Thirteen men arrested in an anti-terrorist swoop faced questioning yesterday following a series of raids which police said were part of a continuing investigation.
The arrests brought complaints from the Muslim community that it was being targeted unfairly -- a claim supported by a parliamentary report released yesterday.
The men, in their 20s and 30s, were arrested in London, Bushey, Luton and Blackburn.
All were arrested "on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism," and were brought to London for questioning, the Metropolitan Police said.
Police released no details of the nationality and religious affiliation of those arrested, but news reports yesterday suggested that at least some of the suspects are of south Asian origin and are Muslims.
"There is a feeling in the community that they are being victimized," said Yasin Rehman of the Luton Council of Mosques. One of Tuesday's arrests was in Luton, 50km north of London.
Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights supported that complaint, and called for changes in the emergency laws enacted soon after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the US.
"There is mounting evidence that the powers under the Terrorism Act are being used disproportionately against members of the Muslim community in the UK," the committee reported.
The UK opted out from a part of the European Convention on Human Rights to enact legislation to allow some suspects to be imprisoned without trial.
"If the threat from international terrorism is to continue for the foreseeable future, the committee considers that an alternative way must be found to deal with that threat without derogating indefinitely from important human rights considerations," the legislators reported.
The arrests did not appear to be linked to information Pakistani authorities recently said they had uncovered about threats to the UK and US.
Pakistan's information minister said on Monday his country found plans for new attacks against the US and UK on a computer seized during the arrest last month of a senior al-Qaeda suspect wanted for the 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa.
Asked whether the arrests on Tuesday were linked to the recent Pakistani discovery, UK police declined to answer directly, but noted that the investigation leading to the arrests had been underway for some time.
Police will have up to two weeks to hold the men arrested on Tuesday before deciding whether to charge them.
UK authorities say the threat from terrorism remains high, but they have not warned of any specific threat like that announced in the US.
The intelligence behind the latest US terror warnings was as much as four years old, and law enforcement officials are trying to determine whether the plot was current.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS