UK Intelligentsia Blast Terror Detention

UK Intelligentsia Blast Terror Detention

"In 42 days we will have made you different. You may be charged, you may be released. You will always be different," Kennedy writes.CAIRO — Forty-two of Britain's most renowned writers and intellectuals have picked up their pens in a rare protest against the government's plan to detain terror suspects without charge for up to 42 days, ahead of a crucial vote on the controversial legislation.
"We don’t know how lucky we are, to live in a nation where police officers have all of six weeks to discover why they’ve locked us up," award-winning author Phillip Pullman writes in a sarcastic essay as part of the 42 Writers for Liberty campaign.
"Ask them after 41 days why a prisoner is still behind bars, and they can honestly and innocently say 'No idea, mate,' But give them that extra day, and they’ll crack it."
In a protest not seen since leading figures in the arts world clashed with the Margaret Thatcher government in the 1980s, the top writers are speaking out against a bill extending pre-charge detention for terror suspects from 28 to 42 days.
The literary protest, coordinated by the human rights group Liberty, saw the writers publishing a collection of satire, essays, fiction and poetry to protest the proposal on the website www.42writers.com.
In her piece, novelist Stella Duffy lists things that can take 42 days to accomplish including writing the first six chapters of her first book; going through two rounds of chemotherapy; undergoing in-vitro fertilization and watching the garden change from summer to autumn.
AL Kennedy, winner of the Costa Book of the Year Award, warns that being held for 42 days without charge would leave a permanent scar on any individual.
"In 42 days we will have made you different. You may be charged, you may be released. You will always be different," she writes in her essay.
"We will always be in how you think. We do not need to hurt you. We will steal you from yourself."
Sleepwalking

"There's a real danger that people in Britain are sleepwalking into an assault on our human rights," said Allen.
The literary protest runs in parallel with a mass protest planed by Amnesty International against the detention limit as a gross attack on liberties.
"There's a real danger that people in Britain are sleepwalking into an assault on our human rights," Kate Allen, UK director of Amnesty, said on the organization's website.
"Plans to extend detention without charge should be abandoned once and for all. We don't want them returning under another guise - not next month, not next year."
The detention limit bill will face Monday a new vote at the House of Lords, where it is expected to meet fierce opposition.
This comes four months after the government survived a rebellion of 36 Labour MPs to pass the bill by just nine votes in the House of Commons.
Extending terror detention has been an ongoing subject of controversy in Britain since 2005, when the Tony Blair government failed to get parliamentary approval to increase the limit to 90 days.
Civil rights groups lament that most other countries have detention periods shorter than 28 days.
Amnesty's rally will see protesters marching through the streets of Leeds dressing gowns and slippers and clutching pillows and blankets.
The rally will see the first public screening of Amnesty's new film, "Sleepwalk", by Oscar-shortlisted directing duo DarkFibre.
"This film is Amnesty's wake up call - we have got to stand up for our basic freedoms," says Allen.
"Hard-won liberties are at stake."
By IOL