The Home Office today proposed amendments to the offence of glorification of terrorism in the Anti-Terror Bill.

Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti said:

“The Government is right to see glorification as an example of incitement, rather than an alternative to it. But their speech offence still lacks the all-important requirement of intent. This is still an offence of loose or careless talk that is desperately dangerous in a democracy.”

Liberty Press Office: 020 7378 3656 or 07973 831 128

NOTES TO EDITORS
The main points of the draft Terrorism Bill are:

Clause 19 extends the maximum period of detention prior to charge from 14 days to 3 months.

There will be a new offence of indirectly inciting terrorism with a very broad definition.

There will be a new power created to ensure that those who glorify terrorist acts may be prosecuted.

There will be a proposal to change the grounds for proscription, so it will become possible to proscribe organisations which glorify terrorism.

The Bill will make it an offence to tackle dissemination of radical written material by extremist bookshops. The offence will be one of publishing and possessing for sale of publications that indirect incite terrorist acts or are likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

The Bill will make attendance at terrorist training camps an offence.

The Bill would amend section 128 of Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCAP) to extend the offence of criminal trespass to cover licensed civil nuclear sites.

The Bill would extend disclosure notice powers conferred on prosecutors under Chapter 1 of Part 2 of SOCAP to investigations into the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. Intention is to ensure that if people hold information that is relevant to a terrorist investigation there is every incentive for them to divulge it.

The power for the Security Service to carry out certain activities overseas has been dropped.

The Home Secretary has said he will be working with the CPS and intelligence agencies to see whether a change would be possible which would allow for more sensitive evidence – perhaps including intercept evidence - to be used while safeguarding sources and methods and the rights of the defendants. It is hoped to complete this by the end of the year.