European nations broaden police powers

Governments across Europe are toughening their security laws in the wake of Sept. 11, causing concern among civil liberties activists that the laws will go too far in curtailing freedoms.

The British government this week proposed detaining some terrorist suspects indefinitely without trial, on the grounds of a "national emergency," as part of a Draconian new law to broaden police powers.

The German parliament is soon due to debate a new law, widening the scope of police investigations of suspected terrorists, and France recently adopted a law that gives police greater freedom of action.

European rights activists share their American counterparts' concern that the "war on terrorism" will curb civil liberties on their side of the Atlantic, too.

The British legislation "undermines basic principles of justice and freedom" and "punches a hole in our constitutional protections," complains John Wadham, director of Liberty, Britain's leading civil-liberties organization.

"We do need to take measures against terrorist attack, but these measures [in the French law] will not be effective," adds Jean-Pierre Dubois, vice president of the French Human Rights League.

Under the British law, to be debated in Parliament next week and due to be passed by Christmas, the government would declare a state of emergency, allowing it to opt out of one article of the European Convention of Human Rights.

That convention forbids a key element of the new legislation - a plan to detain indefinitely foreign terrorist suspects who cannot be deported. Presenting the bill to Parliament yesterday, Home Secretary David Blunkett said it contained "proportionate and targeted measures, which will ensure and safeguard our way of life against those who would take our freedom away."

Some 20 people are likely to be jailed under the law, government officials say. Similar measures were taken against a handful of Iraqi citizens during the Gulf War, and about 2,000 Irish Republican Army suspects were held without trial during the 1970s in Northern Ireland.

Foreigners on a government list of terrorist suspects will be jailed by a special commission, headed by a senior judge, for renewable six-month periods. The judge will have the authority to bar the suspects and their attorneys from the hearings when the intelligence services present the evidence against them. "The number of people concerned is not the issue," says Mark Littleford, campaigns director for Liberty. "The problem is the matter of principle. The government is seeking to get around the need for substantial evidence."

Among other measures, the bill also introduces a new crime - incitement to religious hatred - carrying a maximum penalty of seven years' imprisonment, which civil-liberties activists fear could curb free speech.

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