Liberty - Protecting civil liberties, promoting human rights

“Mr Clarke may feel harshly judged today but for his anti free speech and ID card laws and for instituting punishment without trial, our children may judge him even more harshly tomorrow. His finest moment was hours after the London bombings last July. As frightened people hung on his every word he made vital distinctions between distasteful speech and cold-blooded murder and admitted that ID cards would not have prevented the atrocity. He forgot party politics and demonstrated what a Home Secretary could and should be. It is a great shame that such promise was never fulfilled.”

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NOTES TO EDITORS

Charles Clarke’s comments were made on the Today programme on the 8th July 2005.During his tenure as Home Secretary Mr Clarke oversaw many illiberal pieces of legislation, of special note are:

• The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005; this introduced Control Orders - a form of punishment without trial. Because they deny the person concerned a fair trial they were declared incompatible with the human rights act by a High Court judgement in April 2006.
• The Incitement to Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006; this introduced frightening restrictions on free speech.
• The Terrorism Act 2006; this doubled the time people could be detained prior to charge and brought in the offence of encouragement of terrorism, which includes the issuing of statements that glorify terrorist acts. The broad definition of this offence, and of terrorism, guarantee that the reckless as well as those guilty of inciting terrorism will be swept up. It also allowed for non violent political groups to be banned like Al-Qiaida.
• The Identity Card Act 2006; this introduced the ID card scheme and National Information Register. If the scheme is ever implemented it will erode privacy rights and risk damaging community relations. Research shows that where countries have ID card schemes people from ethnic minority communities are much more likely to be asked to produce their cards.