In this interview with RT News, deputy editor of 5Pillarz, Dilly Hussain, explains how the “terror threat” to the UK is being over-exaggerated by the government so it can justify further draconian anti-terror laws.
On Monday, Home Secretary Theresa May said police and security services will get new powers as the UK faces a terror threat “perhaps greater than it has ever been.”
She spelled out the scale of the threat to the UK, specifying that 40 planned terror attacks had been foiled since the 7 July bombings in London in 2005.
The new legislation includes:
- Counter-radicalisation measures – requirements that schools, colleges and probation providers help prevent people being radicalised
- Changes to TPIMs – Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures – to allow the authorities to force suspects to move to another part of the country
- Raising the burden of proof for imposing TPIMs from “reasonable belief” to “balance of probabilities”
- Greater powers to disrupt people heading abroad to fight – including cancelling passports at the border for up to 30 days
- Statutory temporary exclusion orders to control return to the UK of British citizens suspected of terrorist activity
- Tighter aviation security – requiring airlines to provide passenger data more quickly and effectively
- Banning insurance companies from covering ransoms
- Forcing firms to hand details to the police about who was using a computer or mobile phone at a given time
Dilly Hussain expressed that justifying the curtailment of basic civil liberties for national security will lead to the UK becoming an “Orwellian police state”.
He also added that terms such as “extremism” and “radicalisation” are ambiguous and loosely applied by the government to target the Muslim community as a whole.
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