Dreary Drivel

Here's a lay opinion piece by Owen Jones who writes regularly for The Guardian, but in this article he conflates various miscarriages of justice which have taken place over the past 40 years or so before concluding that British society is awash with anti-Muslim prejudice.

Yet he produces no evidence to substantiate his charge of politicians 'whipping up' anti-Muslim prejudice and in my view if he is going to say such things, a journalist in his position should name names because I don't believe his argument stacks up - beyond a heart on the sleeve, vaguely left wing rant.  

Who will the Gerry Conlons of the future count on?

We should remember the miscarriage of justice suffered by the Guildford Four when we hear politicians whipping up anti-Muslim prejudice


By Owen Jones - The Guardian

Gerry Conlon and his sisters leave the Old Bailey after the sentences in the Guildford Four case were quashed in October 1989. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty

Nightmare is a term too casually used to retain its emotional impact; in casual conversation, it's tossed around to describe delayed train journeys or prolonged waits in airport departure lounges. But it is difficult to describe the experience of Gerry Conlon – who has died at the age of 60 – as anything other than a living, never-ending nightmare.

Along with three others, Conlon was wrongly incarcerated for the Guildford IRA pub bombings of 1974. When his father crossed the Irish Sea to come to his help, he – along with six others, the Maguire Seven – was also banged up on the basis of evidence that would later be entirely discredited. He died in prison in 1980. Guns were put to their head; they were beaten with batteries in socks; urine, faeces and glass were put in their food. Left to rot in prison for many years until campaigners took up their case, it would take 15 years before their unjustly stolen liberty and reputations were restored. And when he was finally free, an emotionally damaged Conlon took to alcohol and drugs, suffered two nervous breakdowns and attempted to kill himself. As he wrote before his death, he was tormented by nightmares.

For those who find it too disturbing to imagine that the British state could be capable of such injustice, it will be comforting to conclude that this episode belongs to the history books: disturbing, but a reminder of a murky past we have thankfully moved on from. It is certainly true that the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven miscarriages of justice had much to do with an endemic anti-Irish racism that many of my generation do not appreciate. The prejudice dates back centuries, particularly to the Reformation and Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, when the Irish were portrayed as subhumans and animals; to the 19th-century Irish famine; to the treatment of postwar Irish migrants to the UK who were met with signs of "No blacks, no dogs, no Irish". With this deeply embedded prejudice as a backdrop, the IRA bombing campaign fuelled a sense that all Irish people were to be treated as suspicious. That's what allowed these miscarriages of justice not just to happen, but to be ignored for so long.

But let's abandon any complacency that such injustice could not happen again. Conlon expressed solidarity with another group enduring a similar experience: Britain's Muslims. He noted the case of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident locked up in Guantánamo Bay for five years without charge until his release in 2009. He was abducted – or "rendered" – and tortured by the US, with the complicity of the British intelligence services. The UK government gave him £1m compensation last year.

Gary McKinnon's fight against extradition attracted astonishing support, but less well-known is the case of Talha Ahsan, a young Muslim poet from Tooting who – like McKinnon – was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. Ahsan was locked up for six years in British prisons without charge or trial: the Criminal Prosecution Service told him that it had insufficient evidence to prosecute him in Britain. He is now locked up in a Connecticut Supermax prison, having been forced to plead guilty – like 97% of US federal cases – to avoid decades of imprisonment. Where the tireless British solicitor Gareth Peirce once defended Irishmen like Conlon, she now defends Muslims like Ahsan.

So here is my fear. Last week, David Cameron informed the House of Commons that Britain faced the threat of terrorism from British jihadis returning from Syria and Iraq. The Met's Cressida Dick – who oversaw the police operation that shot dead the innocent Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005 – has this weekend backed up his assertions. Some will cast a wary eye back to the cast-iron intelligence that Iraq posed an imminent security threat to Britain. And set against a background of frighteningly widespread anti-Muslim bigotry, the threat of miscarriages of justice like that suffered by Conlon is surely real and will in turn serve as a recruiting sergeant for fundamentalist extremism.

Already, more than a third of British people believe Muslims pose a "serious threat" to democracy. Just a third believe they are compatible with the "British way of life". And 45% of Brits think there are "too many Muslims". Studies of media coverage suggest a relentlessly negative depiction of Muslims; in 2011, the journalist Richard Peppiatt resigned from the Daily Star in protest at its anti-Muslim slant. Muslims are invariably portrayed as radicals, extremists and potential terrorists. The recent Trojan Horse saga portrayed socially conservative pushy parents as "extremists". Crucial as it is to defend a secular education, it was again Muslims being singled out and cast as a threat to "British values".

Existing government strategies like the "Prevent" counter-terror policy fuel the stigmatisation of Muslims; the House of Commons communities and local government committee found that Muslims were left feeling as though they were all suspected terrorists. The likes of the former defence secretary, Liam Fox, are calling for ever greater surveillance powers. New Labour cracked down on civil liberties – opposed by the Lib Dems and the Tories at the time – but now renewed authoritarian measures are on the agenda.

During the anti-Irish hysteria of the 1970s, there was a stronger left than there is today, willing to resolutely defend civil liberties and those, such as the Guildford Four, who suffered miscarriages of justice. But today, even some self-described progressives treat Muslims as a threat to secular democracy. Can the possible Muslim Gerry Conlons of the future count on strong voices to speak out for them?

None of this deals with the root causes of terrorism, of course. In 2002, the joint intelligence committee warned that the "threat" from al-Qaida-type extremists "would be heightened by military action against Iraq". Grievances about foreign policy, widespread Muslim poverty, anti-Muslim prejudice in the media and broader society, and a crackdown on civil liberties all risk fuelling radicalisation.

With Conlon's passing, it is a moment not just to reflect on the injustice he endured, but to treat it as a warning. British society is awash with anti-Muslim prejudice – as it was once infested with anti-Irish sentiment – and there is a growing atmosphere of fear over Isis. Innocent British Muslims may well find themselves targeted by attacks on civil liberties that were hard-won by our ancestors at great sacrifice. It will not only be unjust for the victims, it may endanger the safety of us all.