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

[Heathcliffscathy]

because we absolutely should not deport anyone under any circumstance who we know will be tortured.

a victory for justice and human rights today imo.

I see. I hope everyone agrees now that killng visa overstayers is not ok.

Coolfonz - Isn't the issue in that case a political culture that expects the security services to be perfect? They should be able to admit mistakes instead of having to cover them up. Our expectation that people can run around with guns is without anyone innocent getting hurt is as misplaced as the idea that anyone arrested should turn out to be guilty.

i don't expect the security services to be perfect - that is, after all, why we have courts - otherwise the word of the police 'here's your man' ...would be sufficient.

the courts are part of the machinery guaranteeing our rights.

Exactly.

'i think it was because someone said that the fact that they'd commited visa fraud made it fine for them to be deported to a country where they may face torture.'

I made that comment and fail to see what it has to do with someone being murdered by the British police without a trial, etc.

But that is not the prevailing culture.

erm, because death is a possible consequence of torture, and if he was sent (without trial in this country, due to insufficient evidence) to be tortured, the fact he'd committed visa fraud would not make that Ok?

abr1de - It doesn't really have anything to do with it at all, other than if you accept that in both cases Security services may have/are attempting to present themselves in a more favorable light than the available evidence would suggest.

Deporting people to countries where the will be tortured is a violation of human rights though - whether is is for terrorism, murder, visa fraud, or parking on the zig zag lines.

i was basing it solely on the TV report that I saw that evening (life is not allowing for much in the way of decent current events investigation atm). so yes it was thick, as the news often is.

am not one bit surprised if 'operative' is total spin. it's happened before and it will no doubt happen again.

and expat, i can't let your comment go by unanswered (and am a lesser person for not quite being able to rise above). your extrapolation from my statement on the, read this carefully, BUSH ADMINISTRATION, that i am anti american and shouldn't holiday there (!!) is quite incorrect, not to say stupendously overdefensive on several levels. not least that as i know you've noticed there is a new administration in the white house at present.

sorry first part of that post was to coolfonz.

the thing is, at the same time as protecting these men, the courts are happy to deport people to face torture and death. The difference is, if you believe in Western values of freedom of speech and freedom of belief, our courts will deport you - telling you that it'll be fine if you just keep quiet about being gay or about your belief in human rights (even though the people involved in those cases are known to the regimes in their countries and assuredly will be harmed).

Islamic extremists - come on in, enjoy the full protection of the British law you flout and hate so much.

Democrats, protestors, human rights activists - tough shit, we're sticking you on a plane back to Iran.

It doesn't make any sense at all. It's outrageous. Human rights are indeed supposed to apply to everyone equally - but in practice the UK courts deny them to people who believe in our values and are genuinely at risk of torture and death.

Btw, I do not believe torture is EVER justfied, because it's both wrong and pointless. People will say anything under torture to get the torturer to stop. I wish Pakistan and every other nation that uses it - including Western nations outsourcing torture - would stop immediately.

edam - This just isn't even SLIGHTLY true is it:- "Islamic extremists - come on in, enjoy the full protection of the British law you flout and hate so much.

Democrats, protestors, human rights activists - tough shit, we're sticking you on a plane back to Iran.
"

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?

"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."

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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...

"Mi5 phone some youngster at a newsdesk"

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.