Many of the United Kingdom’s counter-terrorism policies and practices have finally come under the spotlight since the coalition government took office in May 2010. A decade of dedicated campaigning by human rights activists and civil liberties campaigners is now beginning to payoff – a sign that sustained activism and campaigning do have an impact. The major successes under the new government have come in the form of scrapping ID cards; the repealing of Section 44 ‘stop and search’ powers; the Prime Minister’s declaration that a judge-led inquiry will be launched into the allegations that MI5 and MI6 colluded in the torture of terror suspects; and the announcement that a series of reviews will take place regarding key counter-terrorism and security powers. If one compares these policies to those of the previous New-Labour government and the false promises it made regarding inquiries and redresses, the coalition is not doing particularly badly. Nevertheless, the time to fully rejoice is not here yet.
Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is a law that undermines an individual’s human rights and almost every facet of the British legal structure. Those that have unfortunately been detained and examined under Schedule 7 will know why it undermines human rights principles, neglects the rule of law and holds the principles of the British legal structure in contempt. For those that have escaped the Gestapo-natured power hitherto, it is worth mentioning here what Schedule 7 is.
According to the Terrorism Act 2000, Schedule 7 is a power that authorises an immigration official, a customs officer or a police officer at any point of entry or exit from the United Kingdom to stop, question, search and examine any person for a maximum period of 9 hours in order to determine whether they are a terrorist or not. In simple, the State has the power to ask you a series of questions to see if you are a terrorist. It is not the police just going about their routine enquiries or conducting day-to-day police-work. It is the police behaving in a totally arbitrary way toward those individuals that they suspect of links to terrorism. Because there is no concrete profile of what a terrorist looks like, or what their common attributes are, most of the victims of Schedule 7 are men of Muslim appearance, especially South Asian men, predominantly Pakistani’s who wear beards or have other recognisable Muslim traits i.e., skull caps, robes etc. In essence, the police employ stereotyping and racial-profiling when conducting their purported duties under Schedule 7 - a claim they, understandably, deny vigorously.
From my own experience of being detained and examined under Schedule 7 on two separate occasions, most of the questions, in addition to being half-witted and downright ignorant, are focused on trying to acquire information on your political and religious views, your family and ethnic background, your past and intended travels, your education, finances, and your employment-status. In the process of being questioned, if you refuse to answer a question because you feel it is intrusive, ‘you do not have a right to remain silent’. This essentially means that individuals can incriminate themselves and their right to privacy is violated as soon as they speak. If you fail to answer the questions asked of you, or you obstruct the examination, you are in violation of the law and (upon conviction) can be fined and imprisoned, or both. The whole point of ‘having a right to remain silent’ is to prevent oneself from self-incrimination or ‘adverse inference’. To protect oneself from this the right to remain silent is one of the most important legal rights in the British legal structure. However, the authoritarianism promoted under the auspices of the former government has led the security agencies and the police to have differ on the matter.
Also under Schedule 7, the Police have a right to search you, your possessions and anything that might be linked to you that is located at the port of travel, in addition to being authorised to seize any item in your possession ( for up to a week) if they wish to conduct further examination of you. From my encounters with the police, it is my understanding that when you exercise your rights and question the police and the nature of their enquiries, you are faced with a catch-22 situation. The police begin to think that if you have nothing to hide, why are you exercising your rights and questioning the police. The respect that you have for your rights and your desire to exercise them is interpreted as you trying to conceal the truth or having sinister motives. This provides a perfect pretext for the police to wield their power and investigate you further. In the context of a Schedule 7 stop, this means seizing any item in your possession that the police believe will assist them in determining whether you are a terrorist or not and in any other context means being extremely inconvenienced. Try the experiment yourself. I have recently begun exercising my rights when I encounter the police and it has led to one search of me and my car under Section 43 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and one full examination of my car at the roadside under the Road Traffic Act. There will be many more examples in months and years to come.
When I was detained for a second time under Schedule 7, I asked the Special Branch officers what their real motives for Schedule 7 stops were and why they were being disproportionately used against Muslims. The officer, much to my surprise, suggested that the purpose was to ‘develop intelligence’ and to ‘build a profile’ of a ‘terrorist’. This seems like a reasonable and sensible thing to do in a time in which terrorists threaten our security and way of life - no? Let us see if it sounds as reasonable and sensible if we change the subjects from Muslim men to white (non-Muslim) men and the subject from terrorism to football hooliganism.
With the logic of Schedule 7 in mind, is it justified for a police officer to stop, question and examine any white male that has a shaven head at a football match between the ages of 25 and 50 to build a profile of a football hooligan and to gather intelligence on the actual individual being questioned? No. It is not acceptable and for good reason too. Such a policy would criminalise white males that have a skinhead because of their hairstyle and the colour of their skin. Such a policy would discriminate against them because of their age, or their perceived age. It would be ageist. It would be sexist. It would be racist. It would be downright wrong. It would never gain approval and rightfully so. So why does Schedule 7, which discriminates and criminalises Muslims when they travel not face the same level of criticisms that a policy targeted at white (non-Muslim) males would? Why is this policy not being exposed for what it is – racist and anti-Muslim? Why is Schedule 7 still allowed to exist? Why is it okay for Muslims to be criminalised and harassed? Why are Muslims being allowed to be humiliated every time they travel?
As an individual that has been arrested as a suspected terrorist over 2 years ago, an individual that has been on the receiving end of two separate Schedule 7 stops and subjected to two informal questioning encounters by immigration officers at ports of entry and exit, the nerves and anxiety when travelling are incredibly high.
I, and many Muslims like me know we are going to be stopped, searched, questioned and examined when we travel. We know we will have no rights, other than the right to inform someone that we have been detained and the right to let a lawyer know we are in custody. The police will not delay their questioning in order for a lawyer to arrive and will commence the questioning immediately; quite a remarkable power, which is incidentally only applicable to Schedule 7 stops. We know we will have no option but to answer every question asked of us, as personal or private as it may be, to avoid arrest. We know we will self-incriminate ourselves the minute we speak. We know the police will suspect us of being terrorists the minute they see us, which is why they will arbitrarily stop and question us. We know why it will happen – because we are Muslim. Whether we are practicing or non-practicing, secular or religious, political or apolitical will not make a difference.
The time has come to scrap the racist and criminalising powers granted under Schedule 7; the authoritarianism of which is undermining innocent people’s right to be free from harassment and free from having their personal lives and opinions questioned and cross-examined every time they wish to travel. It is about time Schedule 7 was scrapped along with the rest of the Terrorism Act 2000 so new legislation can be drafted in accordance with the historic principles of due-process, the rule of law and human rights. The authoritarianism of New-Labour seems to be reducing. Let’s end it once and for all and place human rights and civil liberties where they belong – at the forefront of all security debates.
Rizwaan Sabir is a human rights activist and doctoral researcher at the University of Strathclyde. He is researching the role of Islam and counter-terrorism in British and Scottish government discourse. In May 2008 he was detained for six days as a suspected member of al-Qaida for being in possession of primary research literature. He was released without charge.
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