BRITAIN:Civil liberties groups last night condemned a British government plan to extend the detention of terror suspects without charge beyond the current 28-day limit as "amounting to internment".
Civil liberties groups last night condemned a British government plan to extend the detention of terror suspects without charge beyond the current 28-day limit as "amounting to internment".
The Conservatives, however, announced "support in principle" yesterday for a register of convicted terrorists enabling travel restrictions to be imposed; a move to lift the ban on post-charge questioning of terror suspects; and an urgent inquiry into the safeguards needed to allow phonetap evidence to be used in court. The decision means that most of the measures outlined yesterday are likely to be included in an anti-terrorism Bill in November.
The Liberal Democrats and the Tories made clear that no such blanket endorsement would be forthcoming for the proposal to extend 28 days detention without charge.
Mr Reid yesterday offered cross-party talks on how such an extension might operate, promising it would include approval by a senior judge every seven days, but said he had deliberately not specified any upper limit. An annual report to parliament would also be published on the use of the power.
But the opposition Conservative home affairs spokesman, David Davis, rejected the proposal, arguing that the priority in a democracy had to be prosecution and conviction of terrorists.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, said the proposal to go beyond 28 days amounted to internment, and urged the use of phonetap evidence as an alternative.
Mr Reid confirmed that a proposal to extend across the UK the stop-and-question powers used by Northern Ireland police is to be given a very low priority. He made a barely veiled attack on his cabinet colleague Peter Hain for proposing and then making evident his misgivings about the idea.
The home office package outlined yesterday included a series of measures to close current loopholes in the counter-terrorism laws. They include correcting a legislative error that means the police cannot take fingerprints or DNA samples from terror suspects subject to anti-terror control orders. The police will also be given powers of entry to the homes of those under control orders and statutory data-sharing powers for the intelligence and security agencies.
Additionally, they will be given the power of temporary seizure of passports at airports and ports of individuals wanting to travel abroad for terrorist purposes. Power will be extended over the seizing of assets of someone convicted of a terrorist finance offence to all those convicted of terror-related offences and legislation will allow funding of extra security of key gas-supply sites.