After a series of bruising parliamentary duels, British Prime Minister Tony Blair secured victory in the House of Commons on Wednesday in a vote to expand counter-terrorism laws by making "glorification" of terrorism a criminal offense.
Legislators voted 315-277 in a ballot that pitted Blair's Labor Party against the Conservative and Liberal Democratic opposition. Seventeen Labor dissidents voted against the measure.
Blair's critics said the vote, one of three crucial parliamentary tests in as many days, represented as much a display of political maneuvering as a strengthening of British laws, which already include prohibitions like those used last week to prosecute Abu Hamza al-Masri, a firebrand Muslim cleric. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for soliciting to murder and promoting racial hatred.
Opponents had said the term "glorification" was legally vague and unnecessary.
"The existing law is quite adequate to the problem," said Sir Menzies Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats.
But hours before the vote, Blair insisted in Parliament that "if we take out the word glorification, we are sending a massive counterproductive signal."
Political analysts said Blair seemed to be positioning himself to argue that the opposition was soft on terrorism. The prime minister, admonishing William Hague, a Conservative opposition leader, said the measure was "absolutely vital if we are to defend this country successfully against the likes of Abu Hamza."
Evoking the terrorist attacks on London public transportation last July 7, Home Secretary Charles Clarke said, "It is the glorification of terror which, in the view of the government, is an essential method for those individuals and organizations who pursue terrorist ambitions and seek to get individuals, like the 7/7 bombers, to commit to their suicidal and destructive ends."
But Hague accused the government of "ineffective authoritarianism" and called the draft legislation "a press release law designed to catch the headlines."
Blair announced that he would tighten existing terrorism laws after the July bombings, in which four attackers killed 52 people on the London transport system. But there have been several setbacks to his plans.
A proposal to close mosques used by radical imams has been dropped, and a plan to extend the permitted period of detention without charge or trial to 90 days from 14 has been abandoned in favor of a compromise 28 days.
Speaking after the vote, Blair said the new law "will allow us to deal with those people and say: `Look, we have free speech in this country, but don't abuse it."'
Under British parliamentary procedures, the draft law must go back to the upper House of Lords, which removed the term "glorification" when it first considered the legislation. The upper house could still try to excise the term, provoking a standoff with the House of Commons.
The debate has been sharpened by the trial of al-Masri and by protests against cartoon drawings of the Prophet Mohammed.
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
Chinese authorities are snuffing out any remembrance of the deadly 1989 military crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, which happened 37 years ago yesterday, in a further tightening of a years-long campaign to erase what happened from public memory. Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Relatives of the victims visited the cemetery on the anniversary for more than 30 years to read memorial statements with police keeping watch, Amnesty International said. Hundreds of people,
RSS