UN warns Britain over deportations
August 26, 2005


BRITAIN and the United Nations seem headed for confrontation over Britain's plan to deport alleged terrorist sympathisers in the wake of the July 7 London bombings.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said on Wednesday that the first deportations would happen in the "next few days" as he published a list of "unacceptable behaviour" that would allow him to deport foreign citizens accused of glorifying or encouraging terrorism.

The behaviour includes making speeches, running websites, publishing material or using a position of responsibility such as teacher or youth leader to "foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence" or "foster hatred that might lead to intercommunity violence" in Britain.

Manfred Novak, special investigator on torture for the UN Human Rights Commission, told The Guardian the plan could violate international law by circumventing the obligation "not to deport anybody if there is a serious risk that he or she might be subjected to torture".

Mr Novak, who wants to meet Mr Clarke, said he could cite Britain for the alleged violation when he reports to the UN General Assembly in October. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees also said the deportation proposals would breach the 1951 Geneva Convention on refugees.

But Mr Clarke said "the human rights of those people who were blown up on July 7 are, to be quite frank, more important than the human rights of those people who committed the acts".

The Times reported that those on a list of high-profile Islamic militants drawn up by Mr Clarke include a Pakistani cleric and Dr Muhammed al-Massari, a Saudi-born dissident whose London radio station praises suicide attacks on British soldiers in Iraq.

Mr Clarke diluted an original suggestion from Prime Minister Tony Blair to empower the Home Office to act against people expressing "extreme views that are in conflict with the UK's culture of tolerance".

But the Muslim Council of Britain expressed concern over the plans, arguing that alleged extremists should be prosecuted, not deported.

Investigations of the July 7 bombings have traced frantic phone calls from one of the bombers to the other three.

Hasib Hussain, 18, had planned to detonate his rucksack bomb on an underground train, but was forced to change plans because the line he chose was closed, the Evening Standard reported.

Scotland Yard considers Hussain's phone calls, which became more and more frantic, as proof that the four men were suicide bombers. The calls raise the possibility that there was no al-Qaeda mastermind running the operation, since Hussain would have most likely called him. The four men may have conceived their plan alone.

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