No Fifth amendment, "No Comment."

Still think Orwellian, Big Brother style, police state fascism isn't in operation? Open your eyes.

You may not have the right to silence, but you certainly have the right to "No comment." Lessons in why from America via Professor James Duane.

"Terrorist" Damian Green & Antagonista Radio Pick of the Week

Nobody listened much to the protestations of those who raised their objections to the manifold proposals of loosely worded "anti-terrorist" legislation of the last seven years. Nobody cared enough to do anything when that loosely worded "anti-terrorist" legislation was passed into their law books. Nobody cared enough to do anything when loosely worded "anti-terrorist" legislation was used to justify Muslims being lifted off the streets for the crime of being Muslim or possession of a CD, the contents of which they had never looked at. Nobody cared enough to do anything when the true scope of the loosely worded "anti-terrorist" legislation was realised again as the assets of an Icelandic bank were frozen under the same anti-terrorist legislation. Or so it seemed.

But when a member of the establishment, Tory front-bencher Damian Green -- in an operation overseen by the most senior "anti-terrorist" officer Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick -- then becomes a target of the State bootboys and their "anti-terrorist" laws, liberal middle-England sits up and takes notice.

BBC Radio 4's Any Answers, presented by Jonathan Dimbleby, received a bit of coverage here before when a member of the unruly and unwashed masses placed Dimbleby on the back foot with regard to the truth about The Troubles. Last Saturday the incensed outrage of telephone-calling Middle England gave Dimbleby another run for his money. Listen again while you can:

• Any Answers Homepage | Listen Again until 06/12/08

John Simkin over at the excellent Education Forum -- the very same place at which the embodiment of all leftist personality crises, George Monbiot, was taken to task over details outlined in a post here on Reason.... -- noted the comments of Tony Benn.

Tony Benn, the Labour former cabinet minister, said this on BBC Radio today: "I may sound strangely medieval, but once the police can interfere with parliament, I tell you, you are into a police state. Parliament is a safeguard against the abuse of power and once you start clamping down on it you are saying goodbye to the freedom that parliament gives you."

Gotta love Lord Tony Benn, his words sound emptier and hollower than ever before. Unless of course when he says "you" he means "us" and is referring solely to serving members of parliament. The rest of the general populace is afforded no such comfort by the "safeguard against the abuse of power" that is fondly held by some as the Palace of Westminster, quite the opposite in fact.

For the "lower orders", it is more than a little amusing that the Metropolitan jackboots have ruffled a few feathers in the selectively-bred ruling class nest. Turf wars between ruling class factions and groupuscules.

When all is said and done it is the State that removes our freedoms by word and it is the police that removes our freedoms by deed. The bootboys busting the boot polishers confirms with renewed vigour and finality that the State entity, of which the police are an intrinsic part -- in the midst of the global, manufactured economic crisis that is the last capitalism in its current incarnation will ever see -- offers the greater majority of people nothing other than further subjugation and ever greater wage slavery in the subservient interests of the only thing that matters to the rich; the system; the economy.

This is a round up, who will speak for you?

--
Further reading:

• No Treason - The Constitution of No Authority

And, courtesy of J7: The July 7th Truth Campaign:

• Capitalising on Terror: Who is really destroying our freedoms?
• Human Rights Abuses & The Demonisation of 'The Enemy' in Secret Britain

A Libyan human being known only as Detainee DD

You can lock people up, you can take away their freedom, you can take away their names, their identity and their nationality. You can even remove the most basic vestiges of subsistence existence, but the human spirit is a wonderful thing. The human spirit abides even the most heinous travesties of justice.

I’m not allowed to disclose my name or any information that could lead to my personal identification. I am not allowed to disclose this information to anyone no matter who he may be, even a police officer.

Artwork by a Libyan human being known only as Detainee DD.


Words, addressed to us all, by a Libyan human being known only as Detainee DD:

If you stand back and do nothing then your silence in such difficult times will be recorded in history. So once again I appeal to all you listeners to break the silence, be it with an influential letter, article, protest, or through condemning and denouncing the government’s policies. Do anything you can to help those who are held indefinitely without charge. Indefinite detention without charge is found only in dictator countries like Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt etc.

If this country is to maintain democracy we must put a stop to indefinite detention without charge. The government should not be allowed to use 07.07 as a pretext to justify indefinite detention or to buy our silence. Only because the real culprits of 07.07 have not been found the government is using us as scapegoats so that the people can extinguish their anger on us.

J7: The July 7th Truth Campaign March 2008 Update

J7: The July 7th Truth Campaign have issued their March 2008 update.

J7: The July 7th Truth Campaign March 2008 Update

Greetings from J7: The July 7th Truth Campaign,

In the slightly tardy J7 March 2008 update: Details of two new articles on the J7 site covering the results of the 7/7 investigation, including details of the recent conviction of Khalid Khaliq and the launch of the FREE KHALID KHALIQ campaign; the overturning of the ‘Bradford 5’ convictions; a J7 petition update; and further expressions of J7 support and solidarity with other campaigns and activist groups.


THREE YEARS OF 7/7 INVESTIGATION - 7 ARRESTS, 3 CHARGES
============================================================
J7 are pleased to announce the publication of two new articles covering the results of nearly three years of the police 7/7 investigation, the arrests made and the charges brought. The official Home Office narrative claimed that the four alleged suicide bombers acted alone in the financing and execution of the attacks, yet seven people have been arrested in connection with the events of 7/7. Of these, charges have been brought against three people. With the trials starting in early April of the alleged 7/7 co-conspirators that the Home Office report claims didn’t exist, now is the time to get informed:

http://www.julyseventh.co.uk/july-7-article-the-7-7-investigation-7-arrests-part-1.html

http://www.julyseventh.co.uk/july-7-article-the-7-7-investigation-7-arrests-part-2.html


J7 LAUNCH FREE KHALID KHALIQ CAMPAIGN
============================================================
In July 2005 Khalid Khaliq came forward to voluntarily to assist with the 7/7 investigation. Nearly three years later, on Tuesday March 11th 2008 Khaliq, 34, was sentenced to sixteen months in prison for possession of information that is freely available from an American website set up by the US Ministry of Justice. Khaliq stated in court that the disc "had been brought to his home by "others", whom he refused to identify." Furthermore, it appears Khaliq had not even viewed the material on the disc. The court heard how the CD had originally been produced in the Iqra learning centre and it is common knowledge that CD and DVD production, along with other IT issues at the Iqra, were undertaken not by a Muslim but instead by a jobbing former Hells Angel and "IT man", Martin Gilbertson. Full details in another new article, Justice Defiled - the conviction of Khalid Khaliq, on the J7 blog:

http://j7truth.blogspot.com/2008/03/justice-defiled-conviction-of-khalid.html


‘BRADFORD 5’ THOUGHTCRIME CONVICTIONS OVERTURNED
============================================================
The convictions of four Bradford University students, Awaab Iqbal, Aitzaz Zafar, Usman Ahmed Malik, and Akbar Butt and a London schoolboy, Mohammed Irfan Raja have been overturned in a landmark appeal court ruling. The accused, described ‘impartially’ by the judge as "intoxicated" by radical Islamist propaganda originally received sentences ranging from 27 months to three years for what lawyer Imran Khan called "thought crime". Within weeks this ruling was overturned and the accused were freed. The Crown Prosecution Service is not challenging the appeal court actions of the Lord Chief Justice claiming it did "not see any necessity to clarify a point of law". For further details please see the J7 People’s Inquiry Forum thread:

http://z13.invisionfree.com/julyseventh/index.php?showtopic=1773


J7: RELEASE THE EVIDENCE PETITION
============================================================
The J7 RELEASE THE EVIDENCE Petition has raced past 2,000 signature mark, exceeding signatories to the official Downing Street web site petition for a Public Inquiry by a factor of four. The petition has already been signed by some notable individuals and organisations including the Patrick Finucane Centre and representatives from the Omagh Support & Self Help Group. If you’ve already signed the J7 Petition, thank you. If you haven’t signed the J7 Petition yet please do so here:

http://www.petitiononline.com/j7truth/


J7 SUPPORT AND SOLIDARITY
============================================================
J7 expresses support for and solidarity with the Patrick Finucane Centre and the Omagh Support & Self Help Group. J7 also supports the Truth and Justice for Richard Chang Campaign.

http://www.patfinucanecentre.org
http://www.omaghbomb.co.uk
http://www.justice4richard.co.uk


Here ends the J7 update for March 2008. We’ll be in touch again soon.

In solidarity, for truth and justice,
J7: The July 7th Truth Campaign Team
--
Web: http://julyseventh.co.uk/
Petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/j7truth
Forum: http://z13.invisionfree.com/julyseventh
MySpace: http://myspace.com/j7truth
Email: julyseventh@fastmail.net

--===[ Message Ends ]==---

Osama bin London Exclusive - terror training and extremism gets BBC sponsorship

This is a picture of BBC journalist extraordinaire, Nasreen Suleaman. She is the roving BBC reporter who presented a Radio 4, Koran & Country programme 'Biography of a Bomber' in November 2005, which professed to provide an insight into the life of alleged 7/7 bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan. The BBC Koran & Country web site described the programme thusly:

What turns a British-born Muslim into a suicide bomber? Nasreen Suleaman talks to those who knew Mohammad Sidique Khan, the eldest of the July 7 bombers. She tries to unravel the mystery of what turned this well integrated, popular and intelligent young man into a terrorist.

For some reason (take a wild guess) this particular episode of the BBC's Koran & Country series is not available via the BBC web site Listen Again service. Prior to its broadcast Suleaman's show was listed in The Times' Entertainment section:

BIOGRAPHY OF A BOMBER
Nasreen Suleaman has been a journalist with BBC News for 11 years. Here she presents a strong case for being groomed as the service’s next celebrity reporter as she tells the most detailed story I’ve yet heard of a man who, like her, was born in Britain to Pakistani parents and brought up in Yorkshire. On July 7, though, Mohammad Sidique Khan and three other men caught a train to London, where they blew themselves and 52 innocent people to bits. Why? It is a question asked a thousand times ever since — and Suleaman goes a long way towards answering it.

So the myth goes. Maybe The Times journalist listened to a different show to the one that was broadcast.

During the Radio 4 'documentary' about Mohammed Sidique Khan, Suleaman claimed that Khan had been paintballing and that paintballing was, "for some, a guerrilla warfare like activity." Note Suleaman's violent and graphic portrayal of paintballing. Paintballing features again in the continuing story of Ms Suleaman -- and the man now known as Usama bin London -- only with a slightly different spin from Suleaman.

Last Wednesday, a Muslim man, Mohammed Hamid, was convicted for apparently organising "al-Qaida style training camps" across Britain. Although nobody has been allowed to know about the conviction until now, owing to extended "reporting restrictions" that are counter to the public interest and any notions of justice that might once have existed. Let's face it, when was the last time you read or heard about the case for the defence in any 'terror' trial that you weren't physically present at? Plenty of coverage of the case for the prosecution, plenty of coverage about the 'evil terrorists' and all their evil terrorist ways and precisely no coverage at all for the defence. Hamid's co-defendant, Mousa Brown, made this point during the trial, a comment which has been interpreted in customarily incensed and emotive terms by the BBC as an, "attack" on journalists.

So deeply immersed in terrorism and terrorist training activity were Hamid and his fellow defendants that the Guardian reports, "The jury heard no evidence of weapons or explosives – the prosecution relied on MI5 surveillance tapes and recordings made by an undercover police officer." MI5 recordings of people speaking are now 'terrorism', at least if you happen to be Muslim, or some other perceived enemy of the State. All of which is rather unlike the U-SUK warmongering efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan which are, of course, peacekeeping missions -- bringing "freedom" and "democracy" to those that never asked for it to be delivered, especially not via bombs, butchery and genocide -- that don't involve any terrorism, nor the world's most dangerous weapons in the hands of the most highly trained terror-mongers.

The accused in the Mohammed Hamid 'Usama bin London' trial had no weapons, no explosives, no money and no terrorist abilities whatsoever, unless you count wielding twigs, rolling around in the mud, somersaults, pole-vaulting and cutting up a melon, in advance of eating the melon, as the acts of hardcore Jihadi terrorists.

Harking back to Nasreen Suleaman, the "journalist with BBC News for 11 years" who, according to someone at The Times, "presents a strong case for being groomed as the service's next celebrity reporter". In her apparent 11, by now 13, years with BBC News, Suleaman seems to have done precious little in the way of reporting. In fact, even the most objective analysis of Suleaman's reportage could not fail to discover that she has done little else other than a provide a small but crucial bit of coverage in relation to two recent major terrorist attacks on Western soil. First up is her reporting on Zacarias Moussaui, who remains the only person ever to be convicted in connection with the events of 11th September 2001 (despite many of the alleged hijackers still being alive). Second up is Suleaman's profiling of Mohammed Sidique Khan, one of four people against whom not a shred of admissable evidence has been presented in connection with the events of 7th July 2005.

In a radical departure from her staple fare, Suleaman has also contributed to the ongoing and entirely baseless demonisation of the 21st century's new Jews, Muslims, while superficially appearing to do the exact opposite. Prior to Biography of Bomber, Suleaman worked on a BBC television documentary called "Don't Panic I'm Islamic", which was shown in June 2005, a month before the Islamic panic began to be manufactured from thin air in earnest. The documentary featured none other than Mohammed Hamid, the man who jokingly referred to himself as Usama bin London.

During filming, Nasreen Suleaman -- who later the same year described paintballing as "a guerrilla warfare like activity" -- and the BBC team filmed Hamid and a group of others as they went paintballing. In fact, it was at the behest of Nasreen Suleaman herself, and the BBC who stumped up the funds for the trip, that Hamid and fellow defendants Muhammad al-Figari (who claimed he had drifted into crime after becoming a chauffeur under contract to the BBC, supplying clients with drugs and "female partners") and Mousa Brown went paintballing at the Delta Force centre in Tonbridge, Kent in February 2005. Mousa Brown went on to have an interesting tale to tell of how MI5 tried to recruit him and now appears to be saying that they failed, yet he was the only defendant acquitted. Hamid, however, was paid £300 by the BBC to take part in the documentary and said he wold use the funds to pay fines he had incurred as a result of a previous misdemeanour - that noble and long-standing duty of the working classes, antagonising the police.

Such was the involvement between Suleaman, the BBC and Hamid & Co., that Suleaman was called to give evidence during Hamid's trial. The Times reported:

Ms Suleaman told the court that Mr Hamid was keen to appear in the programme. She said: “He was so up for it. We took the decision that paintballing would be a fun way of introducing him.

“There are many, many British Muslims that I know who for the past 15 or 20 years have been going paintballing. It’s a harmless enough activity. I don’t think there is any suggestion, or ever has been, that it’s a terrorist training activity.”

On 17th November 2005 Ms Suleaman claimed in her Radio 4 'documentary' that paintballing is "for some, a guerilla warfare like activity". Yet two years later she is happy to state, under oath, that paintballing is "harmless", "fun" and not "terrorist training activity", which smacks a little of disingenuousness at the very least, if not perjury.

The tale of Mohammed Hamid and Nasreen Suleaman features yet another intriguing twist. Following the non-events of the no-bombs 'bombers' of 21st July 2005, Hamid recognised two of the suspects, Muktar Ibrahim Said and Hussain Osman (aka Rome-Runner Hamdi Isaac) and contacted Suleaman to tell her as much. Suleaman said that she informed "senior BBC managers" of the contact but was not told to approach the police with this information. Suleaman told the court, “I got the sense that he was already talking to the police. I referred it to my immediate boss at the BBC. I wasn’t told that there was an obligation. In fact it was referred above her as well. It was such a big story.” She added: “I don’t think it’s my obligation to tell another adult that he should go to the police.”

Of course, there's nothing odd about that. Why would Suleaman report to the police that someone she had taken on "guerrilla warfare like" training just happens to know a couple of bombers who didn't have any bombs. Nothing odd at all, except when you consider the case of the 21/7 no-bombs bombers. Following the non-events of 21st July 2005, when nobody was killed or injured, the accused, their wives, girlfriends, relatives and associates were all rounded up and locked up -- in much the opposite way that absolutely nobody was rounded up after 7/7 -- and many have since been charged with various misdemeanours, all now considerered terrorism, including, "withholding information and assisting an offender", amongst other things.

Armed with this information, one might be tempted to ask why Nasreen Suleaman and "senior BBC managers" aren't being charged with "withholding information and assisting an offender" and, further, why they aren't also being charged with financing terrorists by paying for the "guerrilla warfare like" training activity of paintballing and donating £300 to Mohammed 'Usama bin London' Hamid, now a convicted terrorist for having done precisely nothing that could be constituted as terrorism.

Technically, both the BBC and Nasreen Suleaman are, -- much like a certain disturbingly regular consultant to the BBC, Mr Peter Power, who happens to be getting upset about his own errant behaviour -- bang to rights.



--
Note: This article was originally going to finish with a different ending but, given the current climate, an editorial decision was taken that it was probably best not mention Nasreen Suleaman's work alongside FCO representatives because, as William Ehrman, Director General of the FCO wrote:

"Dealing with Islamist extremism, the messages are more complex, the constituencies we would aim at are more difficult to identify, and greater damage could be done to the overall effort if links back to UK or US sources were revealed."

Also omitted from this article, a link to a rather contrived and badly managed interview with Nasreen Suleaman plugging Biography of a Bomber and a link to Gonzo Terrorism. Watch out in Nas's interview clip, yet again, for the standard practice of showing CCTV footage from 28 June 2005 as the voiceover talks of 7th July, some 9 days after the footage being shown and from which no CCTV footage has ever been released.

Finally, a clip of Mohammed Hamid and his thoughts on the events of 11th September 2001 was omitted from the above article, just in case anyone was left with the impression that questioning official doctrine might be hazardous to one's health and liberty.

"No one understood better than Stalin that the true object of propaganda is neither to convince nor even to persuade, but to produce a uniform pattern of public utterance in which the first trace of unorthodox thought immediately reveals itself as a jarring dissonance." -- Alan Bullock