Human rights or human wrongs?

[TooNice]

It really depends on the weight of evidence IMO. Though I am sure that intent is also a punishable crime isn't it? As a whole, I do think that the UK is generally too soft when it comes to punishing people who are irrefutably guilty at time (I won't say whether they are or aren't in this case).

[Salazaar]

There's two completely seperate issues here...

1) Should we deport foreign nationals who are suspected of planning terrorist acts? Regardless of whether it's been proven in court, or even whether we should by trying people for just plotting at all.

2) Should we deport anyone if we have good reason to suspect that they will be treated inhumanely in whatever place we deport them to?

[aidanjt]

1) Should we deport foreign nationals who are suspected of planning terrorist acts? Regardless of whether it's been proven in court, or even whether we should by trying people for just plotting at all.

No, if there's evidence of a conspiracy to commit an offence against the state, such as particular bomb components, or a semi-assembled device, then try 'em, if you don't, they're not guilty and you let them loose.

2) Should we deport anyone if we have good reason to suspect that they will be treated inhumanely in whatever place we deport them to?

Definitely not, then you'd be as bad as the US government with Gitmo.

[Saracen]

If they are not UK citizens then they should be deported.

/end

If they're suspected of breaking British law on British soil, they should be tried in a British court. Deportation to a 3rd party country simply to enable torture is an act as bad as the torture itself.

Can they establish a bona fide case for claiming asylum. for fear of torture for legal political views or activity? If not, deport them.

If they are not British citizens, then they are here by permission of and at the tolerance of this country. If that permission is withdrawn, then they should be deported. And, after all, it is not to some third country, it is to their own home country. If they were British, citizens they they couldn't be deported. They were here on student visas. If they are believed to be in breach of those visas, then withdraw the visas and require then to leave. If they can find a third country to go to and that will accept them fine, let them go there. If not, deport them to the only country they can be deported to, which is their home country.

It should be like inviting someone to stay as a guest in your home. If you become convinced they are abusing your hospitality, you require them to leave your home, without having to prove in a court they've been nicking your family heirlooms or killing your kids first.

Immigration and Human Rights laws in this country are an absolute ass. The primary, over-riding responsibility of any government is to protect it's own citizens, not to put them at risk by harbouring those they believe to be terrorists.

[aidanjt]

Believing there is a sky fairy doesn't mean the sky fairy exists. Likewise, belief that they're terrorists isn't the same as them being terrorists. If you persecute people for imaginary nonsense, then you create the very environment for terrorist recruitment that you're attempting to defeat.

[[GSV]Trig]

It should be like inviting someone to stay as a guest in your home. If you become convinced they are abusing your hospitality, you require them to leave your home, without having to prove in a court they've been nicking your family heirlooms or killing your kids first.

Immigration and Human Rights laws in this country are an absolute ass. The primary, over-riding responsibility of any government is to protect it's own citizens, not to put them at risk by harbouring those they believe to be terrorists.

Glad you came in to translate what I said into something that doesnt sound do BNP

[Saracen]

Believing there is a sky fairy doesn't mean the sky fairy exists. Likewise, belief that they're terrorists isn't the same as them being terrorists. If you persecute people for imaginary nonsense, then you create the very environment for terrorist recruitment that you're attempting to defeat.

Citizens and visitors are in very different positions. You have to weigh belief, and apparently belief backed up by plenty of evidence, against the risks if you allow them to stay.

For citizens, the bar to criminal conviction is set high to protect those citizens, on the basis that it's preferable to let the guilty go free than to jail the innocent. But the situation here is very different - you are balancing the right of visitors to stay, against the right of citizens to be protected from murderous intent.

Of the 10 or so believed to be involved in this plot, only two remained here. The others, apparently, have returned to Pakistan where, after all, they would have had to return when their student visas ran out anyway. Have those that returned, or rather, ran away to, been grabbed by the secret police and tortured? Well, the guy that was interviewed on TV yesterday from Pakistan certainly hadn't. That alone gives the lie to the "fear of torture" argument.

The two guys at the centre of this are on visas. They do not have leave to remain here beyond those visas anyway. It should be as simple as revoking the visas, and if they then cannot meet asylum criteria, then back they go. End-of

And as for sending people back to their home country being "persecution", that's daft. They're not asylum claimants, they're purportedly students. They would be sent back, just as any other student (or other type of visitor) would have to return home when their visa ran out.

You also need to bear in mind that their is a difference between a legal concept of a presumption of innocence, and actual innocence. The difference is the same as the reason why you are never found innocent in a trial, you are merely found not guilty.

A presumption of innocence that means you don't lock people up without trial is deliberately a very high fence to jump, made worse by the very complex and pretty onerous rules of evidence, including where prejudicial value outweighs probative value. It is also absolutely possible for the authorities to know a person is stone guilty, without being able to prove it in a court. How? Well, one way (and not the only one) would be if the methods used to gather some evidence would be such that it would fail those evidential standards in a court. For a start, illegal phone taps come to mind.

So, let's suppose the authorities know more than they can or will tell us about these individuals and the plot. Assume, for the sake of argument, that they are plotting terrorist acts and assume further that, like recent incidents, they are intending, or simply, willing, to do it via suicide bombing. If so, you can't prosecute afterwards, as is the case with most criminal offences, and it's extremely difficult to get adequate evidence of what people are going to do before they do it.

Given the suggestion that the attack was apparently imminent, all the police can do is grab then up and hope to get the evidence. If they can't, and you let them go, then the odds are, sooner or later, they'll try again and if they succeed, the result could well be dozens more people dead in trains or shopping centres.

If you do grab them up, the odds are they'll get away with it, and if you don't grab them, people die.

At the end of the day, these guys are temporary visitors here, and if the authorities have reason to believe they are a risk to citizens and national security, they simply ought to be able to revoke that temporary permission and require them to leave. To not do so is to put the risk of possible harm to people by their own government against the believed risk to citizens of our country, and that is plain daft. We are not responsible for protecting citizens of every other country, especially when they're here on student visas, not as asylum seekers.

Of course, there's another approach. As so much of the world's terrorism seems to hail from Afghanistan, or these days, Pakistan, simply cease issuing any students visas to citizens of either country. If we're going to take the attitude that once they get here and then give clear reason to believe that that visa is a fraud, then simply don't let any students from those countries in in the first place. It wouldn't solve the current problem but would prevent it happening again. Is that better? It certainly wouldn't be fair on the vast majority of students that actually are students.

At the end of the day, it comes down to protecting our own citizens from those the authorities believe have the serious intent to cause murder and mayhem, and they are being prevented from doing so because it might represent a risk to those they believe are planning the mayhem. What about the risk to actual citizens?

[aidanjt]

If you want to protect your citizens, you don't punish innocent people/your own citizens, as long as you do, the actual terrorists win. The UK already learnt this lesson from the Troubles. Are people really *this* fickle?

[oolon]

My biggest problem is I cannot understand why phone taps are illegal and why will they not allow them in court. Everyone knows they can tap phones so there is no risk that disclosing that fact will some how make it impossible to do in future.

As to the people, I way up, them want to take peoples lives here against perhaps losing theirs back home... Not to difficult for me BYE! Ok I will be nice, you can remain in a cell with nothing but food and water for the rest of their lives here or they can return home or to any other country which will take them. From my understanding they have not claimed asylum however I feel when their right to life will probably result in others losing their one they a right to remain should be refused. Perhaps they should have thought of there own safety before they started down the path of taking aways others.

[Saracen]

If you want to protect your citizens, you don't punish innocent people/your own citizens, as long as you do, the actual terrorists win. The UK already learnt this lesson from the Troubles. Are people really *this* fickle?

It's all about a balance aidan.

We did indeed learn lessons from the Troubles. Or I sure hope we did. But the situation was different, at least in the regard that the "suspects" were citizens.

Assuming that the beliefs that this plot was real, and held on good faith, then we have to assume that the risks are very real, including the risk that given their freedom and if they remain in this country, they will seek to finish what they allegedly started. And if they succeed, dozens or hundreds of people may well die.

On the other hand, how credible is the risk of "torture" if they go back to what is, after all, their home, and a home to which their alleged co-conspirators fled without, it seems facing any torture at all.

And you're ignoring the other point I made. The absence of being able to prove, to the standards required by a court, they they are guilty does not make then innocent. It makes them presumed innocent. Whether they are innocent or not is a matter of actuality, not of their legal standing.

So ... balance? Claimed risk of torture to one or two visitors from their own government versus claimed risk of death to an unknown but presumably substantial number of actual citizens by letting them stay. No contest, in my view.

[badass]

I'm all for deporting tried and convicted criminals, but suspects? No way.

[oolon]

I'm all for deporting tried and convicted criminals, but suspects? No way.

If they are foreign nationals, why not? Its a privilege to be here not right if your a visitor. If there is any risk that they will cause hurt to this country however remote it is why should we take the risk, no matter how small?

[Saracen]

My biggest problem is I cannot understand why phone taps are illegal and why will they not allow them in court. Everyone knows they can tap phones so there is no risk that disclosing that fact will some how make it impossible to do in future.

As to the people, I way up, them want to take peoples lives here against perhaps losing theirs back home... Not to difficult for me BYE! Ok I will be nice, you can remain in a cell with nothing but food and water for the rest of their lives here or they can return home or to any other country which will take them. From my understanding they have not claimed asylum however I feel when their right to life will probably result in others losing their one they a right to remain should be refused. Perhaps they should have thought of there own safety before they started down the path of taking aways others.

Phone taps aren't illegal. Unauthorised ones are.

And it isn't the ability to tap phones that's at issue, but the nature of the phones being tapped, and the nature of the evidence being gathered. A fundamental principle of counter-intelligence is that the more you know of what the other side knows, the better chance you have of working out how they got it.

Suppose you and I exchange business encrypted emails (or phone calls, or whatever). After a while, you find out that a competitor knows everything you've said in yours. That tells you one of two things - either I've told someone (or allowed someone access to my unencrypted versions), or they are being compromised in transmission.

You've checked your computer and are absolutely sure you don't have any security loopholes, like viruses, trojans, etc. But, to be sure, you use a completely clean virgin install and send more mails, and they get breached too. Well, you'll probably assume the breach is at my end, wither deliberately or by security flaws at my end. After all, the encryption is unbreakable, right?

But then it turns out that emails to half a dozen other mates and/or business contacts are compromised too.

So ... either we are all giving away secrets, or we all have security flaws .... or there's another explanation. What's the chance that we're all compromised, or careless? Sooner or later, you're going to start wondering if either the encryption isn't unbreakable after all, or you;re going to start looking for hidden cameras above your computer. You might change your PC, or change your security/encryption software, or tighten up a weak pass phrase, or simply use another method and not send encrypted emails any more.

The point, as I'm sure you've got by now, is that the more the terrorists know about exactly what the security services know, they more they can infer about how they got it and will change and adapt accordingly.

Suppose, right now, the terrorists assume the security services are getting all their information from phone taps and are driving themselves potty trying to get round that. They're not actually looking for the remote controlled spy fly that the CIA have whizzing around their planning room pretending to be a bluebottle. While Al Qaeda are going round in circles avoiding cellphones, they're vulnerable to some completely different technology that's actually being used. Or to a traitor. Or whatever.

But if they were to find out that this has been compromised, and only five people knew it and it's never been mentioned in an email or near a cellphone, they;ll start looking elsewhere for the leak.

The less the other side know about what you know of their plans, the less they can work out how you might know it. But if you keep announcing the evidence in court, how long before a judge, or lawyer, or stenographer (or whoever) lets something slip, either accidentally or for money?

[Salazaar]

If they are foreign nationals, why not? Its a privilege to be here not right if your a visitor. If there is any risk that they will cause hurt to this country however remote it is why should we take the risk, no matter how small?

The thing about human rights is that it doesn't matter if they're foreign and it doesn't even matter if they've commited crime (let alone meerly suspected of it), they've still got a right not to be imprisoned without charge, tortured or killed.

We can't just pick and choose who has those rights because we happen to suspect them of doing something naughty.

If we were that worried about it, maybe we shouldn't have let them in in the first place... But that's a whole other issue.

[aidanjt]

The thing about human rights is that it doesn't matter if they're foreign and it doesn't even matter if they've commited crime (let alone meerly suspected of it), they've still got a right not to be imprisoned without charge, tortured or killed.

We can't just pick and choose who has those rights because we happen to suspect them of doing something naughty.

If we were that worried about it, maybe we shouldn't have let them in in the first place... But that's a whole other issue.

Precisely. And it would seem that people are getting their immigration policy mixed up with anti-terrorism. The two are not the same, not all zeh t'rr'sts are foreigners.

That doesn't mean immigration policy shouldn't be cleaned up, but doing so isn't going to put an end to terrorism, especially if undue persecution of foreigners become commonplace.

[Saracen]

Precisely. And it would seem that people are getting their immigration policy mixed up with anti-terrorism. The two are not the same, not all zeh t'rr'sts are foreigners.

That doesn't mean immigration policy shouldn't be cleaned up, but doing so isn't going to put an end to terrorism, especially if undue persecution of foreigners become commonplace.

If by "some people" you mean me, not at all. I'm not mixed up about anything.

But when the suspected terrorists are not citizens, it means that deportation is an option which it would not be if they were. By definition, if the suspected terrorists are immigrants, here on a student visa, then the fact that they are here on a visa is an aspect of the terrorism. This is, of course, very unlike the tube bombings which, while the guilty may have been of Pakistani ancestry, were British citizens. Deportation was not an issue there.

But in this case, it is an issue.

If the government has a primary duty to protect citizens and is told it can't deport suspected Pakistani citizens back to Pakistan, then the only other option consistent with protecting UK citizens is to not allow the suspect group in in the first place. If we can't get rid of them once here, stop them coming here even if it means lots of perfectly innocent Pakistani students can't come either. There certainly is no automatic right of entry to study, and for that reason, immigration policy and criteria for issuing visas is relevant.