BBC: No 10 was "kept abreast" of the decision to detain David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, a spokesman has said.
Mr Miranda was held at Heathrow for nine hours on Sunday, while in transit from Germany to Brazil.
He has launched a legal challenge over the police's use of anti-terror laws to detain him and seize his property.
But Home Secretary Theresa May said the police must act if someone had "highly sensitive stolen information".
Mr Miranda, a 28-year-old Brazilian national, was held at Heathrow on his way from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro where he lives with Mr Greenwald. The Guardian said he had been carrying "journalistic materials" but was not an employee of the newspaper.
Mr Greenwald has broken most of the stories about state surveillance based on the leaks from fugitive Edward Snowden, who used to work at the US National Security Agency.
Mr Miranda said he was held in a room and questioned by six agents about his "entire life". They confiscated his laptop, an additional hard drive, two memory sticks, a mobile phone, a smart watch and a video games console, his lawyers said.
He was required to divulge the passwords to his personal computers, phone and encrypted storage devices, they added. (+ video) » | Tuesday, August 20, 2013
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Guardian journalist who wrote stories exposing mass American surveillance programmes says UK government will be "sorry" for holding his partner for nine hours under the Terrorism Act, and vows to publish further secrets.
David Miranda was passing through London's Heathrow Airport on Sunday on his way home to Rio de Janeiro when he was held by police.
Mr Miranda, who lives with the reporter Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who interviewed American whistleblower Edward Snowden, was stopped at 8am returning from a trip to Berlin.
Speaking to reporters at Rio de Janeiro's airport, Mr Greenwald said Britain will be "sorry" for detaining his partner for nine hours.
Mr Greenwald said: "I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now [on]. I am going to publish many more documents.
"I am going to publish things on England too. I have many documents on England's spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did." » | Claire Carter and Andrew Marszal | Monday, August 19, 2013
BBC: The US government has said it was not involved in the decision to detain the partner of a journalist who published information from US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
A White House spokesman said the decision to detain Mr Miranda "was not made at the request or with the involvement of the US government".
But he said British officials did give them a "heads up" about the detention.
David Miranda, 28, was held for nine hours by police at Heathrow on Sunday.
Police held Mr Miranda under terrorism laws but have not said why.
He said he was kept in a room and quizzed by "six agents". (+ video) » | Monday, August 19, 2013
David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, says he was questioned about his entire life after being detained for nine hours under anti-terror laws at London's Heathrow airport. Greenwald, who met David Miranda at Rio de Janeiro's international airport, said as a journalist he would not be silenced by this police action against his partner and vowed to publish many more spying documents. Brazil's foreign minister says the detention was 'unjustified'
THE GUARDIAN: David Miranda's detention shows that being the partner of the man who interviewed the NSA whistleblower is enough to see you treated like a terrorist
The detention at Heathrow on Sunday of the Brazilian David Miranda is the sort of treatment western politicians love to deplore in Putin's Russia or Ahmadinejad's Iran. His "offence" under the 2000 Terrorism Act was apparently to be the partner of a journalist, Glenn Greenwald, who had reported for the Guardian on material released by the American whistleblower, Edward Snowden. We must assume the Americans asked the British government to nab him, shake him down and take his personal effects.
Miranda's phone and laptop were confiscated and he was held incommunicado, without access to friends or lawyer, for the maximum nine hours allowed under law. It is the airport equivalent of smashing into someone's flat, rifling through their drawers and stealing papers and documents. It is simple harassment and intimidation. » | Simon Jenkins | Monday, August 19, 2013
Saturday, October 01, 2011
Banned Preacher Can Seek Damages Over Illegal Arrest
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A banned Islamic preacher who entered Britain illegally following a Home Office blunder is entitled to seek damages after being detained unlawfully, a judge has ruled.
Sheikh Raed Salah, a Palestinian activist, could receive thousands of pounds for being wrongfully imprisoned shortly after entering the country in June this year.
Mr Salah, 52, was able to walk through immigration at Heathrow Airport unchallenged despite being banned by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, days before.
His exclusion order had been sent to the wrong terminal at the airport allowing him to arrive unopposed. He was arrested three days later when the error was discovered.
Yesterday, the migration watchdog, Migration Watch UK, condemned the judge’s decision. Sir Andrew Green, its chairman, said: “It is quite extraordinary that someone who had no right to be in Britain in the first place should be able to claim damages for his arrest.” » | James Orr | Friday, September 30, 2011
Monday, December 20, 2010
Le froid sème la pagaille en Grande-Bretagne
LE TEMPS: Avions cloués au sol, passagers qui dorment dans les aérogares, routes et voies ferrées gelées: le chaos dans les transports se poursuivait ce lundi en Grande-Bretagne, où les températures restaient exceptionnellement basses
Bien qu’ouvert, l’aéroport de Heathrow près de Londres, un des premiers du monde pour le trafic voyageurs, opérait «un nombre limité de vols», selon son site internet. British Airways a annoncé qu’une soixantaine de vols seraient maintenus lundi matin à partir de Heathrow, soit environ la moitié. Des dizaines d’autres vols ont donc été annulés, et les perturbations devraient se prolonger au-delà de Noël du fait des reports et annulations. >>> AFP | Lundi 20 Décembre 2010
Mass Murder at 30,000 Feet: Islamic Extremists Guilty of Airline Bomb Plot
TIMES ONLINE: Three British Muslims were found guilty today of conspiracy to murder thousands of passengers and crew in an unprecedented airline bomb plot that could have proved as deadly as the 9/11 attacks.
After a retrial at Woolwich Crown Court, jurors found the ringleader, Abdulla Ahmed, and two other men, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain, guilty of plotting to use liquid bombs to blow up airliners en route from Heathrow to the United States.
Another defendant, Umar Islam, was found guilty of a more general charge of conspiracy to murder because jurors could not decide whether he knew of the specific targets in the plot three years ago.
Three other men, Arafat Khan, Ibrahim Savant and Waheed Zaman, were found not guilty of conspiracy to blow up aircraft but could face a retrial on the more general conspiracy to murder charge because jurors could not reach a verdict.
The eighth defendant, Muslim convert Donald Stewart-Whyte, was found not guilty on the terrorism charges but had pleaded guilty to a firearms offence.
Ali, 28, was the leader of an East London terror cell inspired from Pakistan, the court heard. He had planned to detonate home-made liquid bombs in suicide attacks on transatlantic aircraft bound for major north American cities.
It was the most complex and daring British-based terrorist conspiracy in modern times and, according to the Crown Prosecution Service, could have killed "hundreds of innocent people". >>> Philippe Naughton | Monday, September 07, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Outrageous! Geert Wilders to Be Deported from Cowardly Britain!
Geert Wilders, the controversial right-wing Dutch MP, is to be deported after being refused entry to Britain at London's Heathrow Aiport.
Wilders, who is the leader of the Freedom Party, flew into the UK in the face of a ban from the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith just after 2pm to show an anti-Muslim film at the House of Lords.
He was seized by two border guards who boarded the BMI aircraft as it sat on the tarmac and was marched into a side room in the main Terminal One building.
The politician, who was invited by the UKIP peer Lord Pearson and cross-bencher Baroness Cox, had earlier been warned that Miss Smith viewed his presence in the country as a threat to the “fundamental interests of society”.
The Home Office refused to confirm the flight on which the politician would be placed.
But Mr Wilders’s spokesman in Amsterdam said that he understood that he would sent back to the Dutch capital within two hours.
Der wegen islamfeindlicher Äusserungen in Grossbritannien mit einem Einreiseverbot belegte niederländische Abgeordnete Geert Wilders ist auf dem Londoner Flughafen Heathrow in Gewahrsam genommen worden. In den Niederlanden wird gegen Wilders wegen Volksverhetzung ermittelt.
Der wegen islamfeindlicher Äusserungen in Grossbritannien mit einem Einreiseverbot belegte niederländische Abgeordnete Geert Wilders ist auf dem Londoner Flughafen Heathrow in Gewahrsam genommen worden. Seine Abschiebung in die Niederlande stehe unmittelbar bevor, sagte Wilders am Donnerstag der Nachrichtenagentur AP. Die britische Regierung hatte Wilders mitgeteilt, er sei nicht willkommen, weil er eine Bedrohung für «die Harmonie der Gemeinschaft und damit die öffentlichen Sicherheit» darstelle. >>> ap | Donnerstag, 12. Februar 2009
POLITIKEN: Denmark: Governing Liberal Party Spokesman Lambasts UK
Denmark’s governing Liberal Party Foreign Policy Spokesman Søren Pind has entered the debate concerning a decision by Britain to ban the entry of the populist Dutch politician Geert Wilders because of his extreme views about Islam.
“Unless you’re a terrorist or something like that, you of course should be able to travel freely within the European Union. That’s the whole idea behind European rights and freedoms,” says Pind.
Geert Wilders, who is the leader of the populist Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, is best-known abroad for his film ‘Fitna’ which compares Islam with terrorism and which has caused indignation across the world. The European Parliament has banned the film being shown in the EP.
Wilders was originally invited to the United Kingdom by a peer of the House of Lords to show his film Fitna and take part in a discussion afterwards.
EU rules
Under EU rules, Britain is entitled to deny Wilders entry into the country if he is considered to be a danger to public order.
But Pind says that while it is acceptable to deny large groups of Nazis, squatters and hooligans entry into a country – banning an elected politician from another EU country endangers basic freedoms.
“This case sounds all the alarm bells. When you subject an unimportant Dutch MP to this sort of treatment it shows just how far the authorities are willing to go to put the brakes on his freedoms. That is not gratifying,” Pind says.
Freedoms
“This is an elected politician who has a certain view about an ideology. Some see him as being drastic, but he doesn’t affect the groups that are a danger to public order. This case infringes on our view of freedom,” Pind says. >>> Edited by Julian Isherwood | Thursday, February 12, 2009
PINK NEWS: Gay Humanists Back Dutch MP's Right to Criticise Islam
A gay humanist group has said the Home Secretary was wrong to ban a Dutch MP who is critical of Islam.
Jaqui [sic] Smith said that Geert Wilders, a leading rightwing politician and a fierce critic of Muslims, has been denied permission to enter Britain on the grounds that his presence would damage community relations and threaten public order.
The Pink Triangle Trust (PTT) had declared its opposition to the ban.
"We maintain that in a free society anyone should have the right to criticise religion without being banned, dubbed racist or, even worse, threatened with death as the humanist author Saman Rushdie was over his book The Satanic Verses," said PTT secretary George Broadhead.
"There can be no doubt from reading its holy books, the Qur'an and the Hadith, that Islam is a homophobic religion, which at worst has lead to the barbaric torture and murder of LGBT people in Islamic theocracies like Iran and Saudi Arabia.
"But it is also deeply mysoginist and hostile to apostates and unbelievers like humanists. >>> Staff Writer, Pink News | Thursday, February 12, 2009
Britain was once renowned around the world for defending people's right to speak out. Not any more, says Philip Johnston.
The refusal to admit the oddball Dutch MP Geert Wilders to Britain yesterday marks a further retreat from this country's traditions of free speech. It stands in stark contrast to what happened exactly 20 years ago tomorrow, when Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa calling for the death of Salman Rushdie for insulting the Prophet Mohammed in his book The Satanic Verses.
In retrospect, that was a turning point in the country's history of free speech, an event that appeared to demonstrate indomitability, yet turned out to be a defeat. An unambiguous stand was taken on Rushdie's behalf by the government of the day, which denounced the threat to his life and broke off diplomatic relations with Iran. Sir Geoffrey Howe, then foreign secretary, told the Commons: "This action is taken in plain defence of the right within the law of freedom of speech and the right within the law of freedom of protest."
Despite mass book burnings, protests around the world, including in Bolton and Bradford, and threats of violence, the work continued to be published and sold. How could it be otherwise? This was Britain, after all, the citadel of free speech. We would not be brow beaten into denying the rights of one of our citizens, or anyone else for that matter, from having their say, however controversial or offensive their opinion might be.
Sadly, the past two decades have seen a pusillanimous flight into cowering capitulation. We seem to have forgotten what free speech entails, how hard it was fought for and how important it is to defend. It is the value with which this country is most associated throughout the world. It is why Britain has been home, over the centuries, to so many political dissidents who would have been persecuted elsewhere, and why those who live in autocracies that brook no criticism tune into the BBC World Service.
They see this as a place able to accommodate opinions that are obviously crazy, offensive or even seditious, a country where a view can be held and expressed, provided – and this has always been true – that it does not foment violence.
Geert Wilders is an anti-Islamist who regards the Koran as inherently inflammatory and believes he is justified in saying so. He has made a 17-minute film, Fitna – an Arabic word meaning test of faith – setting out this thesis and was invited to show it at a private screening in the House of Lords. The film can be seen on the internet, so there is no question of stopping its dissemination. It contains some unpleasant images of bomb explosions, of captured hostages facing death and of chanting mobs interlaced with passages from the Koran.
Wilders claims that these verses from the holy book of Islam are being used today to incite modern Muslims to behave violently and anti-democratically. You may think he is wrong to say this; you may agree with him; you might, like the lords who invited him to Britain, think it is something worthy of discussion, given the obvious problems caused around the world by radical Islamism and the violence perpetrated in the name of the religion. It is hard, in a free country, to understand why it is a view that must be suppressed.
What, then, possessed the Home Office to ban Wilders – an unprecedented action against a democratically-elected politician from a European state, who is entitled to free movement within the EU? By any measure, it was an extraordinary decision; yet it was not even raised in parliament, the supposed guardian of our freedoms, though some MPs have commented on the ban, largely to support it. >>> Philip Johnston | Thursday, February 12, 2009
BBC: Geert Wilders Ban: Your Comments
A Dutch MP who described the Koran as a "fascist book" has been banned by the Home Office from entering the UK amid fears his presence would endanger public security.
Freedom Party MP Geert Wilders was due to show his controversial film - which links the Islamic holy book to terrorism - in the UK's House of Lords.
BBC News website readers have been getting in touch with their views on the decision.
Below is a selection [censored, maybe?] of your comments: >>> | Thursday, February 12, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: Anti-Islamist Politician Geert Wilders Refused Entry to Britain
The far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders was turned away from Heathrow today after testing the Home Secretary’s ban on him entering the country.
Immigration officials denied the Dutch MP entry to the country after the Government decided he should not be allowed to attend a screening of his controversial anti-Islamist film tonight.
Mr Wilders said: "I am in a detention centre at Heathrow ... I am detained. They took my passport. I will not be allowed to enter the country. They will send me back within a few hours.”
On his flight to London, he told The Times that the British Government was “the biggest bunch of cowards in Europe”.
”It is easy to invite people you agree with, it is more difficult to invite people you disagree with and this is the proof of the pudding," he said. >>> David Charter, Heathrow, and Nico Hines | Thursday, February 12, 2009
Airliner Bomb Trial: Three Muslim extremists Face Lengthy Jail Terms over Plot
THE TELEGRAPH: Three Islamic extremists are facing lengthy prison sentences after being found guilty of conspiring to kill hundreds of people in a terrorist bombing campaign.
The trio were members of an east London al Qaida-inspired terror cell that planned to detonate home-made bombs in attacks on British targets including Heathrow Airport, a jury at Woolwich Crown Court found.
But following a five-month trial the jurors failed to reach verdicts on prosecution claims that they were plotting an unprecedented wave of suicide bombings on transatlantic airliners.
The three - Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 27, Assad Sarwar, 28, and Tanvir Hussain, 27 - had already admitted planning a series of small-scale headline-grabbing bomb attacks.
But, by a majority of 10 to two, the jurors rejected their claims that they did not plan to kill or hurt anyone in the blasts.
The eight men and four women on the jury deliberated for 56 hours and nine minutes.
But they could not agree verdicts on whether another four Muslim men - Ibrahim Savant, 27, Arafat Waheed Khan, 27, Waheed Zaman, 24, and Umar Islam, 30 - were also involved in the conspiracy to murder.
All seven defendants earlier admitted conspiring to cause a public nuisance by distributing al Qaida-style videos threatening suicide attacks in Britain.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has until the end of this month to decide whether the men should face retrials on the counts on which the jurors could not reach verdicts.
An eighth man, Mohammed Gulzar, 27, was cleared on all charges.
”Lyrical Terrorist” First Woman Convicted Under New Terrorism Legislation
YAHOO NEWS (UK & IRELAND): A 23-year-old Heathrow Airport worker who called herself the "Lyrical Terrorist" has become the first woman to be convicted under new terrorism legislation.
Samina Malik burst into tears in the dock at the Old Bailey as a jury found her guilty of possessing records likely to be used for terrorism by a majority of 10 to one.
Malik wrote poems entitled How To Behead and The Living Martyrs and stocked a "library" of documents useful to terrorists, the Old Bailey heard.
Malik, who worked airside at WH Smith, was an unlikely but committed Islamic extremist, a jury was told.
The court heard she wrote on the back of a receipt from the shop: "The desire within me increases every day to go for martyrdom." Airport woman convicted over terror (more)
