Menezes report
Steve Hayes has an important reflection on the Jean Charles Menezes debacle here.
Of particular significance is the following comment:
“These were the same police sources that were urging the need for 90-day detention. It is yet another sign that Blair/Brown’s Britain is more and more coming to resemble Vorster’s police state in South Africa in the 1960s.”
This should lead us to a healthy scepticism concerning the ability of the police and the government to handle the extended powers they are requesting.
Tags: British life, civil liberties
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August 3, 2007 at 10:32 am
Thanks very much for the link and the comment.
One of the scary things was that the report seemed to gloss over this, and accept the explanation that it was “routine”.
And that raises the question, “How many other times have they added that ‘routine’ statement when it wasn’t true?”
August 3, 2007 at 10:46 am
Unfortunately this is not even an isolated incident. Last year, a Muslim home was invaded, two young men arrested as terrorist suspects, one of them being shot. Shortly after, it was discreetly announced that neither of them were actually terrorists.
My experience from working in deprived communities in Brazil suggests that this behaviour actually fosters the violence it claims to work against.