Unlawful glorification: the trouble with thoughtcrime

Posted on Wednesday 13 January, 2010
Filed Under Civil Liberties

 

I’VE GOT a mate of Basque extraction who works in London. Behind his desk hangs a flag obviously based on the Union Jack, save that the crosses are white and green and the background red. Just for clarification, all his colleagues know that to refer to him even casually as ‘Spanish’ is making a one big mistake.

And when the story breaks that Euskadi ta Askatasuna tried three times to assassinate Jose Maria Aznar, failing on each occasion, he maintains in conversation that they were right to do so, and wishes them better luck next time.

Alternatively, anyone old enough to remember the days of lock-ins at Irish pubs may have found themselves standing to attention at some point in the small hours, as the show band played a passable version of Amhrán na bhFiann and the buckets started passing round and filling up with cash. If someone told me that whiprounds of this type are to this day routine for the benefit of the Realers or the Contos, I would not be able to profess myself shocked.

We can even take the more recent example of the numerous demonstrations staged by Tamils in Parliament Square last year, in which banners bearing the emblem of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were in the hands of every other protester.

Overt expressions of sympathy for ETA, the IRA and the LTTE – all of which, whatever one thinks of the causes for which they stand, have indubitably killed many people – are common enough within some communities, and in practice tolerated by the law within certain bounds. Yet all three are on the Home Office list of proscribed organisations under the Terrorism Act 2000.

So, as of tomorrow, will be Islam4UK. The difference is that Amjem Choudary’s outfit firstly does not have any noticeable degree of popular support among Muslims, and secondly has never planted a bomb. To outlaw them is manifestly unjust.

Organisations can fall foul of the Terrorism Act if they ‘commit or participate in acts of terrorism, prepare for, promote or encourage terrorism or are otherwise concerned in terrorism’. It has not been shown conclusively that Islam4UK has done any of these things, within the legal meaning of these terms.

If there is evidence of direct terrorist involvement, then those suspected of it should rightly stand trial. Throw the book at them, I say. But the government appears not to feel that that it has such a case.

The reasoning behind Alan Johnson’s ban is rather that Islam4UK is held to ‘unlawfully glorify the commission or preparation of acts of terrorism’. That is an interesting choice of word. The restriction is not upon advocacy, justification, or even mere apologia, but upon glorification.

Meaning what, exactly? Well, in the words of the legislation, ‘“glorification” includes any form of praise or celebration, and cognate expressions are to be construed accordingly.’

But isn’t there a difference between writing a pornographic novel that glorifies rape, conspiracy to commit rape, and rape itself? If you make a movie that portrays the life of an East End gangster as impossibly glamorous, and may arguably encourage some kid in Bethnal Green to take up a life of crime, that is hardly the same thing as being a diamond blagger. If it was, Guy Ritchie would long ago have been banged up for unlawful glorification.

It boils down to this; to be in a group that takes a positive view of any project deemed terrorist by the government of the day becomes a criminal offence punishable be ten years in prison. That’s a decade behind bars on the say so of the state, for what amounts to nothing more thoughtcrime.

Were New Labour so minded, those strictures could theoretically be applied against much of the existing far left. Come to that, there was a time when the African National Congress enjoyed mainstream support in the Labour Party, even though Thatcher famously branded the ANC as, well, terrorists.

Any notion of ‘unlawful glorification’ as a serious offence is monstrous in its ramifications. In a democracy, it has no place on the statute books.

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