In the wake of the Medhurst arrest, Alexander Mercouris looks back at the genesis of the Terrorism Act under which the journalist was held.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. (Andrew Newton/Wikimedia Commons)
By Alexander Mercouris
in London
Special to Consortium News
At the time when Prime Minister Tony Blair brought in the Terrorism Act 2000 — note that this was before 9/11 – I was working in the Royal Courts of Justice. As I remember the lawyers were buzzing about it, worried about its vague and sloppy language, and its overt authoritarianism and capacity for abuse.
There was general incredulity that Blair, who is himself a lawyer, as of course is his wife, and his Home Secretary Jack Straw, who is also a lawyer and a former adviser of Barbara Castle, one of the most revered figures in modern Labour history, would bring in a law like that.
Looking back and thinking of those days, it’s amazing how naive we were.
Here we are and this terrible law is now being used against journalists, and is being used in a way which violates fundamental human rights.
The terrible thing is that it was at precisely this same time that the Blair government was bringing into law – with wide support from within the legal community — the Human Rights Act 1998, which embedded the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into U.K. law (the Human Rights Act 1998 was signed into law in 1998 but only came into force on Oct. 2, 2000).
At the time everyone in the legal world assumed that it was the Human Rights Act 1998 that was by far the more important Act, and which would be far more consequential than the Terrorism Act 2000.
Indeed I distinctly remember all sorts of assurances floating around that there was no need to worry because the Terrorism Act 2000 would be restricted and its loose wording interpreted by reference to the ECHR and the Human Rights Act 1998.
In reality what has happened is the opposite. Far from the Human Rights Act 1998 mitigating the effect of the Terrorism Act 2000, it is the Terrorism Act 2000 which is prevailing over the ECHR and the Human Rights Act 1998 – as the Medhurst case shows.
None of this would be happening were it not for a radical change in the whole legal and political culture in the U.K., which has taken place since these two Acts were brought into law.
I don’t want to romanticise the past, but the shift towards authoritarianism, and the ongoing repression of free speech and journalism, which has taken place since 2000, still seems to me astonishing and at some level inexplicable.
The cases brought against Julian Assange and former British diplomat Craig Murray (imprisoned for his journalism on a contempt of court conviction) and the misuse of the Terrorism Act 2000 to harass journalists, including Murray, illustrate this.
What illustrates it even more is that all of this is happening practically without protest. The media here in the U.K. are currently maintaining a stony silence about the Medhurst arrest, whereas if anything like that had happened in 2000 or before there would have been outrage.
It is this sharp authoritarian turn in British legal and political culture — and the lack of any pushback against it — which shocks me. Its origins are obviously in the U.S., but the extent to which it is now sweeping the entire West, is astonishing.
I have heard that in Germany things are even worse, with people like former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis prevented from entering the country.
Here in Britain we are throwing away the liberties people once fought for, for example in the 18th century Wilkes Case. Moreover we are doing it without a murmur. Liberty is dying in silence.
On the specifics of the Medhurst case, I would say two things:
1. I think the objective is to intimidate and silence Medhurst, and to get Google to de-platform his YT channel, rather than to prosecute him. Even allowing for the current climate I cannot believe that the U.K. authorities are going to bring a prosecution.
If they do something like that then things are even darker than I supposed. Having said that, assuming I am right, acting to intimidate and silence a journalist, thereby depriving him of his livelihood, is already appalling enough.
2. It’s clear from Medhurst’s account that the police were acting under instructions and under tight supervision. Based on what he says, it looks as if the police were constantly checking and getting instructions throughout the entire period of his detention and arrest.
It would be interesting to know from whom, and what the chain of command was. Perhaps in better times we will find out.
Alexander Mercouris is a legal analyst, political commentator and editor of The Duran.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Those who say if you’ve done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear are ignorant fools. If anybody should have had nothing to fear it was the martyred saints, some of the most upstanding people to ever live, but they were all murdered BECAUSE OF what they saying.
We have a similar situation of right wing ascendency and toadying to the USA in Australia. The case of Dan Duggan, imprisoned for 22 months, much of this in solitary confinement, and awaiting extradition to the States is a case in point. See document pasted below, sent by the Australian Citizens Party. Whilst not a member of the Australian Citizens Party, I think that they are correct in calling attention to the following situation. They sent me article (below), which is really disturbing. It seems that Australia has been holding a political prisoner for some time awaiting extradition to the States.
This is a re-enactment of the Assange situation. It needs international exposure and shaming of those responsible. I phoned up the office of the Australian Attorney General, and the person who answered the phone admitted that Dan Duggan has not committed any crime against Australian laws, but said “the USA wants him”. When I replied that he would not get a fair trial, I was met with a wall of denial. See below:
After careful reading, I believe that the ACP have done a good expose of the situation.
If you can help this unfortunate man by spreading the news about Australia’s political prisoner, then I would appreciate it.
I will be writing to the Attorney General and politicians.
Gillian Blair
From: Citizens Party
Reply to: Craig Isherwood
Date: Friday, 16 August 2024 at 2:17 pm
To:
Subject: Tell the Attorney-General: Free Dan Duggan!
Australian Citizens Party
Media Release Friday, 16 August 2024
Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Email: info (at) citizensparty.org.au
Website: hxxps://citizensparty.org.au
Tell the Attorney-General: Free Dan Duggan!
Next week former US Navy Top Gun pilot Dan Duggan, a naturalised Australian, will belatedly lodge his final submission to the Attorney-General against his extradition to the United States.
(Duggan’s attempt to lodge his final submission last month was interrupted by the CrowdStrike outage.)
A Duggan spokesman said his submission will explain the injustice he and his family have suffered, the political motivation behind his mistreatment, the complete lack of evidence and facts in the US indictment against him, and the way in which the USA is extending itself into Australia and compromising our national sovereignty.
Despite having no criminal record, and no Australian charges against him, Dan Duggan has been in maximum security for 22 months, since his arrest while dropping his small children at school in October 2022.
Much of that time has been spent in solitary confinement.
He’s been moved three times, the last to a prison further away from his wife Saffrine and their children, and further away from his legal team.
After so much time in prison, Duggan has written a poem, Love Trumps Power, reflecting on his love for his six children, and for his wife who spends every spare moment travelling the countryside, building support for the family’s fight for justice.
The poem opens:
“Is it to be Power or Love that will win the day?
In a ‘David v Goliath’ battle, a family embroiled in geo-political fray …
The children’s Love is beautiful, kind, warm, infinite, from all six,
Power is often ugly, nasty, cold, secret, enough to make you sick.
In solitude thought of ‘laughter silvered wings’, he ‘dances the skies’
His heart soaring as he dreams of his wife’s loving eyes …”
Making an example
Through no fault of his own, Dan Duggan and his family have been caught in the middle of America’s geopolitical confrontation with China, which Australia’s spineless major-party politicians have betrayed our independent national interest, and their duty to protect Australian citizens, to support.
Duggan is a former Top Gun pilot who emigrated to Australia, set up a joy flight business, married an Australian woman and started a family, and became a naturalised citizen.
He trained Chinese pilots on a short-term contract at a South African test flight school in 2012, a time when everyone in the USA and Australia were rushing to do business with fast-growing China, and China’s rising standard of living was driving unprecedented demand for air travel and, therefore, trained pilots.
Duggan insists he did not train military pilots or provide military training, and the training he did provide was no more than what is publicly available in training manuals online, and therefore not secret, which British pilots at the South African school confirm.
The murkiest part of the case is that the CIA visited the school in 2012, and did not express any concern about the training, but wanted the school to effectively spy on the Chinese pilots for the CIA, which the school refused.
Also in 2012, back in Australia, ASIO and a US intelligence agency met with Duggan, again not concerned about the training he did in South Africa, but more interested in the consultancy business he was starting in China, and asked him to look out for ranking people in China to introduce to them.
Duggan initially wanted to cooperate, but after a US intelligence operation put him at risk, the relationship broke down; only after that, in 2017, did the Trump administration’s Department of Justice indict him.
The DoJ’s indictment of Duggan seems to be some sort of payback, but instead of indicting him for his quite legal activities in China, they cobbled together trumped-up charges that his work in South Africa violated the USA’s International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), padded out with the obligatory conspiracy and money laundering charges to load up the maximum sentence. (The DoJ has something like a 99 per cent conviction rate because it extorts its targets with threats of multi-decade sentences into plea bargaining for much shorter sentences.)
The Australian Federal Police arrested Duggan soon after his return to Australian in 2022, to facilitate a US extradition request, even though the charges don’t meet the most basic dual criminality test for extradition under Australia’s extradition treaty with the USA, which requires the alleged act to be a crime in both countries.
With Duggan’s impeccable record and family ties in Australia, he could have been held in house arrest or some equivalent, but instead he has been subjected to the harsh punishment of maximum security.
Moreover, not content with this cruel abuse of Duggan and his family, the US authorities succeeded in getting an Australian court to freeze the sale of Saffrine Duggan’s property, to stop the family from having funds to pay for his legal defence.
Led by the extraordinary Bernard Collaery—who has experience with Australia’s intelligence agencies having represented Witness K in the Timor Leste spying case, and was even prosecuted himself until the charges were dropped—Duggan’s legal team in Australia is having to work pro bono to defend him, because they have no money except what they receive in donations from the public, which they have had to spend on US lawyers, who won’t work pro bono, to research the US laws under which Duggan is being charged.
There is nothing fair about what Dan Duggan and his family have been subjected to, and there is very little chance he will receive a fair hearing if extradited to the United States, because the American government is only interested in making an example of him for its hysterical agenda of demonising all contact and cutting off economic ties with China.
Australians should call and email Attorney General Mark Dreyfus to demand he stop torturing this Australian family to please the United States, and instead free Dan Duggan!
What you can do
Call or email Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus
Electorate office: 03 9580 4651 Parliament office: 02 6277 7300
Emails: Mark.Dreyfus.MP (at) aph.gov.au and/or attorney (at) ag.gov.au
Donate to Dan and Saffrine Duggan and their family, who need all the help they can get.
Click here to watch Australian Citizens Party Research Director Robert Barwick’s latest interview update on Dan Duggan, given to The Canada Files on YouTube.
Click here to join the Citizens Party as a member.
Click here to refer others to receive regular email updates from the Citizens Party.
Slight variant of recent X post:
Mercouris’ admired John Helmer’s recent sleeper.
THE BERLIN WALL FALLS AGAIN,…ON THE STATE PROSECUTION OF HEINRICH BUECHER
Wall? Of silence.
RE EU non-reportage. “I call for all arms deliveries & training programs for Ukraine to stop immediately. Diplomacy not weapons; efforts to negotiate, allow opponents of war without preconditions. Sacrifice of Ukraine for geopolitical interests of the West – the strategic weakening of Russia – a monstrous war crime & must have an end.”
NOT ‘free’ speech. Just “a private one in front of ‘fans.'” Trial judge correctly applied the [sic] law in finding Buecher guilty of supporting Russia. But she dismissed conviction and fine on the ground of ‘privacy.’ Still a crime to declaim monstrous crimes. The State rests!
Here’s to better times.
Medhurst is most likely being targeted, because he is a staunch supporter of Palestinian rights and a harsh critic of Israeli policies and actions. The UK’s Israel lobby is once again flexing its muscles, and the mainstream media are once again displaying their obeisance. All of which are unmistakable signs of the decline of the west.
Britain needs to get rid of the Terrorism Act and the USA needs to get rid of the Espionage Act and the Patriot Act!!
Alexander, good to see you here at CN. There is a framework of understanding which makes sense of all this: namely that the extremely wealthy donor class has concluded they have full control now, over all branches of the government, the news media, the regulatory agencies and the think tanks. With that level of complete control they have become extremely emboldened to finish their job of global domination. The only thing remining in their way and out of their control is the alternative narratives that appear on the internet. If they can’t use their money to squash this speech, they will instead turn to police intimidation. That is the stage we are at now. Expect a lot more police, corporate and government action against any dissent online, especially alternative journalism. It is only going to get worse until something is done about their obscene wealth.
“Perhaps in better times we will find out.”
If there are better times to come … seems overly hopeful at this juncture. Perhaps in several decades the worm will turn …
The end of an empire is messy and many pretensions and privileges that we thought were permanent (like free speech, free assembly, etc.) in the Anglo-American world are going to come under serious attack and perhaps even be destroyed and lost.
But after all, whose side are you on, the free west or those “autocrats” we are fighting against …?
So the phrase, ‘It couldn’t happen here’ comes to mind but we have been here before. My folks saw it unfold in the 1930s, my father and his brothers fought the Blackshirts on the streets of the East End. Naive?
I agree with the conclusion.