am I alone in being very heartened that the alquaida operative is not being deported?

or simply "terrorist suspects."

That's up to him.

(Coolfonz, yes, I should have said "people you think are guilty")

One of those blokes they decided to keep here 'for his own safety' has decided to go back to Pakistan anyway.

What say ye to that, Chardonny swillers?

No, I don't approve of torture. But equally I don't think we owe anything to these criminals. Not our job to protect them. They are free to leave the country, let them find some other nation more to their taste. Yemen seems like a possibility.

There's yet another story about a woman being sent back to face violence in today's Observer (she fled here to escape domestic violence). Wonder whether an audit of decisions to deport would find women who flee violence are more likely to be sent back than men? Would be interesting to see.

Guilty? By which you mean not actually guilty.

well I'm sure we could volunteer to take in the world's terrorists and death row inmates.

but we won't.

So guilty people should be tortured?

KF clearly IS innocent. Unless you agree with despotic regimes that homosexuality is a crime?

The other guys clearly aren't. As the judge said.

edam - how would deporting the terrorist suspects help Firouz?

But if the decision to deport KF is wrong, it doesn't automatically make the decision to allow the terrorist suspects to stay wrong.

The law says that people who are likely to be tortured at home shouldn't be made to go back. With the terrorist suspects the courts agreed that they were likely to be tortured. Either you think that the law is right and we shouldn't deport people to be totured abroad, or you think it's wrong. If you do think it's right, and it seems you do because you are citing the example of KF, then the only question is whether they will be tortured if they go back. The courts agree it is a risk.

So on what grounds would you send them back? Because they are terrorist suspects? Problem is any one of us can be accused but not convicted.

They are not unrelated. They are both about the decision to deport and fears about the treatment of the deported person in their home country. The contrast is striking. One man who our courts say is a real risk to this country is protected, one woman who is no risk to us at all is told 'tough shit'.

The ordinary law is there to protect us against terrorism. Human rights law is there to protect us against the government. They may appear to be in conflict, sometimes, but they're not. If the ordinary law ever falls short, the answer is to improve it, not downgrade human rights law.

"Mi5 phone some youngster at a newsdesk"

Mixing up the two cases is irrelevant. The Firouz case seems wrong, the prosecution of these 12 men also seemed wrong. That prosecution led to the two men fighting their cause and not being deported.

You never test your nerve over laws and rights with easy cases.

Another example: a very very dangerous guy I knew, top top football chap, back in the day when they were genuinely dangerous. The police fabricated an entire case against him, made up evidence, repeatedly perjured themselves in court. It was sick. The guy got a life sentence, life, for a crime that normally merits 6 month terms.

It didn't matter that he was a dangerous guy. It mattered that the police couldn't be bothered to construct a case against him, so they utterly fabricated one. He did just over 10 years.

The police still do this. The Kenneth Noye "road rage" case? Please...dream on...and the media act as narrative for the police/security services...its easy, Mi5 phone some youngster at a desk, the youngster loves it, they use what the security services say as gospel. You can see it all the time "intelligence sources" "police sources"...it's bad journalism...

When you start down the road of "secret evidence" - and normally the police/security services try this stuff where they know they will get popular support - then that becomes a legal principle which could be used against you/me anyone else in the future. Just like "anti-terrorism" laws are just laws now, used against anyone, anywhere...

Exactly vesela, just because the courts have got it wrong in KF's case, doesn't mean that they have got in wrong in this case.

And you're right edam, there does seem to be some prejudice against gays here. There also seems to be some prejudice against young muslim men amongst the general public as well.

edam - You are taking two unrelated cases and using them to imply that they represent a policy of opression of homosexuals and promotion of terrorists. This clearly is not the case.

If someone is at risk of persecution if they are deported they should not be deported. So the Pakistani chaps should not be deported and neither should Kiana Firouz.

Objecting to the alleged terrorists not being deported does nothing to strengthen Kiana Firouz's case.

p.s. I thought Johann Hari tied the cases together well in his article (on the Kiana Firouz thread).

edam, why does the fact that Kiana Firouz faces wrongful deportation change anything about these guys, though? None of them should be being deported.

So you admit that the courts get it wrong? Good. Because they certainly got it wrong in the case mentioned in the OP and in Kiana Firouz's case.

What's more, Kiana Firouz suggest the courts suffer from the same prejudice against gay people as society in general. Hatred of gay people, even extending to killing them, clearly isn't regarded as a serious issue. Yet the courts are supposed to strain every sinew to treat everyone equally.

Some people are more equal than others in the eyes of our legal system. Terrorists who haven't even bothered to claim asylum are protected while people who genuinely fear for their lives are thrown to the wolves.

edam, the law is made to apply to us all equally, none of us should get sent abroad to be tortured. However, the application of that law is imperfect. Sometimes the immigration services and courts get it wrong and incorrectly assess the risk of torture. As a civilised nation I believe that we should do everything we can to make sure we get it right.

But to be honest, I do believe the reason why the immigration agencies get it wrong so often is because of the huge public pressure on the government not to grant asylum to anyone. Just take a look at the Kiana Firouz thread and see how many people either think she either brought it on herself or that we shouldn't grant asylum to homosexuals anyway because we supposedly don't have enough room for them. Given that, it hardly surprises me (although I don't agree with it) that previous governments have decided to return gays to countries where they may be persecuted on the grounds that they can conceal their homosexuality.

Because we are imperfect, the law being made and implemented by us is imperfect. There are thirty thousand applications for asylum a year and you want to draw conclusions about the system based on three.?

What is your point? That immigration decisions are sometimes unfair? I don't think anyone would be surprised about that. It has no bearing on the principles we should try and apply though.

Yes, you've said that already. But we are keeping these men while kicking this woman out. If human rights apply equally to all, why is this the case?

"Yes, we send back people who in all probability are not safe.

Yes, we sometimes allow people to stay in the country who are in all probabilty a threat to us.

This does not equate to us giving islamic extremists a free ride, and kicking out the puffs and the protestors."

tell that to Kiana Firouz Why is she being deported while these men are protected?