The Assault on Liberty: What Went Wrong with Rights. Dominic Raab

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СКАЧАТЬ has never justified violence. Mill’s classic exposition of liberty explicitly acknowledged that the exercise of individual rights can be limited where it would involve doing harm to others. In short, liberty tolerates those expressing obnoxious or offensive views, but not those who stir up violence or otherwise direct harm against other people. This distinction marks the dividing line in a free society that tolerates free speech but outlaws incitement to violence. In marked contrast, since 1997 the government’s contorted approach has curtailed legitimate free speech on spurious security grounds, but ignored – or been slow to act against – those posing a real threat, such as fanatics who preach extremism and call for violent jihad against Britain.

      Widely drawn new security legislation has been over-zealously enforced by police officers against soft targets like peace activists, students and other peaceful protesters in a wholly unnecessary and disproportionate manner. New powers were used to fine the sellers of ‘Bollocks to Blair’ T-shirts (£80 per offence) and arrest, search and eject Walter Wolfgang, a refugee from the Holocaust and member of the Labour Party, who heckled ‘nonsense’ at the Foreign Secretary as he was making the case for the war in Iraq during his speech at the 2005 Labour Party conference.

      New security laws have also been used to stifle free speech and protest within one kilometre around the Houses of Parliament. Originally introduced as a precaution against security threats or disorder close to such a sensitive location, new legislation has been relied upon to suppress peaceful protest no matter how small the number of people involved. In May 2006, the Metropolitan Police spent £110,000 raiding and removing Brian Haw’s one-man anti-war protest against British operations in Iraq. The same legislation was used to prosecute and convict two anti-war protesters who read the names of British soldiers killed in Iraq at the Cenotaph on Whitehall. In response to widespread opposition, the government announced a review of the legislation in March 2008, but left it unclear what security restrictions on free speech will remain in place.

      ASBOs have also been used to muzzle free speech. Philip Howard, a street evangelist who regularly preached on Oxford Street, was ASBOed in 2006 by Westminster Council after receiving complaints. Mr Howard became famous for his quirky religious catchphrases – such as ‘Don’t be a sinner, be a winner’ – and was generally tolerated by passers-by shopping in central London. His public preaching may have irritated a few people, but was harmless. The use of ASBO legislation by local authorities to silence him is yet another abuse of new law enforcement powers at the expense of free speech.

      In 2005, the government again cited security as the basis for its efforts to enact a crime of ‘glorifying’ terrorism. It introduced legislation that aimed to ban public expression of views that indirectly give encouragement to or condone terrorism. The offence was challenged by opposition politicians and civil liberties groups, on grounds of free speech, because it went well beyond even indirect incitement to terrorism. The final law was watered down from the original proposal, so much so that it has never been used in practice. However, critics insist that existing law for prosecuting incitement to violence is perfectly adequate, and that the new definition risks stifling legitimate debate – with legal experts arguing that the new offence is broad enough to prosecute people commemorating the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa or the Easter Rising of 1916 against British rule in Ireland.

      In a further round of government proposals aimed at prohibiting offensive language being used against minorities, ministers brushed aside objections on the grounds of free speech to produce proposals to outlaw inciting religious hatred. Accused of excessive political correctness, the government was originally defeated when it sought to ban incitement to religious hatred with a definition so broad that it risked having a chilling effect on legitimate topics of religious debate. A diluted version of the law was eventually adopted in 2006. It avoids criminalizing language which is merely abusive or offensive, and requires an intention to threaten another person on religious grounds – which would already render the language unlawful under existing law. However, the dilution of the new criminal offence has not stopped the police from trying to prosecute those engaging in legitimate public debate about religious and political opinions. In one ludicrous case, police issued a summons to a fifteen-year-old boy, threatening prosecution under the Public Order Act, for attending a peaceful demonstration holding a placard describing the Church of Scientology as a ‘cult’.

      What makes the government’s position so alarming is that, while taking repressive action against those airing legitimate opinions, it has at the same time cosseted those preaching vitriol and violence. In 2007, the Dispatches documentary ‘Undercover Mosque’ revealed the homophobic, sexist and intolerant preaching of extremist Muslim clerics at the Green Lane mosque in Birmingham. The documentary showed preachers referring to homosexuals as ‘filthy dogs’, justifying the 7/7 bombings and explicitly calling for the death of those who convert from Islam. West Midlands Police recommended to the Crown Prosecution Service that it consider a prosecution – not against the preachers, but, rather, the filmmakers for allegedly misrepresenting the views of the clerics and undermining community relations. Even when it became clear that there was no evidence to back up this unfounded allegation, police and prosecutors still referred allegations against the programme to Ofcom, the media watchdog. Ofcom threw out the complaint, finding that Channel 4 and Dispatches had produced the documentary accurately and responsibly. Channel 4 and Dispatches responded by suing the police and the CPS for libellously suggesting that the documentary had been selectively edited in order to distort the views of the preachers. The police and CPS were forced to issue a public apology and pay a six-figure sum by way of compensation. The case demonstrates how broad public order powers, coupled with a culture of excessive political correctness, can lead to flagrant lack of respect for legitimate free speech, while simultaneously tolerating fanatical extremism – a naïve approach with dangerous consequences both for our security and our freedom.

      In another case, a whistle-blower, Derek Pasquill, disclosed sensitive Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) documents which appeared in newspapers, exposing FCO engagement with extremist Islamic groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, some of whose members have connections with terrorism. Far from forcing an embarrassed FCO to reconsider its policy on engagement with radical Islamic groups, the government’s reaction to this controversial exposé was to press for a prosecution against Mr Pasquill for breaching the Official Secrets Act. The prosecution’s case collapsed when senior FCO officials admitted that a prosecution could not succeed, because Pasquill’s actions were actually beneficial – encouraging a constructive debate on a serious matter of public interest.

      It is remarkable, too, how, having stifled peaceful protest and closed down legitimate debate in the most harmless of circumstances, government policy has been so tolerant of those who stir up extremism and violence. In February 2006, demonstrations were held in London against the publication of Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in a manner that many Muslims found offensive and insensitive. Around five hundred protesters were involved in the protests that followed, and a small number of people carried placards calling on Muslims to ‘bomb’ the US and Denmark, ‘massacre those who insult Islam’ and urging ‘whoever insults a prophet, kill him’. Four protesters were prosecuted and convicted of soliciting murder in July 2007. As David Perry QC, the prosecuting barrister argued, the words used were plainly criminal: ‘If you shout out, “Bomb, bomb Denmark; bomb, bomb USA”, there is no doubt about what you intend your audience to understand…The prosecution case is that the defendant was clearly encouraging people to commit murder – terrorist killing. This was not simply a demonstration about cartoons. It was a recruitment for terror.’

      The court agreed and convicted the accused. Notwithstanding the criminal prosecutions, it is difficult to understand the police decision to allow protesters to proceed with their demonstration in the first place, carrying banners that openly incited violence. The Metropolitan Police said they had allowed the protest to continue for fear of public disorder – itself an astonishing sop to extremism, at the expense of law enforcement. But they then waited a further six weeks before making any arrests. In contrast, the government was quick to condemn the Danish cartoons, which, though offensive to many Muslims, did СКАЧАТЬ