Thousands of suspected terrorists should be placed in internment camps, as the threat of terrorism in the UK has reached an unprecedented level, a Muslim ex-police chief has said.
Calling for at least 3,000 people to be sent to internment camps, Tarique Ghaffur, who occupied a high-ranking position in Scotland Yard, said mass incarceration is a necessary measure for national security, as there are far too many suspects for the police and intelligence services to monitor. Suspects would be locked up without trial or evidence of wrongdoing.
Britain’s domestic security agency, MI5, has monitored 23,000 people suspected of involvement in Islamist extremism in recent years, of which 3,000 are still “subjects of interest.”
Ghaffur claimed that intelligence officers are currently monitoring 500 plots, while the effectiveness of the UK’s counter-terrorism measures have been called into question since the Manchester concert attack that left 22 dead and hundreds injured. The suicide bomber had been known to security services and had been reported by members of the public.
“These would be community-based centers where the extremists would be risk-assessed, said Ghaffur, once Britain’s most senior Asian officer. “Then the extremists would be made to go through a deradicalization program, using the expertise of imams, charity workers and counter-terrorism officers.”
Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Ian Blair cautioned against locking up suspects without charge. “I mean, it reminds one of the events in Northern Ireland which led to the hunger strikes where you started to sweep up whole sets of a community, you angered that community enormously. The internment was not effective,” he said. “The absolute thing we need now is the co-operation of the communities of Britain, particularly, I’m afraid it’s clear, the Muslim community,” he added.
Ghaffur’s proposal has been backed by Colonel Richard Kemp, the former British Army commander in Afghanistan.
The right to a fair and speedy trial and assumption of innocence is fundamental to a free society. Western constitutions depend, in part, on these human rights. Removing them provides opportunities to widen internments and other human rights losses on originally unintended targets who would also be painted as religious extremists. Prophecy reveals that every principle of western constitutions will be repudiated in favor of security. It may be that modern terrorism will create circumstances where there is no good option. See Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 5, page 451.