A high court judge branded the government’s system of control orders against terrorism suspects “an affront to justice” yesterday and ruled that they breached human rights laws. The ruling by Mr Justice Sullivan came after a challenge to the first control order issued against a British Muslim man, alleged by the security services and the home secretary to have been planning to travel to Iraq to fight UK and US forces.

Muddassar Arani, solicitor for the Briton, who is of Arab heritage, said: “This was the first British Muslim subject to a control order and he’s being treated as a second-class citizen. “It is clear the home secretary is acting as the judge, jury and prosecutor.”

Guardian, 13 April 2006

An Asian salesman was hauled off a plane as a suspected terrorist because he was listening to The Clash song ‘London Calling’. Harraj Mann, 24, was quizzed for three hours by Special Branch after his taxi driver overheard the lyrics, which include the lines “war is declared and battle come down”.

The mobile phone seller, from Hartlepool, said: “I got a taxi to Teesside Airport and it had one of those things that plugs into your music player. I played Procol Harum, ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ first, which the taxi man liked. I figured he liked the classics, so I put on Led Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’. Then, since I was going to London I played The Clash and finished up with ‘Nowhere Man’ by The Beatles. He didn’t like Led Zeppelin or The Clash but I don’t think there was any need to tell the police.”

Durham police said: “By the time it was established the man did not pose a security risk, the plane had taken off.”

Daily Mirror, 5 April 2006

See also BBC Tees, 5 April 2006

A terrorist suspect living under restrictive bail conditions requiring him to stay at home for 22 hours every day has signalled that he – and five others – are considering returning to Algeria. The 39-year-old man, who is known simply as “A”, has accused the British government of subjecting him to mental torture and said that he has opened negotiations with the Algerian embassy to arrange his voluntary return.

“I don’t want to live like this. I’m useless to my kids, to society and to my community. I can’t work, I can’t even do the shopping for my wife,” he told the Press Association. “If I’m not going to have my freedom in this country then I have to go back. A human being can’t take all this. Even if there is a risk, I have to take that risk. Here we are not tortured physically but mentally we are tortured. I am the cause of suffering for my children.”

Guardian, 20 March 2006

The chief inspector of prisons has raised concerns about the treatment of Muslim inmates at Belmarsh maximum security jail in London.

Anne Owers says there is evidence of bullying and the prison is struggling to deal with the large proportion of Muslims held on terrorism charges. She said prison officers did not understand the social and religious behaviour of Muslim inmates.

BBC News, 9 March 2006

A senior US military officer at Guantánamo Bay told a detainee that he did not care about international law and that the Geneva conventions did not apply to proceedings at the military prison, according to thousands of Pentagon documents released over the weekend by the US government after a court action by the Associated Press news agency.

The outburst by the air force colonel came during a hearing to determine the status of Feroz Abbasi, a Briton held for more than two years without charge or trial, and who was released last year. The officer was presiding over a tribunal convened to decide whether detainees were enemy combatants, as alleged by the Bush administration. Critics dismissed the hearings, called combatant status review tribunals, as kangaroo courts.

Guardian, 6 March 2006