What about Guantanamo UK?

In the wake of the impending release of five of the nine ‘British Guantanamo’ detainees, our old, somewhat nostalgic view of our justice system and its traditional fairness and emphasis on due process is arguably under the closest scrutiny ever.

Amnesty’s energetic yet incessant outburst at the US and the UK has put into perspective the values that these respective countries purport to protect. Statistics pertaining to detainees, whether Guantanamo or the 544 who have been arrested under Anti-terrorism legislation here, do not require any algebraic formulae or a philosophy degree to work out which community has suffered post 9/11.

The Home Secretary David Blunkett (not averse to a faux pas) has twitched many eyebrows once again this week with his proposals to secretly tape phone calls to catch the unwary ‘terrorist’ off his guard. But lets be fair, he has encouraged public debate about thwarting future terrorist acts. In a challenge to critics, he has suggested that they produce their own solutions. Which prompts the inescapable pun, ‘Would he like them to govern the country too while they’re at it?’

Exasperated humour aside, Britain faces a dilemna: Does it continue with it’s ‘shadow justice system’ (as phrased by Amnesty) with previously unthinkable legal tools such as secret ‘evidence’ and consider evidence gleaned through torture as admissable. Not in Britain surely? Or does it open the debate and discuss its ‘real’ fears to an increasingly sceptical and at times flummoxed population?

This is not the Britain that many of us when travelling abroad marvelled at and, upon experiencing the stark contrast in other parts of the world, were racing to get back to the safe haven of Britain where we presumed that the law was just.

No doubt, increased terrorist activity throughout the world has raised legitimate security fears, but when you hear and read about inmates in British jails not having a clue why they’ve been detained, feeling the weight of the country’s might bearing down on them while they try hard to understand what they have done wrong.

Common concerns include inmates being pushed beyond levels of human endurance. At the very least, this invites resentment and the question must be: Who suffers at the end of the day? The ordinary Muslim diligently going about his or her day to day life. That is what those countless Muslims who have been released without charge can be classified as. Have we moved from ‘innocent until proven guilty’ to ‘presumed guilty but may be innocent’?

This is a time where society needs to galvanise, not polarise. ‘Us and Them’ has historically proven to be folly.