The Battle of Algiers and ninety-day detention
I’ve just heard a discussion on The Westminster Hour about talk that there will be a proposal in the Queen’s Speech to raise the limit for which terror suspects can be detained without charge from twenty-eight to ninety days. Any discussion of this sort is one of balance. Ultimately, the question it comes down to is ‘at what point do the benefits of detaining a terror suspect in unusual circumstances outweigh the risk of abuse of this provision’? I would suggest that the benefits to be gained by extending from four weeks to three months are very small indeed.
The late Gillo Pontecorvo is best remembered for his film, The Battle of Algiers. I won’t discuss it any length here, but will take a quote from Colonel Mathieu, played by Jean Martin:
The word “torture” doesn’t appear in our orders. We’ve always spoken of interrogation as the only valid method in a police operation directed against unknown enemies. As for the NLF, they request that their members, in the event of capture, should maintain silence for twenty-four hours, and then they may talk. So, the organization has already had the time it needs to render any information useless. What type of interrogation should we choose, the one the courts use for a murder case, that drags on for months?
What information can be extracted between the twenty-eighth and ninetieth days that is so pressing that it justifies holding someone in an extraordinary legal position, and yet cannot be concealed by accomplices? Certainly, there may be information that is useful to the security services by way of background, but not to building a legal case or preventing a crime, that can come out after conviction, but I find it very hard to conceive of circumstances that would justify the ninety days’ detention. I’d very much like to know what examples people come up with, but I suspect that they will be so few and far between that they would not justify the risks implicit in holding someone for so long without trial. These are not risks that may come to be realised now, but allowing them to sit on the statute book until someone abuses them is a crime of omission as great as putting them in place under a repressive regime.
xD.
October 29th, 2007 at 10:23 am
Takes that long to do the mind control retraining properly.
October 30th, 2007 at 7:33 am
I agree with you. It is unlikely that much useful information can actually be obtained between the 28th and 90th day.
November 15th, 2007 at 6:29 am
Superb summary about The Battle of Algiers and ninety-day detention. Thoroughly love your posts!