Germany and the US would do well to think twice about the responsibilities and resources that engagement abroad ultimately entails.

TO BE NOTED: From Spiegel Online:

"THE OPTION TO PROTECT

The New Terms for Humanitarian Intervention

By Richard Herzinger

In Germany, "national interest" is no longer a taboo reason for military engagement abroad. This lends a new logic to the debate about humanitarian interventions. But Germany and the US would do well to think twice about the responsibilities and resources that engagement abroad ultimately entails.

It is difficult to recall a contribution to the German political debate that has been as roundly ignored, both in Berlin political circles and by the wider public, as President Horst Köhler's comments on the unrest in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In November 2008, Köhler argued that "if we are serious about the values we all stand for," then Europeans must be prepared to "provide soldiers to put a stop to these murders." At the time this statement seemed so completely out-of-place that Köhler's concerns were quickly attributed to his own personal fondness for Africa and thus more or less discounted as the sermonizing of a congenial, sentimental oddball.

AP

A French soldier (left) on a peacekeeping mission in Congo in 2003.

Yet in pushing for European action, Köhler was hardly playing the ivory tower moralist. In fact, his call for a possible intervention by EU soldiers was very much in line with European commitments already made to the United Nations in Africa, which have so far been fulfilled insufficiently, hesitantly, or not at all. In the meantime, the UN secretary general has also publicly called for European Union troops to be deployed in Congo. In Germany, however, the discussion is still being conducted as if it were purely up to us whether and how we participate in international stabilization operations.

This is not to say that EU military engagement in Congo should necessarily entail putting combat troops on the ground. A lower level of engagement could also be effective -- for instance, in the form of increased logistical support, better equipment and supervision for the completely overtaxed 17,000 UN "blue helmets" currently stationed there, and aerial reconnaissance that would enable troops to quickly reach areas where civilians are in acute danger. Yet the German public seems to have agreed that, in view of its existing foreign deployments, Germany can certainly not afford to involve itself in such an unpredictable crisis. The standard justification for this position is that the German armed forces have long reached the limit of their operational effectiveness. However, it is precisely this claim that points to the urgent need for a discussion as to how Germany intends to meet increasing international demands in the long term and, more specifically, what concentration of resources this might require.

In the face of growing public opposition to its engagement in Afghanistan, the German government is reluctant to create the impression that it is considering further extensive and dangerous German deployments abroad. During his election campaign candidate Barack Obama indicated that he would like to see greater military and financial engagement by European countries in Afghanistan. This has made some Germans nervous. What if President Obama really does press the Germans to take more responsibility-including militarily -- in Afghanistan and perhaps elsewhere? Given that German political leaders were almost unanimous in their yearning for an end to the era of George W. Bush and barely concealed their desire to see an Obama victory, it would be difficult to resist such a request. However, with or without Obama, for the time being Berlin is staying firmly on the sidelines until international pressure becomes so great that at least a symbolic gesture once again becomes imperative. For instance, in 2008 the government decided that Germany will participate in the EU deployment against pirates off the coast of Somalia -- although this commitment was long resisted by the Social Democrats because they suspected their Christian Democrat coalition partners would use such an operation to open a backdoor for the deployment of the military in domestic policing.

In the debate on participation in international missions the criterion of "national interest" has assumed a dominant role. Protecting international shipping can be justified with reference to such a preeminent national interest, for example. However, while dealing with pirates also raises questions of international law -- such as where to send potential prisoners -- deploying naval forces alone avoids the problem of stabilizing a failed state. It does not address the cause of increasingly rampant piracy -- namely the collapse of state order in Somalia. Indeed, it might be argued that participation in the military operation to repel pirates is an alibi for rejecting more difficult interventions.

The fact that the question of national interest is no longer being omitted from debates on deployments outside Germany certainly represents progress, at least compared to the 1998-2005 rule of the Social Democrat-Green Party coalition, when this issue tended to be obscured by universalistic pathos. Openly addressing considerations of national interest and more precisely defining the concept of "interest" can only help promote a realistic discussion of the possibilities and limits of foreign deployments.

Yet however it is defined, national interest cannot serve as the sole basis for decisions regarding participation in interventions abroad. The international community of states, and thus in principle every nation, has long accepted the fundamental obligation to intervene in cases of grave violations of human rights -- even if their prevention does not promise any party an economic or geopolitical advantage. In 2005 the United Nations accepted the principle of "responsibility to protect," which in essence argues that if a state is not willing or able to protect its population from serious violations of human rights, the world community must intervene. This does not have to entail military intervention, but the latter cannot be excluded as a final option. While the "responsibility to protect" has not been explicitly codified in international law, its adoption by the United Nations has given it quasi-legal status.

However, there is no instrument that enables the international community of states to comprehensively meet this obligation, and the will to develop one seems to be weakening. Both the Europeans and the Americans are facing limits to their intervention strategies. Over the last two decades humanitarian interventions have expanded to encompass increasingly sophisticated projects of democracy development. However, as has been made painfully clear in Iraq and Afghanistan, such projects require far more effort, patience, and readiness to make sacrifices than governments in the United States and Europe initially envisaged.

Lessons of the Recent Past

The original aim of military intervention on humanitarian grounds was to protect defenseless civilians from assaults by their own government or other armed groups. The first experience of such intervention, the US-led mission in Somalia in 1992-93, ended in fiasco. Although the task of the US troops was to assist in relief operations to help the starving population, they were quickly drawn into fighting between rival warlords. After a dead US soldier was filmed being dragged like a trophy through the capital city Mogadishu, the United States withdrew. The lesson drawn from this experience was evident in the use of aerial bombardments to incapacitate enemy combatants in Bosnia in 1995 and in Kosovo in 1999 prior to sending in ground troops. Somalia also made clear that military action to protect civilian populations must be linked with a plan to stabilize the political situation on the ground.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq brought this second lesson to the fore. These were wars waged with the intention of bringing about regime change and establishing democratic government. Humanitarian intervention thus gave way to the armed export of democracy, although this has taken different forms. In the case of Afghanistan the war was mandated by the United Nations, in the case of Iraq it was not. While the 1999 intervention in Kosovo was carried out without an express UN mandate, it was based on a NATO alliance. By contrast, the United States acted in Iraq outside the transatlantic alliance, supported only by a "coalition of the willing," whose presence was retrospectively legitimized by a UN mandate. The 2006 mission in Congo to ensure orderly democratic elections combined elements of these different variants. The mission was supported by the United Nations and the European Union, and even endorsed by the ruling regime. Yet here too the goal was the introduction of democracy.

The current situation in Congo has revealed once again that democracy cannot be guaranteed simply by holding free elections. Following the Congolese elections, EU troops were rapidly withdrawn without any safeguards in place against a relapse into civil and gang warfare. Such safeguards should have included exerting diplomatic pressure on neighboring Rwanda to prevent it from meddling in Congo's problems. Further peacekeeping duties were left to UN troops from African and Asian countries -- with what were plainly disastrous consequences.

The crisis in Burma in the summer of 2008 presented another facet of the challenge posed by humanitarian disasters. While Burma's autocratic regime did not cause the humanitarian crisis brought about by Cyclone Nargis, the junta exacerbated it by obstructing the delivery of international aid. Addressing the United Nations, Pope Benedict XVI called for international intervention in cases where states were unwilling or unable to protect their populations against the effects of humanitarian crises, irrespective of whether these crises were "natural or man-made." However, while calls grew for direct intervention in Burma -- including from French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner -- it became increasingly evident that such undertakings were heavily dependent on prevailing constellations of power and interest.

In the case of Burma the main obstacle proved to be China, which even resisted a request for a meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss sending in international troops to ensure the delivery of aid. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated at the time that it was essential to make clear to the Burmese military junta that the issue was not one of politics "but of saving human lives." And yet, as past experience has shown, this is precisely what dictators are unable or unwilling to believe when it comes to "humanitarian interventions." Indeed, from their point of view such suspicion is justified, since giving priority to the defense of human life and rights over absolute state power constitutes an assault on the megalomaniacal claims of dictatorial systems.

If the West intends to seriously entertain the idea of intervening in a country against the will of the national government, it must accept both the necessity of military means and the risk of violent confrontation with local power holders. It must also accept that such action may lead to a decline in relations with powers -- such as China and Russia -- that usually see humanitarian intervention as a masked attempt to extend Western influence. Moreover, in order to ensure the establishment of sustainable political and social structures following the disempowerment of a regime, the intervening powers must move rapidly from directly providing emergency aid to a program of nation building. This can take years, if not decades, of intensive engagement and requires enormous material investment. However, in the face of the problems being faced in Iraq and Afghanistan, Western countries, including the United States, are now reluctant to take on this task. The history of humanitarian interventions has thus taken a paradoxical turn since the 1990s. The increasingly comprehensive goals set for intervention and the setbacks experienced have brought us to a point where engagement in cases corresponding to the original model for humanitarian intervention -- the direct protection of civilians and refugees who are under threat -- now seems hardly viable.

The fatal consequences of this development are not limited to Congo. For years now they have been evident in the approach to the Sudanese province of Darfur. In order to avoid intervening itself, the West has sent in a poorly equipped African Union protection force, which is unable to do more than merely observe the murderous campaign being conducted by the Sudanese government and its militia allies against the country's black African population. This force was supposed to have been equipped with a robust mandate and increased to a total of 26,000 troops at the beginning of 2008. However, the delaying tactics of the regime in Khartoum and a lack of zeal on the part of the international community in fulfilling its obligations have rendered this plan meaningless.

The reluctance shown by Western governments is certainly in line with the mood of the Western public. The tendency to favor withdrawal is not only evident in the case of Iraq but also that of Afghanistan. Psychologically, Western societies are drawn in two directions. Images of suffering and violence presented by the media evoke an overpowering wish for something to be done immediately -- one that is articulated across a spectrum extending from the Pope to leftist humanists. However, once the high cost of concrete action becomes visible, the reaction of the public is to be appalled and reject further action.

Trial and Error

In historical terms, humanitarian interventions are still a new phenomenon. It is only since the 1990s that the international community has broken with the dogma of classical international law that prohibits interventions in the internal affairs of sovereign states. Since then, conceptions of international law have gradually shifted in the direction of international civil rights. However, the enforcement of such rights remains largely based on an arbitrary principle of trial and error -- with fundamentally uncertain outcomes. Of course, there can be no master plan tailored to deal with all the humanitarian catastrophes that could conceivably occur. However, more conscious, systematic foresight; more international coordination; and a more targeted division of labor in the prevention and pacification of conflicts are goals that are not only possible but indispensable if the international community is to avoid repeatedly being taken by surprise by crises.

The fundamental principle should be a renewed focus on ensuring that population groups under threat have a right to protection and that at least minimum legal standards apply. Although the goal of democratization should not be abandoned, it needs to be clear that implanting democracy is a long and complex process that requires a great degree of perseverance and determination. Such a process can only have a chance of success if a certain level of security and civil relations are established within a society. The United States has had to learn a cruel lesson in this respect in Iraq, and the Europeans are now learning it in Afghanistan. However, it is vital that broken dreams of democratic development are not used as a justification for standing idly by in the face of horrific violations of human rights.

In this respect it is worth reconsidering the idea of a "league of democracies," which was proposed by US Republican candidate John McCain during last year's election campaign. This concept is not new, and has previously been associated with the Democratic spectrum of US politics. An ongoing consultative committee of states sharing basic democratic and humanitarian values could help to better coordinate the process by which individual states or associations of states take responsibility for tasks in the field of international conflict management and focus on certain areas and regions in the longer term. Moreover, such an alliance could lend greater international legitimacy to urgent political and military interventions being blocked as a result of chronic resistance by particular powers within the United Nations. If the international community truly believes in fundamental human rights, it will realize that it is always within the national interest to help those who cannot help themselves.

Richard Herzinger is editor of Die Welt and Die Welt am Sonntag."

It is this insistence on separation that alarms the Roma themselves.

TO BE NOTED: From the Guardian:

"Italy's new ghetto?

In the nation that housed the first ghetto, a new segregation is taking place. The persecution of Roma gypsies is shocking

Comments (58)

• 
• • Tana de Zulueta
  • guardian.co.uk, Monday 30 March 2009 11.30 BST
  • Article history

People forget, but the European history of segregation began in Venice. Ghetto is a Venetian word. It was, and still is, a neighbourhood, one of the oldest in town, thought to be named after the iron foundry that once stood there. In the year 1516 the Venetian senate ruled that the city's Jewish inhabitants should be confined to this neighbourhood. Non-Jewish citizens could not live there, nor could the Jews live elsewhere. The world's first ghetto had been instituted.

The pope in Rome soon followed suit, ruling by papal bull in the year 1555 that the Jewish inhabitants of Rome were to be confined to a single neighbourhood. The area was sealed off, with just two points of entry and exit; the gates were guarded, barred at sundown and opened at sunrise.

Other restrictions were imposed, such as a ban on lending money to Christians. The only trade permitted was in cloth, new and old. To this day the oldest cloth shops in Rome are in and around the neighbourhood still known as il ghetto. The logic was that of separation, the wellspring of prejudice, discrimination and, ultimately, genocide. On 16 October 1943 100 German soldiers surrounded this same neighbourhood and captured 1,022 men, women and children and deported them to Auschwitz. Only 17 returned.

It was in Rome, on the orders of the Renaissance pope Paul IV, that the colour yellow, either as a garment or a patch of colour sewn on men and women's clothes, was first imposed to distinguish Jews. How could anyone forget the terrible lesson learned?

And yet once again in Italy a perilous experiment in residential segregation is taking shape. It is a discomforting comparison, but Gad Lerner, a columnist and television presenter who was born in Lebanon to Jewish parents and a naturalised Italian, has drawn attention to the parallels between the prejudice that preceded the persecution of the Jews and the treatment of today's gypsies.

The huge rambling gypsy encampment outside Rome's ring road known as Casilino 900 has shocked international visitors because of its bad conditions. But the brand new camp of Castel di Decima, another Roma settlement, with its rows of prefabricated huts miles from anywhere, is, if possible, even bleaker. In spite of the TV aerials and the children playing, it looks like a place of detention. All the more so now that it has been fenced off and uniformed police officers guard the gates.

Last year Italy's new government proclaimed a Roma "emergency", or emergenza nomadi. Overnight an estimated 150,000 Roma living in Italy became a national law and order problem, the target not only of special police measures, but also of increasingly brazen public hostility. Policemen in uniform descended on Roma settlements to supervise a census in which fingerprints were taken. In Naples three gypsy camps in the suburb of Ponticelli were burnt to the ground after an angry crowd had forced their frightened inhabitants to flee, escorted away by the police.

In February this year the Prefect of Rome, in his capacity as special commissioner for the Roma "emergency", issued new rules regulating life in the region's seven officially designated camps. The camps are to be gated, under police supervision. Though residence is to be temporary, as a prelude to further "integration", no indication is given of where those who have to leave, or are thrown out of the camps because they do not qualify, are expected to go. Milan's mayor has announced similar rules, including camp gates to be locked at 10pm. Protest has been muted.

Even Venice's progressive mayor Massimo Cacciari, a writer and professor of philosophy, who sparked a local uproar when he announced plans to build a Roma "village" for 30 families last year, explained in a recent television interview that the settlement, to be completed later this year, offers every guarantee of "separateness" from its non-gypsy neighbours.

It is this insistence on separation that alarms the Roma themselves. The Italian Roma musician Alexian Spinelli, who teaches at Trieste university, has warned that Cacciari's Roma village risks becoming a modern-day ghetto, leaving its inhabitants exposed to hostility, or worse. People cheered the deputy mayor of nearby Treviso, Giancarlo Gentilini, at a meeting last year when he growled: "I want a revolution against gypsies … I want to eliminate all the gypsy children who steal." Gentilini is a member of the Northern League, the party of Italy's interior minister, Roberto Maroni. Eva Rizzin, a researcher, who is herself Roma, has downloaded Gentilini's speech on her computer. "I feel terrible when I listen to it", she says. "If language like that were used against any other group people would be outraged."

Most politicians are not listening. Lerner thinks they should know better. "History has shown that the language of hate is soon followed by acts of violence," he writes in his blog."

It is up to the Obama foreign policy team to put more backbone in the U.N. efforts.

From the Washington Post:

"Burma's Agony

By Rena Pederson
Thursday, February 19, 2009; A15

NAYPYIDAW, Burma -- This is a city constructed out of fear. Naypyidaw reportedly was created by Burma's brutal dictators on the advice of astrologers and built in part by forced labor. Worried they might be vulnerable to attack in Rangoon, a port city, they abruptly moved the government 250 miles to the north three years ago and modestly named the new capital "Abode of Kings."

It is from here that the generals ordered that monks peacefully protesting gas prices in 2007 be beaten, shot and imprisoned, and here that they hunkered down in their mansions and thwarted international efforts to help after Cyclone Nargis devastated the Irrawaddy Delta last year and ravaged the lives of millions.

Few reach this remote city: Permission is required to come by plane, and a new superhighway was built primarily for government officials. Most travel the six-plus hours from Rangoon over a bumpy two-lane road shared by plodding ox carts and bicycle riders. Much of rural Burma still functions without electricity; families get by as they have for centuries, with hand pumps for water and cooking fires. Only the tea shops in villages have TVs, which run on generators. People watch soccer and maybe the news on al-Jazeera, then walk home in the dark.

Near Naypyidaw, however, the skies come ablaze. A huge new power station makes electricity available for the generals at all hours. The rutted road turns into an eight-lane highway lined by lights. Nearby, a reproduction of Burma's most hallowed site, the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, is being constructed as the generals race to show their piety.

At first glance, the capital looks almost normal. There's a new mall sporting cheap Chinese goods, a zoo where children can feed elephants, modern high-rise apartments, a luxury resort with a golf course. But there are also guards everywhere -- in towers, on corners. And people along the side of the road seem to be watching everyone else -- intensely.

In recent weeks, reports surfaced that the junta is building a series of tunnels under the capital. Rumors swirled: Are they part of a nuclear project? Escape routes? An underground gulag?

On one level there is a plastic veneer of modern life. Local TV channels show smiling young models singing about "Kiss Me" shampoo, and billboards advertise laptops. There's even a Starbucks-style coffee house in Rangoon.

Yet on another level there is rampant poverty, disease and sex trafficking. People in famine-stricken areas pay a nickel for rats to eat. In the northern no-man's land, miners are paid with opium and pass along HIV via group needles. In the largely Christian Karen villages that the junta is systematically destroying, the women are raped and children are forced into the military as human mine detectors.

In the Mandalay area farther north, the monasteries where the monks' Saffron Revolution began in 2007 are still under heavy guard. The worship places are silent, abandoned. South in the delta area battered by Nargis, people struggle to get by -- haunted, they say, by the ghostly cries of those who were swept away. Though the government has trumpeted its help, most of the assistance has come from nongovernmental organizations, churches and monasteries.

Here in Naypyidaw, ruling general Than Shwe recently claimed he was so busy accepting the credentials of some new ambassadors that he did not have time to meet with U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari about democratic reforms. Gambari left after being rebuked by Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein, who demanded the lifting of international economic sanctions on Burma and called them a "human rights violation." U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon put a diplomatic spin on events, saying Gambari had "good discussions there even though one may not be totally satisfied."

Gambari is supposed to brief the Security Council on Friday. Members should be told what the generals did as soon as he left: closed more churches in Rangoon, refused to let lawyers visit some of the country's more than 2,100 political prisoners and extended the arrest of an 82-year-old opposition leader.

Naypyidaw symbolizes the stalemate over Burma: The generals in their labyrinth have created a surreal reality and defy world opinion. The international community lets them get away with it by failing to produce an effective, moral, organized response.

It is up to the Obama foreign policy team to put more backbone in the U.N. efforts. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's remarks yesterday about sanctions drew new attention to the issue. The Obama team has the chance to calibrate financial sanctions so they squeeze the generals and their money-laundering cronies. It can insist that verifiable benchmarks of real progress, such as the release of political prisoners, be met before development favors are done for the junta. And it can remind the world that the election scheduled for 2010 shouldn't fool anyone. It is being engineered to ensure the generals' hold on power, meaning business will continue as usual in Naypyidaw.

Rena Pederson, a former speechwriter at the State Department, is the author of the forthcoming book "The Burma Quartet."

Me:

DonthelibertarianDemocrat wrote:

This is a good test case to see if we can focus on human rights even in a financial crisis. I hope that we can.

2/19/2009 10:02:52 AM

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This video shows in sometimes graphic detail the results of serious political upheaval in Madagascar - including graphic images of injured and dead

From the Hub:

Samedi Rouge : les manifestants vers Ambotsirohitra

By: Sameer Padania

Posted: Feb 8 09

Madagascar

This video contains graphic footage of human rights abuses

Sites linking to this

This video shows in sometimes graphic detail the results of serious political upheaval in Madagascar - including graphic images of injured and dead protestors.

"Samedi, au moins 23 personnes ont été tuées alors qu'Andry TGV, avait appelé ses partisans à investir le palais présidentiel dAmbotsirohitra. Monja Roindefo et ses émissaires étaient présents. Andry Rajoelina avait quitté rapidement les lieux."
[Originally uploaded at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jdkc8kdcSc by http://www.youtube.com/user/theloveofmada]

"When morality and justice are increasingly at odds with the law, it is time to challenge and change the law and the government that created it."

Willem Buiter will not be bullied into unethical and immoral behavior, thank you very much. Please read the whole post, I'm picking up the argument here:

"Why can the government and the state not be trusted with certain kinds of information?

(1) They lose it

If I were the recipient of every laptop filled with confidential information left on trains, in taxis or on park benches by those entrusted with maintaining data confidentiality, I would have the largest second-hand laptop franchise in the world.

There really is no such thing as confidential information. This is one reason why I oppose even universities collecting information on student attendance. If tomorrow the police were to turn up in Houghton Street demanding the information the LSE has in its files, who will deny them access? The Serjeant at Arms of the House of Commons, if we cannot get the Speaker of the House of Commons himself?

In my own immediate family, there have been examples of confidential medical information being leaked to parties that had no business accessing this information. The first time was in the US, and the leaky institution was a university Health Center; the second time was in the UK, and the institution concerned was an NHS hospital.

(2) They abuse it

Governments abuse information always and everywhere. My prediction that any information entrusted to the state can and will be abused is based on a rich historical record, spanning all countries and all of history. Who does not remember Richard Nixon going after his political enemies using the US tax authorities and their unique (confidential) data base?

Government access to more and more information greatly facilitates the gradual slippage towards a ‘guilty unless proven innocent’ legal system in the UK. The European Court of Human Rights (for the Euro-ignorant - this is not an EU institution, but instead an institution associated with the Council of Europe) recently ruled that the law permitting the police in England and Wales to keep, for an indefinite period, the finger prints and DNA samples of persons not convicted of a crime (and a-fortiori permitting these data to be kept on a criminal register!) breached article eight of the Human Rights Convention, covering the right to respect for private and family life.

The repeated attempts by the current UK government to introduce a mandatory ID card - preferably one that stores a host of personal details other than name, rank and serial number - should be resisted. “Ausweis, bitte”, does not sound good, even in English.

The fact that throughout history and in the UK today information is lost and/or abused by the government means that the government should be prevented from obtaining information it would be useful for the government to have if it were competent and benevolent, and could be trusted.

Because the state can never be trusted fully or unconditionally, and because it can become incompetent and/or malevolent - often unexpectedly and at short notice - I have in the past been moved to micro acts of civil disobedience. This involved no more than not providing all the requested/required information in the periodic censuses I have had to fill in, both in the USA and in the UK. The last time I returned a deliberately incomplete census was in the UK in 2001. I wrote about this in one of my first blogs on June 30, 2007, before the blog moved to FT.com. It is titled ‘Our Right for the Government Not to Know’.

The road to serfdom

Perversion of the intent of the law

In the UK, the powers granted to the government to fight terrorism have been perverted and abused. These powers were used to keep an 82-year-old Labour Party Conference heckler, Walter Wolfgang, from re-entering the conference after his ejection. They were also used to arrest two women who stood at the Cenotaph and read out the names of civilians killed in the Iraq war.

The UK government froze the UK assets of the Icelandic bank Landsbanki under the 2001 Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act passed after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the USA. This was an outrageous and deeply worrying perversion of the intent of the Act. The UK government may have had a financial dispute with the Icelandic government about who should cough up for deposit protection in case of bank failure, but not even the most paranoid denizen of Whitehall would be able to find a link between Icesave and Landsbanki and terrorism.

Given this record, would one be surprised if those ticking the boxes for the PBS reporting exercise were told to complete an additional entry for students from that well-known terrorist-breeding nation Iceland? Will we see requests for additional information on students of middle-eastern or Indian sub-continental appearance? On Islamic students? On students wearing the hijab? On bearded students? Or perhaps just on bearded students wearing the hijab?

Police officers from a counter-terrorist unit arrested the conservative MP and spokesman on immigration matters Damian Green, and searched his home and his office in the House of Commons. The ‘terrorist conspiracy’ they were investigating concerned Home Office leaks, none of which involved national security issues. The offence that provided the fig-leaf for his arrest is a common law license to harass the opposition, to prevent government embarrassment and to undermine the public’s right to know: “conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office” and “aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office” .

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act was designed to grant the power to intercept/spy on e-mails and telephone conversations just to the police and the security services. It was, however, extended to local authorities, who now use it to snoop on suspected abuse of welfare benefits, violations of school catchment areas, dog fouling and littering. This fits seamlessly with the sad observation that the UK has more surveillance cameras and other CCTV-type equipment (private and public) per person and per square mile than any country in the world. Big brother is definitely watching you.

The undermining of habeas corpus

My relief at the failure of the government to extend to 42 days the period for which persons suspected of terrorist acts (I assume this now includes all Icelanders) can be held in detention without being charged, is severely qualified by the realisation that 28 days detention without charge is the new status quo. Even 28 days represents an unacceptable encroachment on habeas corpus - the right of the accused to face his or her accuser and to have his day in court. Forty eight hours should be all this is required for putting out fires. Don’t forget, that the Labour government in 2005 tried to extend the period of detention without charge for terrorist suspects to 90 days. Too many members of the current government have learnt all they know about constitutional rights and fundamental human rights at the Guantanamo Bay School of Law.

The right to remain silent

The right not to incriminate yourself, or the right to silence/to remain silent no longer exists in any meaningful sense in the UK.

The “right to silence” is an essential legal protection given to people undergoing police interrogation or trial. The right is recognised in many of the world’s legal systems. In the UK, it was first codified in the Judges’ Rules in 1912. In 1996, the European Court of Human Rights stated: “the right to remain silent under police questioning and the privilege against self-incrimination are generally recognised international standards which lie at the heart of the notion of a fair procedure under Article 6 [of the European Convention on Human Rights].”

The Terrorism Act 2000 undermined this right, and indeed appears to have abolished it altogether. Schedule 7 states that “a person who is questioned under paragraph 2 or 3 must give the examining officer any information in his possession which the officer requests.” The purpose of this obligation to provide information is supposed to be “determining whether he appears to be a person falling within section 40(1)(b).”, that is, whether he “has been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.” But Article 2.4. of this Schedule says that “an examining officer may exercise his powers under this paragraph whether or not he has grounds for suspecting that a person falls within section 40(1)(b).” Duh?!

You have to provide all the information the interrogating police officer requests in order for him to determine whether you are an actual or potential terrorist. But the interrogating officer can demand that information regardless of whether he has any grounds for suspecting you of being an actual or suspected terrorist! Instead he could suspect me of murder, rape, robbery, double parking or ‘conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office’. This is mad. Joseph Goebbels would have been proud of this fantastic pseudo-logical piece of legal gobbledygook. The law is not an ass but a poisonous viper in this case. This Catch-22 construction castrates the right to silence.

The ‘examining officer’ also has the power to “search anything which [the person] has with him, or which belongs to him”, and to hold him for up to 9 hours for the purpose of “examination”. Damian Green was held by the police for 9 hours. Just a coincidence.

The duty of civil disobedience when the law is unjust

What is to be done? First-best would be to get rid of the Points-Based visa system. Second-best would be to get an exemption from the law for the universities. Third-best would be for the universities, severally or jointly, to decide that they will not comply with the legal requirement to provide these data to the Home Office or any other government agency.

Regrettably, institutions like universities are likely to feel compelled to comply. They are vulnerable to financial and other sanctions from the state. This is true today as it was in the 1930s in Germany and under communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe. Institutions are therefore almost always cowards. There are many lapdog state churches for each bekennende Kirche. An isolated bekennende Kirche is also likely to be crushed by the power of government and the state. Only a collective ‘no’ from the world of higher education can stare down the government on this issue. The Fourth-best would be for individual faculty members to refuse to comply with the law.

If the fourth-best option is the only one available, it is the one I shall choose. As regards the practical side of this, effective sabotage of the law is not achieved, as I understand it, by simply refusing to take attendance. This would leave all non-EEA students open to harassment by the authorities. The way to subvert the law without putting students at risk is to record all students as present, even when they are absent or absent with reason. It may be enough to record students that are absent as ‘absent with reason’ - I intend to find out more about this. But under no circumstances will I, in my capacity as a faculty member, collect and pass on information regarding student attendance that can be used by the government to harass - even to deport - students or others living in this country.

It is unfortunate that one may be forced to lie, indeed to lie ‘in writing’, if one is to do one’s job - one’s duty - as an educator and teacher. But this is preferable to turning informer for the government. As that great conservative, Barry Goldwater said: Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. . .. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

When morality and justice are increasingly at odds with the law, it is time to challenge and change the law and the government that created it."

How well said. Here's my comment:

1. “The Fourth-best would be for individual faculty members to refuse to comply with the law.

   If the fourth-best option is the only one available, it is the one I shall choose. As regards the practical side of this, effective sabotage of the law is not achieved, as I understand it, by simply refusing to take attendance. This would leave all non-EEA students open to harassment by the authorities. The way to subvert the law without putting students at risk is to record all students as present, even when they are absent or absent with reason. It may be enough to record students that are absent as ‘absent with reason’ - I intend to find out more about this. But under no circumstances will I, in my capacity as a faculty member, collect and pass on information regarding student attendance that can be used by the government to harass - even to deport - students or others living in this country.”

   Don’t worry Buiter, if they put you in whatever you call jails over there, or, God forbid, prison, I’ll organize a crusade to free you, and write the first check for your defense. I’ll even fly to London and speak in Trafalgar Square on your behalf, and I’m agoraphobic.

   I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but you are writing one outstanding column after another. I totally agree with you, even as to immigration laws.

   They ought to give you one of those knighthood things, or at least another plane. Jesting aside, I’m dazzled and awed by your recent passion and wisdom for human rights and effective economic policy as expressed in these postings. I find myself in almost total agreement. And that, my friend, should scare the hell out of you.

   Hopefully, others, more respectable types, will post comments backing you up in this matter. If you have to rely on me, I hope you enjoy cramped quarters.

   Cheers. Don

   Posted by: Don the libertarian Democrat | December 7th, 2008 at 1:33 am | Report this comment

"are endangered more by the response of the UK and US governments to the threat posed by Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, than by the terrorists "

Willem Buiter with an excellent post on human and civil rights:

"I have long held the view that our freedom, our civil liberties and human rights, and indeed our open society, pluralist political system and way of life are endangered more by the response of the UK and US governments to the threat posed by Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, than by the terrorists themselves.

A further reminder of just how assiduously the British government has been chipping away at our freedom is provided by the arrest of the opposition spokesman on immigration, Mr. Damian Green, by counter-terrorism officers, his questioning by these counter-terrorism officers for nine hours and the search of his home and office. The ‘terrorist conspiracy’ being investigated concerned Home Office leaks."

Read the rest. It's true here in the US as well. Here's my comment:

“When challenged on this prima facie inappropriate use of the counter-terrorism command, the London Metropolitan Police confirmed that Mr Green was arrested by members of its counter-terrorism command. It said the investigation was not terrorism-related but did fall within the counter-terror unit’s remit. Mr Green was not charged with any offence but was released on bail until February.”

It’s odd how, when you give authorities power in one supposedly delimited realm, they use the power in whatever realm they happen to find themselves. This is so certain an occurrence that it can be defined in Newtonian Mechanics.

Also, didn’t the PM use terrorism rules against Iceland? What does “terrorism” mean in Britain? Let me know, because I speak a language called English.

“According to the BBC’s website, among the recent leaks that got Home Office knickers twisted so viciously were the following:”

Now, I want it clearly understood that I have no, I say no, personal knowledge about this, but I truly doubt that people this reckless with laws and language even have the common decency to wear knickers. Just my impression. No more.

You’ve written a very important post. Thank you for continuing to use this blog for serious and important policy recommendations and warnings.

Posted by: Don the libertarian Democrat | November 28th, 2008 at 6:27 pm | Report this comment

Here's his reply:

Re Don: the British government did indeed, to its eternal shame, invoke the 2001 Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act to freeze the UK assets of a couple of Icelandic banks. This misuse of an instrument created to fight terrorism in an ordinary commercial/financial dispute between neighbouring countries is not just wrong, it is deeply evil. Did I hear anyone say “the end justifies the means”? Posted by: Willem Buiter | November 28th, 2008 at 6:50 pm