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News from 2006
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27 December 2006
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24 December 2006A 15-year-old Sikh boy who claimed he had his hair cut off by racist thugs now says he made the attack up.
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19 December 2006On Tuesday 19th December 2006, The High Court in London gave certification for two points of law, that are of public importance, to be taken to the House of Lords. These points of law were submitted by Babar's legal team following the appeal at the High Court on 30th November 2006. The next step is for Babar's legal team to petition the House of Lords to hear the case, which must be done within the next 14 days. The two points of law concerned Military Detention and Rendition.
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13 December 2006Disappearances in the War on Terror have formed an integral part of the Bush administration's programme of secret detention. This latest report by Cageprisoners: Beyond the Law: The War on Terror's Secret Network of Global Detentions, highlights the wide-reaching extent of those countries that house these detainees, generally at the behest of the US government. The report shows that out of the 120 prisons identified worldwide, 72 have been, or are currently being used by the US to interrogate detainees.
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07 December 2006exposing torture "on an industrial scale," is to stand for election as Dundee University's next rector.
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06 December 2006Craig Murray, a former student at Dundee University who served for two years as Britain's ambassador to Uzbekistan, will be speaking today at a meeting hosted by Dundee Trades Union Council. The visit comes as controversy continues to grow over the activities of Tayside's anti-terror police. There is particular concern over the possibility that intelligence gathered by a Tayside anti-terror unit could be shared with agencies in countries where human rights abuses are commonplace.
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01 December 2006Glenn Williams and Sally Griffiths, Brighton anti-war and human rights activists, will be walking from Brighton to London to demand that Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett allows Omar Deghayes, in his fourth year of detention without trial at Guantanamo Bay, home to Brighton.
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01 December 2006Ken McDonald, Britain's chief prosecutor, launched a scathing attack on secret courts today. His words will be seen by many as a direct attack on the government, which uses the courts to try terror suspects who cannot get access to the evidence against them. The courts have been castigated by civil rights groups as an affront to justice.
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30 November 2006Babar Ahmad and Haroon Aswat have lost their High Court battle to avoid extradition to the US to face "terrorism" charges. The court did not immediately rule on whether the two men could appeal the decision to the House of Lords.
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29 November 2006Britain's role in CIA "torture flights" was roundly condemned yesterday by the European parliament in a scathing report which for the first time named the site of a suspected secret US detention centre in the EU - at Stare Kiejkuty in Poland.
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29 November 2006After a lull of many weeks the Glasgow Immigration Enforcement Team resumed its brutal practise of raiding people’s homes in the early hours of the morning. At seven o'clock on Sunday 26th November, in the Plean Street tower block complex on the west of Glasgow, ten immigration 'enforcers' and Strathclyde Police officers tried to smash open the door of a single mother from Uganda and her three year old twins
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25 November 2006Tomorrow, a German man arrives at John F. Kennedy international airport. This seemingly unremarkable event is in fact a moment of personal bravery that ought to spur national contrition.
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20 November 2006Sumiya Hensi a fourth year law student at Dundee University and Esther Sassaman a Jewish American working as a Secretary in the university's social work department addressed the assembly together with their arms around each other, about a Special Branch scheme monitoring Muslim students on campus."They come to our events, they question students and intimidate them", Hensi said. "My parents have worked hard in this country, the pay their taxes, this is a real slap in the face".Sassaman described a petition organised by the students to defend liberty. "This is a pilot project which needs to be stopped before it spreads across Britain".
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19 November 2006A public meeting in the House of Commons timed to coincide with the Queen's Speech on 15 November has been held to draw attention to the ban on Kongra Gel, a Kurdish organization committed to entirely non-violent political change inside Turkey, erroneously listed as a terrorist group earlier this year by Home Secretary John Reid.
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19 November 2006Over 200 people from around the UK, many of them Sikhs, gathered in Edinburgh on Sunday to hold a two-hour prayer vigil. It took place in an area of Pilrig Park where a young Sikh boy was attacked last week.
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19 November 2006Concerns over the activities of Tayside's controversial Special Branch Community Contact Unit (SBCCU) were discussed at the civil liberties sesion of a conference organised by Dundee Social Forum on Saturday.
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18 November 2006Over 100 people attended a public meeting in Edinburgh's Augustine Church on Thursday 16 November to mark the fourth anniversary of the kidnap, rendition and imprisonment of Jamil El-Banna and Bisher El-Rawi.
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17 November 2006Guidance issued to colleges and universities on combating extremism on campus is an improvement on previous leaked drafts but won't solve all the problems and doesn't give sufficient emphasis to improving campus relations, warned leaders of the UCU today.
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09 November 2006We fully support the meeting and its objectives which were to highlight the covert operations of Special Branch in Dundee and to inform individuals within the community of their civil liberties and legal responsibilities.
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07 November 2006Scotland Against Criminalisng Communities (SACC) was surprised to learn that a Dundee Muslim community leader has "denounced anti-police sentiment" supposedly shown at a meeting that our campaign helped to organise. The comments by Bashir Chohan, of Dundee Islamic Society Central Mosque, appeared in today’s Evening Times. He has clearly been misinformed. No anti-police sentiments were expressed at the meeting. We are particularly distressed by the ill-informed criticism that has been directed at Osama Saeed, a spokesperson for the Muslim Association of Britain and one of the best champions of healthy inter-community relations that Scotland is likely to see.
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06 November 2006We do not know if there is a place where our case can still stir anyone in this world while they see the tragedies and catastrophes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. But regardless of whether people are stirred with our case or not, for us to record what is happening to us is a duty we must perform.
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06 November 2006This is an urgent appeal to all national and international human rights organizations to intervene with the British authorities in order to honour their commitment to all the international conventions and agreements to which they are signatories. This is required so as to guarantee that my husband does not get extradited and handed over to the Libyan authorities, as he is likely to be subjected to the death sentence and/or tortured because of his political activities against the Qaddafi regime.
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03 November 2006The Muslim Association of Britain and Scotland Against Criminalising Communities will be holding a public meeting in Dundee on Monday in response to the growing controversy over the monitoring of school and university students by "anti-terrorist" police from Special Branch.
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24 October 2006Mohammed Atif Siddique was excused his first public appearance at a pre-trial hearing at the High Court in Glasgow yesterday. The case was continued until 3 November.
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16 October 2006The Menezes family begin their fight back against the legal system today to challenge what they describe as 'the ultimate cover up''.
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16 October 200612 year old Oussama Benai, a pupil at St Brendan's primary school, was deported on Saturday to Algeria along with his mum, 36 year old Leila Benai and 2 year old sister Mayssa.
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15 October 2006The scandal surrounding the government's use of contradictory evidence against people that it wishes to deport as "threats to national security" shows yet again that the parallel justice system operating in such cases is nothing more than a system of sanitised injustice. The scandal came to light last week when it was revealed that a high court judge chairing the Special Immigration Appeals Commission had ruled in May that the Home Office case against an Algerian man known only as "MK" had not been sufficiently "fact driven."
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13 October 2006Worshippers at a Glasgow mosque are stepping up security after their Imam (leader of prayer) was assaulted.
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09 October 2006Report and pictures- Across Glasgow just before sun-rise something new is happening. Early in the morning friends and neighbours are gathering outside tower blocks in their local communities to mount vigils against dawn raids on asylum seeker families living there.
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08 October 2006SACC applauds the statement by Communities Minister Malcolm Chisholm reported in Scottish editions of today's Metro that Muslim women are welcome at his Leith constituency surgery whether or not their faces are covered. But we fear that Jack Straw's recent disgraceful remarks are more than just a foolish eccentricity.
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07 October 2006At a rally in Glasgow, around 500 protesters turned up to voice their concerns over the forced removal of asylum seekers. The protest against the controversial dawn raids came after it emerged that first minister Jack McConnell has spoken to home secretary John Reid voicing his own concerns about their effectiveness.
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06 October 2006SACC supports the call by Amnesty International for the UK government to fulfil its obligations under domestic and international law and ensure the immediate return to the UK of all the British residents held at Guantanamo Bay.
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06 October 2006Jack Straw's statement yesterday that Muslim women should not cover their faces marks a new low in the government's approach to community and race relations. It comes only a couple of weeks after John Reid's offensive instruction to Muslim parents to watch out for "extremism" in their kids.
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04 October 2006This morning (4 Octobr) another of Glasgow's asylum seeking families was brutally dawn raided. The Coban family who are Kurdish Turkish and have lived in Tarfside Oval in Cardonald for over 5 years were woken and dragged from their beds.
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03 October 2006A DAWN raid by Home Office officials was yesterday (3 October) abandoned because the family members being targeted were taking part in a protest outside their home. Immigration officials arrived at a block of flats in the Glasgow area to find protesters staging a vigil.
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02 October 2006Ahlam Souidi speaks frankly about her time as an asylum seeker in Glasgow. Her family are at the moment threatened with deportation back to a country, Algeria, where they face grave danger. Watch Ahlam's story on video
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01 October 2006The US Congress has passed the Military Commissions Act with lightning speed. It empowers Bush to declare not just aliens, but also U.S. citizens, "unlawful enemy combatants." And it strips 'unlawful combatants' of the rights of habeas corpus and the right to trial by jury.
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28 September 2006The threat from terrorism is unprecedented and never seen before in Britain, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair told Editor of The Muslim News, Ahmed J Versi, in an exclusive interview held at New Scotland Yard.
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26 September 2006Amnesty International described requests for all police officers in Scotland to be issued with Tasers as "a proposal we find alarming".
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25 September 2006Up to 50,000 protestors filled Manchester city centre on the eve of the Labour Party conference to call for an end to the Bush/Blair wars, whoever leads the Labour Party. More than 600 travelled by coach from Scotland.
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21 September 2006JOHN Reid's call for Muslim parents to guard against the radicalisation of their children was last night supported by Britain's first Muslim MP.
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21 September 2006Letter to the courier discounts claims by a "terrorism expert" that Dundee University is a recruiting ground for terrorists
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19 September 2006
A demonstrator has been found guilty of Breach of the Peace at Edinburgh’s anti G8 Carnival for F
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19 September 2006Two jurors from last year's ricin trial explain why they feel betrayed by a decision to deport men they found not guilty
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18 September 2006A CONTROVERSIAL anti-terror unit set up by Tayside Police to combat extremist groups recruiting students has been criticised by a civil liberties group for "secretly" targeting the Dundee University freshers' fair.
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18 September 2006Canada's Arar Commission releases its public report on the events relating to Maher Arar, a Canadian rendered by the US to Syria for torture
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17 September 2006Anti-war campaigners at a Dundee University freshers fair on Saturday found themselves secretly targeted by terror police. A man who approached campaigners at a Stop The War stall and asked about future activities turned out to be a Special Branch officer who has been working with Tayside's controversial Special Branch Community Contact Unit (SBCCU). According to Alan Hinnrichs, chair of the Dundee branch of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the man did not identify himself as a police officer. His identity only came to light because he was recognised by a member of the University Islamic Society who had invited the officer to a meeting of the society earlier in the year.
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16 September 2006A man under deportation orders as a national security risk spent his first night penniless, sleeping on a Paris street in the pouring rain, his lawyers said yesterday.
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15 September 2006Two men accused of training terrorists in Britain have been remanded in custody by magistrates.
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15 September 2006A new book documenting the US government practice of extraordinary rendition is due to be published shortly by Melville House. It's called "Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights."
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01 September 2006An Islamic cultural fair in Reading has been cancelled over "security fears". The council contacted organisers to say that the festival could not go ahead on 10 September in Prospect Park due to "heightened security concerns".
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24 August 2006Ruth Kelly launched a new Commission on Integration and Cohesion tasked with looking at how communities can tackle tensions and extremism. She hugely underplayed the concerns in the Muslim community regarding Foreign Policy saying there were ''elements of the Muslim community that profoundly disagree with British foreign policy", when in reality there is almost unanimous disgust amongst Muslims, shared by many non-Muslims about western foreign policy.
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24 August 2006Amnesty International says that it is deeply dismayed at today's decision of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) dismissing the appeal of an Algerian man, known for legal reasons as "Y", against his deportation on national security grounds. The SIAC ruled that "Y" would not face a real risk of torture if he was returned to Algeria.
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13 August 2006SACC welcomes yesterday's statement by Scotland's universities that there was no evidence of "extremist" groups operating among their students. The statement follows an article in the Sunday Telegraph claiming that the paper had found "extremist literature" in rooms used by London Metropolitan University Islamic Society. The Sunday Telegraph says it also found copies of a "Know Your Rights Pamphlet." Our campaign distributes this leaflet in Scotland and we commend it to everyone, and especially to members of the Muslim community
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19 July 2006Reports are still coming in from the International Day of Protest to Close Guantanamo that took place on Saturday 15th July, 2006
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03 July 2006The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, this morning held a public consultation in Glasgow as part of his review into the definition of terrorism on behalf of the Government.
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25 June 2006The BBC yesterday didn't manage to spot 30 or more protestors, some large banners saying "Stop Torture", a man in a Guantanamo-style orange suit, handcuffs and a mask and a rather famous former British ambassador called Craig Murray. These aren't things that blend easily into a Saturday afternoon crowd at Edinburgh airport, but the BBC managed somehow to overlook them and report "Demonstrations at Edinburgh and Prestwick failed to materialise." The demonstrators were protesting at the failure of the Scottish Executive, the Westminster government and police to take action over growing evidence that British airports are being used to facilitate extraordinary rendition.
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13 June 2006Campaigners are calling for an immediate halt to the activities of the controversial Special Branch Community Contact Unit operated by Tayside Police. The Unit targets "ethnic religious groups" in order to gather intelligence on activities that "could be considered extremist." The call follows revelations about the Unit's activities published in the Sunday Herald on 11th June.
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11 June 2006Politicians, human rights lawyers, Muslim organisations and teachers have expressed dismay at a Scottish Special Branch initiative that sends officers to schools to encourage teachers to inform on pupils who are suspected of flirting with Islamic extremism.
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07 June 2006Scotland Against Criminalsing Communities (SACC) welcomes the publication today of the report by Council of Europe rapporteur Dick Marty on alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe member states. The report is scheduled to be debated by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on 27 June. SACC joins with other peace and human rights groups in calling for vigils to be held at airports in the UK and the Republic of Ireland on Saturday 24th June to demand that our governments implement the recommendations made by Senator Marty and that governments and police forces take urgent action against torture and illegal detention.
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01 June 2006The most shocking and the most baffling decision to deport an acknowledged refugee came on 26th January 2006, when a wheelchair-bound stroke victim, a respected and law abiding imam, (who had never been questioned by the police in this country where he had lived since 1991 entirely lawfully with his family (all British citizens), was suddenly arrested. This arrest came as the cruellest shock of all to the informed community however accustomed that community had become to injustice and cruelty.
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31 May 2006We are shocked that Professor Paul Wilkinson of St Andrews University used the International Press Institute Conference in Edinburgh this week to promote the tired and racist ideology of a "clash of civilisations". He was speaking at a session entitled "Journalism Under Pressure - Reporting Terrorism." According to a report in today's Scotsman (Thursday 1 June), he referred repeatedly to a battleground with "the West" on one side and al-Qaeda standing in for an unspecified other side. This is the kind of talk that risks dividing the world and dividing our country. Millions of British people reject the British government's middle eastern wars. To parcel them up under the heading "the West" with Tony Blair, George Bush and friends is to attempt to declare politics and democracy obsolete.
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29 May 2006CONTROVERSY OVER a new police unit designed to prevent extremists recruiting in Dundee has intensified after officers monitored a pro-Palestinian demonstration in the city centre on Saturday. - report in the Courier
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25 May 2006Police announced this week that the Special Branch Community Contact Unit operating in Tayside on a trial basis since last October is to be made permanent. And it appears that the scheme is set to be adopted by other Scottish police forces. Police consider the Tayside unit to be a success. This is not a view that we share.
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15 May 2006PROMINENT human rights lawyer, Aamer Anwar, believes community relations are being damaged due to the conduct of Scottish Police forces in anti-terror cases.
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10 May 2006
John Reid's speech today on the July bombings was deeply depressing. He said that he wants to turn people away from terrorism and show that "engagement can bring about change for the better in Britain's society." Then he set out three key policies that will in fact have exactly the opposite effect. Instead, SACC is proposing three policies that really would reduce the risk of a terrorist attack on the UK
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10 May 2006John Reid's speech today on the July bombings was deeply depressing. He rejected calls for an public inquiry into the bombings, which is clearly the only way that the facts of the tragedy can be established with any confidence. Instead we have only a "narrative" told by the police and the intelligence services. And he made it plain that there will be no change in the direction of the government's misguided counter-terrorism strategy, which is suppressing political discussion and putting minority communities under siege, and risks creating new recruits for terrorism.
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27 April 2006A man arrested under the Terrorism Act in Alva has appeared at a specially convened court.
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26 April 2006Letter from the Algerian men detained in Long Lartin prison announcing that they are on hunger strike
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26 April 2006Two of the men arrested under the Terrorism Act in central Scotland on Monday have been released without charge.
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25 April 2006SACC is alarmed at the arrest of three more men in the Stirling area on Monday on suspicion of connection with "terrorism". The heavy-handed arrests have caused great distress to the men's families and are likely to spread fear throughout the Muslim community in the region.
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24 April 2006Three men have been arrested under anti-terrorism law following an operation in Clackmannanshire. The three are relatives of Atif Siddique, 20, was arrested in Alva on 13 April.
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15 April 2006A 20-year-old man has been arrested during a major anti-terrorism operation carried out at a family home in Alva, near Stirling, at around 7am on Monday 13 April.
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12 April 2006A resolution calling for action over rendition flights was passed unanimously at the STUC Congress in Perth in April 2006.
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07 April 2006
On Wednesday 12 April, the STUC Annual Congress in Perth will vote on a resolution urging the Scottish Executive and Scottish police forces to investigate suspicions that US aircraft landing at Scottish airports are involved in so-called "extraordinary renditions" . SACC will be hosting a lunch-time fringe meeting in Perth on Tuesday to discuss British involvement in extraordinary rendition and torture. Speakers at the meeting will include Clara Gutteridge, a lawyer who has been giving advice to Westminster's All-Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Renditions, chaired by Andrew Tyrie MP. Clara Gutteridge has uncovered extensive evidence that British intelligence services have been involved in the abduction, interrogation and torture of supposed "terrorism suspects". As well as the lunch-time meeting in Perth, she will be speaking at an open meeting in Edinburgh on Tuesday evening.
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31 March 2006The Committee at Masjid Al Hidayah Mosque on Millham Street, Blackburn, in conjunction with Muslim Scholars from Blackburn and Preston, have withdrawn their invitation to Condoleezza Rice to visit their mosque as part of her forthcoming tour of the region on Saturday 1 April.
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30 March 2006At meeting held on Wednesday 29 march at the House of Lords on 'The nightmare of control orders', lawyers, family members and supporters spoke about the psychological and emotional damage the orders were inducing.
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30 March 2006Four detainees have withdrawn appeals to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) against their detention. The four men are all Algerian. Their identities are protected by a court oder; they are known only as I, K, Q and V.
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30 March 2006A French court convicted Rachid Ramda on Wednesday 29 March of acting as banker for the terrorists reponsible for the 1995 Paris Metro bombings. He was given a 10-year sentence - the maximum possible. His lawyer says said he will appeal against the ruling.
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28 March 2006
Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram told Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights yesterday that it would be a "diplomatic error" for UK officials to board US aircraft to investigate their involvement in "extraordinary rendition." This contradicts assurances given in January by the US Consul in Scotland, Cecile Shea. At a meeting with human rights campaigners held at the consulate in Edinburgh on 17 January she made it clear that there would be no US objection to police carrying out investigations on specific aircraft where there were reasonable grounds to suspect involvement in illegal activities.
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27 March 2006The Report, Fabricating Terrorism: British Compli city in Renditions and Torture, highlights a litany of cases where British authorities have been expressly involved in the torture and illegal rendition of suspects in the'War on Terror'. Such unlawful practices have been strongly condemned by human rights organisations worldwide, and yet Britain remains complicit in them. Fabricating Terrorism
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26 March 2006Tom McNulty's visit to Glasgow, Mondat 27 March 2006 - story and pictures
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23 March 2006
The government's controversial anti-terror legislation will shortly become law after Conservative peers last night called off the game of parliamentary ping-pong which threatened to delay it until next year.
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23 March 2006
In a surprise U-turn, the government says it will seek the release from Guantánamo Bay of
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20 March 2006Report on the Stop the War demo in London on 18 March 2006
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20 March 2006
A motion calling for action over rendition flights will be coming up at the STUC Conference in Perth (10-12 April). It's a composite of motions submitted by Dundee TUC and Community Union and will be debated on Wednesday 12 April
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19 March 2006
Six of the number of the former detianees being held while the government attempts to arrange their deportation are negotiating a return to Algeria because they can no longer withstand the mental torture imposed by the government.
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18 March 2006
Aircraft suspected of being used by the CIA for "extraordinary rendition" - the practice of sendi
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17 March 2006Former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg addressed a packed meeting in Edinburgh University's Appleton Tower last night.
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17 March 2006MPs today backed home secretary Charles Clarke's move to introduce a new crime of "glorification" of terrorism.
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14 March 2006At a hearing of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) today, the judge refused to order any relaxation in the conditions under which a number of foreign citizens are being held while the government attempts to arrange their deportation.
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14 March 2006
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10 March 2006Rachid Ramda, an Algerian man being tried on terrorism charges in France, has refused to participate in his own trial and has asked his lawyer to take no part in the proceedings. The court had earlier refused a request for the trial to be delayed to allow time for police to investigate allegations that key evidence against Mr Ramda had been obtained through torture. Mr Ramda's decision will be understood and respected by his many friends and supporters in Britain. He has always insisted that he is innocent of any involvement in the bombings he is accused of helping to finance. Characteristically, he was at pains in court to stress his sympathy for the bomb victims.
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10 March 2006Rachid Ramda, un algérien en instance de jugement pour terrorisme en France,a refusé de participer à son propre procès et a demandé à son avocat de nepas prendre part aux procédures. Le tribunal avait refuse une précédenterequête de suspension du procès pour permettre à la police de mener uneenquête sur les allégations selon lesquelles les principales accusationscontre Mr Ramda avaient été obtenues sous la torture. La décision prise parMr Ramda est respectée par tous ses amis et supporteurs en Grande-Bretagne.
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08 March 2006As evidence of British complicity in US torture flights continues to mount, Brian Donohoe, Labour MP for Central Ayrshire, has made public a letter from Jack Straw, dated 21 December 2005, in which the Foreign Secretary flatly refuses to take any steps to investigate British involvement in rendition. Instead, the Foreign Secretary repeats demonstrably misleading assurances from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The letter concludes with the remark "see you in the tea room."
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08 March 2006At the weekend, the annual conference of the Scottish Socialist Party passed a resolution opposing the Terrorism Bill currently going through Parliament and calling on party members to support Scotland Against Criminalising Communities. The resolution also condemns racism and discrimination and urges members to work with the Muslim Association of Britain and the Stop The War Coalition. It was carried almost unanimously.
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01 March 2006The House of Lords voted for a third time yesterday (28 February 2006) to remove the notorious "glorification" clause from the Terrorism Bill. I
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16 February 2006
Five independent investigators of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights are calling on the United States to close immediately the detention centre in Guantanamo Bay and bring all detainees before an independent and competent tribunal or release them.
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15 February 2006MPs voted this afternoon by 315 to 277 to overturn a Lords defeat that would have removed from the Terorism Bill the clauses outlawing "glorification of terrorism". In doing so, they put Parliament on a collision course with justice.
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15 February 2006
A fresh attempt is being made to demonise the Algerian men arrested on terrorism charges in the winter of 2002, and released without charge a year letter. First time around, the men fell victim to a stunt designed to popularise the impending invasion of Iraq. Now they're being used to revive Blair's discredited anti-terrorism policy.
