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A scene from the film Taking Liberties shows police dealing with protesters. Above, left, writer annd director Chris Atkins
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The government is taking liberties with our freedom
Film director Chris Atkins fears Tony Blair’s departure could lead to even more powers for police to stop us
IF anyone has the hope that as soon as Tony Blair leaves Downing Street, the nation will suddenly be handed back all its civil liberties, they should be prepared for a disappointment. Home Secretary John Reid recently announced that the police would be given increased powers of stop and question.
The existing powers (Section 44 of the 2000 Terrorism Act) give the police the power to detain anyone and demand to know their basic personal details – without reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed.
In our film Taking Liberties we show just how these existing powers are being misused with the story of Riz Ahmed. Riz is an actor who played a man wrongly held in Camp X-Ray in the film Road to Guantanamo.
When he flew back from the Berlin Film Festival he was detained at Luton Airport as a terrorist. They knew he was an actor, but still held him and humiliated him because he was in a film that criticised the government.
This case is hardly an exception – the police have used Section 44 to stop and search more than 100,000 people in less than seven years. The number of terrorists caught? None.
So, naturally, John Reid has announced that the police will be given even more arbitrary powers, going way beyond Section 44. Soon the police will be able to detain you on the spot, make you show identification, demand to know your name and address and date of birth, force you to explain your movements and what you’ve been doing that day. Failure to comply will result in a £5,000 fine.
The first problem is these powers are simply not effective in preventing terrorism. Senior police have not even asked for these powers, as they know it will be misused by the officers on the ground.
Second, these proposals show that the soothing assurances that ID cards would not turn Britain into a ‘Papers, please!’ society, are complete lies.
Contrary to what we have been told previously, the police will now be able to stop us at random and force us to prove who we are and tell them where we are going. This is the definition of a police state.
Third – and most worryingly – these powers will inevitably be used on a disproportionate number of young Muslim men.
This will have the effect of alienating entire communities – the very communities we need to be working with to tackle a very serious terrorist threat.
Overuse of these powers will mean that vital leads and tip-offs from the Muslim community will dry up, hampering the real fight against terrorism.
But, worst of all, unfair police treatment will force disaffected young men into the hands of extremists.
Far from reducing the terrorist threat, these new powers will actually make it worse. This is a view supported by senior police, the Muslim community and several government ministers.
Why, you may ask, has ‘Dr’ John Reid made this irresponsible and dangerous announcement?
Sadly, it is true to form for a man who has done for civil liberties and race relations what George Bush has done for the English language.
Reid’s entire time in office has been seemingly spent either making absurd announcements in the press to prove how tough he is (“I am the Enforcer!” and “The McTerminator” are two of my favourite headlines) or systematically undermining the rule of law and stirring up racial tensions.
We started to get worried that John Reid’s behaviour was causing significant alarm and distress to our local community in Tower Hamlets, so I went to the Home Office website to see what we could do about him.
The website helpfully says that “anyone who is causing residents harassment or distress should be served with an Asbo”.
Following the Home Office guidelines this is exactly what we are doing: we’ve been out collecting signatures (more than 300 so far) and once we hit 1,000 we’ll lodge the application. Maybe then the Home Secretary’s anti-social behaviour will cease, and we might start getting some of our civil liberties back.
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