{"id":184548,"date":"2010-01-14T11:05:54","date_gmt":"2010-01-14T16:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nw0.eu\/2010\/01\/14\/human-rights-court-savages-uk-stop-search-terror-powers.html"},"modified":"2010-01-14T11:05:54","modified_gmt":"2010-01-14T16:05:54","slug":"human-rights-court-savages-uk-stop-search-terror-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/184548","title":{"rendered":"Human Rights Court Savages UK Stop & Search Terror Powers"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

\"Human<\/p>\n

Landmark decision clears the way for restoration of privacy, right to protest, photograph unhindered<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Steve Watson
\nPrisonplanet.com<\/a>
\nTuesday, Jan 12, 2010<\/span><\/p>\n

The use of \u201ccounter-terrorism\u201d stop and search laws by the police in the UK has been ruled illegal by the European Court of Human Rights<\/a><\/strong>,
\na decision that paves the way for protesters, photographers and
\neveryday citizens to fight back against such gross invasions of privacy.<\/p>\n

Under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, police can stop and search anyone without reasonable suspicion.<\/p>\n

The court in Strasbourg has referred to that power as not in
\n\u201caccordance with the law\u201d, and a violation of article eight
\n\u2013 the right to respect for private and family life.<\/p>\n

Judges noted that there is no grounds for considering the powers
\n\u201cnecessary\u201d, and that they are only
\n\u201cexpedient\u201d, adding that there is a \u201cclear risk of
\narbitrariness in granting such broad discretion\u201d to a police
\nofficer.<\/p>\n

They also stated that the searching clothing and belongings
\ninterferes with the right to privacy as it involves an element of
\nhumiliation and embarrassment.<\/p>\n

The use of the powers and their authorisation is \u201cneither
\nsufficiently circumscribed, nor subject to adequate legal safeguards
\nagainst abuse\u201d, according to the court.<\/p>\n

The court also highlighted a lack of judicial oversight, stating
\n\u201cThe absence of any obligation on the part of the officer to show
\na reasonable suspicion made it almost impossible to prove that the
\npower had been improperly exercised\u201d.<\/p>\n

The full judgment is online here<\/a><\/strong>. <\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The freedom stripping powers, which were initially conceived only to
\nbe used in emergency situations, have come under intense scrutiny
\nrecently following the publication of multiple sets of figures
\nhighlighting huge increases in stops with a relatively miniscule
\nsuccess rate.<\/p>\n

In May 2009, data released to the BBC<\/a><\/strong>
\nrevealed that the Metropolitan Police in London used section 44 of the
\nTerrorism Act more than 170,000 times in 2008 to stop people in the
\ncapital. That figure equated to stopping and searching a member of the
\npublic every three minutes<\/em> under terrorism laws.<\/p>\n

The figures represented a more than 140% increase on 2007 numbers.<\/p>\n

Of all the stops in 2008, only 65 led to arrests for terror
\noffences, a success rate of just 0.035%. Furthermore, when you take
\ninto account how many of those arrests have translated into
\nconvictions, according to the Home Office, you come up with a round
\nfigure of 0.0%.<\/p>\n

A separate Freedom of Information Act request in 2009 also revealed
\nthat the use of the stop and search power has increased exponentially
\nby over ten times in less than ten years<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Ministry of Justice statistics<\/a><\/strong>,
\npublished in mid 2008, revealed that from 2006-2007 police used their
\npowers to stop (but not search) nearly two million members of the
\npublic and demand they account for their behavior or actions, a rise of
\none third from the previous year.<\/p>\n

This meant that in just one year around 3.5% of the entire British
\npopulation was stopped in the street by the police under suspicion of
\nterror related offences.<\/p>\n

While not resulting in the prevention of any terrorism,
\nthe section 44 powers have been most notably used against the
\n82-year-old Walter Wolfgang for heckling Jack Straw <\/a><\/strong>at the Labour Conference; Sally Cameron for walking on a cycle-path<\/a><\/strong> in Dundee; the 80-year-old John Catt for being caught on CCTV passing a demonstration in Brighton; the 11-year-old Isabelle Ellis-Cockcroft<\/a><\/strong> for accompanying her parents to an anti-nuclear protest; and a cricketer on his way to a match over his possession of a bat.<\/p>\n

More recently, Scotland Yard admitted<\/a><\/strong>
\nthat its officers have been photographing children who are stopped and
\nsearched, even after they have been found to be innocent, and keeping
\nthe pictures on a database for \u201cintelligence-gathering
\npurposes\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the past we have reported on instances where police have admitted stop and search records are permanently retained<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Human The Home Office guide to stop and search states that \u201cif they don\u2019t find anything, your details will be recorded for monitoring purposes<\/a><\/strong>, and you\u2019ll be allowed to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government has continued to push for greater stop and search powers<\/a><\/strong> for police.<\/p>\n

Section 44 of the Terrorism Act bestows exceptional
\npowers on the police to stop and search at random, once a particular
\ngeographical area has been designated by a chief officer as one that
\nmight be targeted by terrorists and authorised as such by the Home
\nSecretary. The government has since extended this power<\/a><\/strong>
\nto stop and search WITHOUT REASONABLE SUSPICION to include
\n\u201ctroubled areas\u201d, which since 2001 has included the whole
\nof Greater London.<\/p>\n

As of February 17 2009, Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act<\/a><\/strong>
\nalso prohibits photographing police and permits the arrest of anyone
\nfound \u201celiciting, publishing or communicating information\u201d
\nrelating to members of the armed forces, intelligence services and
\npolice officers, which is \u201clikely to be useful to a person
\ncommitting or preparing an act of terrorism\u201d.<\/p>\n

Essentially, under anti-terror laws, anyone caught photographing
\npolice could face a fine or a prison sentence of up to 10 years.<\/p>\n

As we have recently reported<\/a><\/strong>,
\nthis section of the act is being used primarily to target journalists
\ncovering protests, who say they are being targeted by police
\nsurveillance officers more so than the actual protesters. The law has
\nalso been used against tourists snapping pictures of landmarks and
\nmembers of the public documenting police misconduct.<\/p>\n

A recent report by the Joint Select Committee on Human Rights<\/a><\/strong> confirmed that journalists and protesters were the primary targets of increased police misuse of anti-terror laws.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s ruling from the Human Rights Court
\nrefers to the case of Kevin Gillan and Pennie Quinton who were detained
\nfor attending a protest outside Europe\u2019s biggest arms fair<\/a><\/strong> in London in September 2003.<\/p>\n

Having finally achieved justice after more than six
\nyears of pursuing the matter, the pair were awarded \u20ac33,850
\n(\u00a330,400) in costs and expenses. Gillan and Quinton, who like
\nmany others could have just walked away, should be commended as heroes
\nfor their efforts to defend freedom in the UK.<\/p>\n

Anti-terror laws are intended for use on the general
\npublic, they always have been, and now we are seeing the rotten fruits
\nof continued blind acceptance contaminate every section of society in
\nthis country.<\/p>\n

Gillan and Quinton have paved the way for others who
\nhave been the victims of the misuse of these draconian terrorism laws
\nto fight back and help push for a complete rejection of such abuses of
\npower.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

Book Mark it-><\/b> del.icio.us<\/a> | Reddit<\/a> | Slashdot<\/a> | Digg<\/a> | Facebook<\/a> | Technorati<\/a> | Google<\/a> | StumbleUpon<\/a> | Window Live<\/a> | Tailrank<\/a> | Furl<\/a> | Netscape<\/a> | Yahoo<\/a> | BlinkList<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Landmark decision clears the way for restoration of privacy, right to protest, photograph unhindered Steve Watson Prisonplanet.com Tuesday, Jan 12, 2010 The use of \u201ccounter-terrorism\u201d stop and search laws by the police in the UK has been ruled illegal by the European Court of Human Rights, a decision that paves the way for protesters, photographers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2604,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2604"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}