views, and that they reject beheading and burning people alive.

“They should also give clear advice that joining ISIL constitutes a criminal act.”

But why should anyone infer the CAGE, a British Muslim civil rights campaign group do not reject ISIL? Last summer, the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, made a point about the demand on Jews to condemn the actions of the Israeli state as though it and they were one. In similar vein, why should Muslims be assumed to condone ISIS unless they explicitly condemn it?

The Sunday Times lead story focused on the powers newly enacted in the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015 and the duty on universities to “prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”.

The Sunday Times claims the Home Secretary’s hawkish approach is being resisted by the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, amid fears that shutting off avenues to legitimate debate only drive extremists underground.

The present day dispute bears the echoes of the dissenting approaches of party leaders, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, evident in speeches both delivered in 2011.

The point is made again in a guest column by Professor Anthony Glees in the Daily Mail in which he argues, “[W]e must address the urgent question of Muslim radicalisation on British university campuses, especially through the influence of Islamic societies, which are often in thrall to a hardline agenda.”

Glees cites the examples of a number of British Muslims who have attended universities in the
UK and gone on to commit acts of terror drawing the conclusion, “The time has come to monitor every Islamic society in English universities, with a view to banning them if they have supported extremism. Vince Cable could not be more wrong when he says that only those who directly incite violence should be silenced. Sooner or later, extremism leads to violence. It must be stamped out.”

Glees makes little effort to evidence how it can be proven that universities were the places where radicalisation took place. Indeed, the Caldicott Inquiry into the former UCL student, Umar Farouk Abdalmuttalab found no evidence to suggest his radicalisation occurred while he was a student at the university.

Roshanara Ali, the so-called ‘lone wolf’ who attacked MP Stephen Timms, was said to have been radicalised at home watching videos of Anwar Al-Awlaki but Glees draws on her studentship of Kings College London to infer the university had something to do with it.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, in his column in the Daily Telegraph yesterday also takes issue with the CAGE press conference arguing that the campaign group are eliding “jihadism and Islam” by not condemning the actions of ‘Jihadi John’ while vituperating at the seeming culpability of the security services. He states: “That is why it is vital to insist, time and again, on the difference between this sick jihadism and Islam; and that is why, conversely, we must do everything we can to stop the likes of Cage – and indeed the MCB – from eliding anti-jihadism with Islamophobia. You can loathe jihadists, in other words, and be perfectly sympathetic to Muslims.”

The almost kneejerk defence of the security services by the media in this episode bears some similarity to the trial of Binyam Mohamed and his claims of British Government complicity in his torture abroad.

At the time, there were some newspapers that sought to deflect criticism of the security agencies while others, laudably, performed the rightful role of the fourth estate. It is remarkable that only late last year the publication of a report by the US Senate’s Intelligence Committee into torture techniques used by the CIA was extolled for its courage on shedding light into state practices and trumpeting the rule of law. The report, like Cruel Britannia, a similar though small scale piece of work by Human Rights Watch, assert the importance of accountability of the state and those who act on its behalf. That word, ‘accountability’ has been almost absent from all the media coverage of the last few days.

Sir Menzies Campbell, a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has suggested it may undertake an inquiry into the claims made by Emwazi about being approached by the security services with an offer of recruitment but not until the next Parliament.

PM David Cameron meanwhile has announced the opening of an inquiry into claims made by Michael Adebolajo of being mistreated while in detention in Kenya; a claim that carries with it insinuation of British complicity in his alleged mistreatment. The claims initially surfaced in the report by the ISC last year on the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby by Adebolajo and his accomplice, Michael Adebowale, in which the Committee criticised the failure of the security agency to take the allegations seriously and duly investigate.