Examination of Witnesses (Questions 171-179)
MR ABDURAHMAN
JAFAR
31 OCTOBER 2005
Q171 Chairman: We are now in the third
session of this afternoon with Mr Abdurahman Jafar from the Muslim
Council of Britain. Could I first of all start by thanking you
for coming at short notice and staying later than we originally
expected, but it has been a very interesting section and it has
taken us a bit longer to get through than we thought it would.
We have seen the memorandum called Protect our Rights which is
put forward by an umbrella group of organisations, including yours,
but obviously that was before the Terrorism Bill was published,
so things have moved on a little since then. Could I start by
asking you, first of all, whether you think the Government has
sought to engage and consult the Muslim community about what it
is doing, what you think the dangers are within the legislation
in terms of it being potentially counter-productive towards community
relations particularly affecting the Muslim community?
Mr Jafar: There has been engagement.
Whether the direction of that engagement has been the correct
direction many question. Many Muslims question whether the engagement
has been fruitful, whether there has been real substantive progress
as a result of that engagement as well. It has been helpful, of
course, but many people feel that more could have and should have
been done. With regards to the measures being counter-productive,
over the past five years there have been four separate counter-terror
provisions and the disproportionate number of those who have been
end users of these provisions have been Muslims. Recent British
Transport Police figures show that since 7/7 until October of
this year there have been over 7,000 stop and searches of which
over 50 per cent were Muslims. That is a fairer proportion when
one considers the number of Muslims who have made up the 900 or
so people who were arrested under the 2000 Act since 9/11, where
a vast proportion of those arrested and de-arrested and found
completely innocent were Muslims. Disproportionality is a very
big issue, and there is another dimension that this Act now threatens
to bring in which adds to the potential for being counter-productive.
Whereas previously counter-terror measures were directed to prevent
terrorism in this country, there was a universal acceptance that
this was necessary. There was no argument at all, or no legitimate
one within the community, or one that was tolerated, that any
acts or forms of terrorism within this country could or should
take place, and there has been a very firm commitment since 7/7
that there was an increased need for the community to act in unison
with everyone else to ensure that these kind of horrors do not
happen again. This Bill now brings and threatens to confuse that
clarity or focus that the Muslim community had, whereas previously,
as I have mentioned, it was about protecting the UK. Now what
this Bill does is threaten to conflate the issue of illegitimate
attacks against peaceful democracies with legitimate acts of resistance
against illegitimate regimes around the world—one cannot
oppose Uzbekistan with peaceful means. If you do you get boiled
to death—and to say that to support forms of resistance
against genocide or forms of resistance against foreign domination,
this is in contravention of international law, the universal declaration
of unanimous rights, the preamble, makes it perfectly clear that
there is a need for man to rebel against tyranny and oppression.
The Geneva Convention 1977 amendment makes it perfectly clear
not only do people have a right to resist, with armed use, illegal
occupation but other states have a duty and a responsibility to
assist that. On the one hand you have Muslims, who make up around
80 per cent of the world's refugees according to UNHCR figures.
They are extremely concerned about international issues, and oppression
does seem to be, again, a disproportionate reality of what is
happening in a Muslim world, and to say that you are no longer
allowed to express opposition to this form of agrarius human rights
violations and to say that if you do you equate it with supporting
what happened on 7/7 threatens the debate that is happening within
the Muslim world. We as Muslims are coming to terms now with a
secular democracy, not just as a mid-way but as an end to what
we as Muslims want to achieve. It is not about having exclusive
state, it is about living with universal principles. This is a
very important debate that is happening within the Muslim world
and this is threatening to curtail and divert that very important
debate. I think that is a really horrific counter-productive effect
of this new route that the Bill is going towards.
Q172 Chairman: Which particular measures
that are being proposed now more generally do you think carry
the greatest risk of being counter-productive?
Mr Jafar: The "glorification",
"incitement" of terrorism, "acts preparatory",
the MCB does not in principle oppose, because they harm national
security and it may be an issue of national interest that this
island is not used in order to further acts abroad which are violent—that
is a national interest issue—but with regards to freedom
of expression that will be curtailed as a result of clause one.
The 90-day extension is extremely worrying. One of the reasons
why Lord Carlile accepted that in principle (with the eight safeguards)
was, I believe, evidence from Peter Clarke where he said in 2000
an Algerian named Mohammed Megeurba was arrested, and we have
just found out that his fingerprints were on the ricin recipe.
The proposition he was propounding was that if we had had these
powers then he would have been detained for 90 days and we could
have found the fingerprints, but that is the equivalent of saying
all of these 900 people who have been arrested should have been
detained for 90 days. In 2000 Mohammed Megeurba was released—there
was no evidence that he had committed a crime—and he is
no different from the other 900 people who were wrongly arrested
under the Terrorism Act. Giving this 90-day extension would be
seen by the community as internment similar to that which was
suffered by the Irish community, and that increased support for
Irish nationalism, it increased the oxygen that was available
to terrorist cells, and I fear that that is a possible outcome
of the extension.
Q173 Lord Lester of Herne Hill: The
glorification of terrorism. If hypothetically someone goes on
British television immediately after 7 July and glorifies, praises
the bombings or, to take more recent examples, praises the bombings
in Hedera in Israel on the ground that Israel is in illegal occupation
of Palestine, or praises the bombings on the market in Delhi on
the ground that India is against Kashmiri rights—suppose
that in those situations that happens—should that be a crime?
Mr Jafar: The thing is, with inventive
and creative prosecutory exercise, they could already be framed
as crimes as such. The conviction of Faisal in the Court of Appeal
recently under the Offences of the Persons Act is one example
of a good, creative prosecutory judgment.
Q174 Lord Lester of Herne Hill: But
suppose the Government and Parliament decided to put the matter
beyond doubt by having a new offence, and I understand your objections
to the way it is phrased in clause one, but do you think that
could be saved and be compatible with human rights if the definition
were narrowed, made clearer and there were specific intent, or
is your position that it cannot be saved and therefore should
be rejected?
Mr Jafar: If it was made very
clear that the nihilistic perversion of Islam that created 9/11
or 7/7 were to be criminalised and that legitimate resistant movements
would not be, then I see no objection to that. There is a universal
agreement that what happened on 9/11, 7/7 are completely wrong—that
is a view within Islam and outside Islam—but I believe there
is a way in which that could be separated from supporting legitimate
acts of resistance against oppression. I do not know what they
are. I do know that that Article 5 of the European . . . .
Q175 Lord Lester of Herne Hill: The
European Convention?
Mr Jafar: No, I am sorry. Clause
one is intended to bring into effect the Article 5 of the . .
. .
Q176 Lord Lester of Herne Hill: The
European Convention for the Prevention of Terrorism?
Mr Jafar: Yes, the prevention
of terrorism. I know that our threshold is a lot lower. Acts of
violence against a person are very different from what the European
Convention says. It talks about disruption to politics, to society,
et cetera. I think there could be clarity as well in defining
exactly what terrorism is. The European Convention, I believe,
has a different definition as well.
Q177 Lord Lester of Herne Hill: I
am sorry to press you, but you have not answered my question about
specific intent. Would the Muslim Council of Britain regard it
as necessary that there be a deliberate intention of glorifying
or instigating terrorism or not?
Mr Jafar: Completely. That is
in accordance with the European Convention.
Q178 Lord Lester of Herne Hill: How
do you draw the line between what you were saying to us now, which
is that it would be right to criminalise, I think you called it,
the perversion of Islam on the one hand and other ideologies on
the other where armed struggles are being advocated? I do not
see how, speaking for myself, how the criminal law could draw
such line, but does the Muslim Council have suggestions as to
how that might be done, because it seems to me that what you call
the perversion of Islam some people might regard as not the perversion
of Islam, and political Islam and religious Islam, one can imagine
all kinds of terrible controversies. How can you possibly in law
make a definition of a bright line separating one from the other?
Mr Jafar: There could be a clause
which excludes support for legitimate resistance movements as
an exclusion.
Q179 Chairman: Are you saying, for
example, there is a difference between the bombing of Woburn Place,
the bomb in the market place in Jerusalem and the bomb in the
market place in Delhi?
Mr Jafar: That is the crux of
the problem. Maybe you cannot legally separate those.
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