SO sorry: I ought to have said that the particular bomb threatened Gathering at Villepinte was on the last day of June in 2018. Apart from many, many others, there were as I recall without detailed references before me at least FIVE Law Society Past Presidents and a handful of senior Society spokespersons such as myself. The gatherings nonetheless have continued both in Paris and for a time near Tirana in Albania where the 3,00 or so Camp Ashraf II dissidents and designated refugees in mortal danger whilst located in Baghdad had been given sanctuary by the Tirana regime. Again, therefore, I have both a philosophical and personal stake in all of this, especially since I had persuaded those Law Society stalwarts to attend!
It's all very interesting. I found Hall's inclusion of "separatism" in his risk analysis odd. It's half a century since the Tartan Army's minor incursion outside Perth and people coming home to a real fire in Wales. He seems to be hinting at action against peaceful supporters of Scottish and Welsh independence. And I find his "I make no comment" comment far too transparently, unsubtly, 'hey, I'm a clever lawyer, look what I did there'. And I think the whole combo of putting out his coming speech in full then making the speech to the carefully chosen Policy Exchange all a bit too centring of himself. So there.
First things first: in no conceivable way am I buying into Sir T. Blair’s deplorable assertion from as I recall 2005 that “the rules of the game have changed”. By that he meant that the rule of law and due process should be diluted for suspected terrorists. In the 2005 underground and bus bombings I had been within a whisker of being blown to smithereens when walking past the BMA headquarters a bare minute or so before the bus bomb had been detonated. On that day I had been en route for a meeting of the National Council of Resistance in Iran as a part of its and the U.K. Parliamentary campaign to deal with the rampant State terrorism of the then (and NOW) brutally undemocratic, mysoginistic and UNIslamic (in any true sense) Mullah’s regime. The host was Lord [Robin] Corbett but there were many cross party Parliamentarians, lawyers, academics and exiled Iranian freedom fighters. That meeting WENT ON regardless. At the NCRI’s annual Summer Gathering at Villepinte, Paris, I was one of many tens of thousands of exiled Iranian activists, lawyers, academics and Parliamentarians from around the globe and of all political hues listening to and participating in a conference with the -also exiled- President elect of the NCRI as its keynote speaker. BUT FOR the vigilance of our hosts and the security services and police services of-wait for it- France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria, we might all have been killed or maimed in a terrorist bomb attack orchestrated and peopled by representatives of the Iranian secret service AND -again, wait for it- the Islamic Republican Guard Corps [IRGC]. Little wonder that as with all the speakers at THAT conference/ rally as with scores over my many campaigning years with them called passionately for - the proscription of the IRGC (inter alia). I could go on; I understand increasingly the reservations of the U.K. government because of the associated severing of all diplomatic ties but this particular mendacious regime breaks all pledges and cocks a snook at all attempts at civilised engagement with any example of the professedly free world. I am with Jonathan Hall KC when he asserts that the shoe of current proscription legislation is an untidy fit for the manner in which the regime- to achieve deniability- recruits and pays solitary oddballs AND criminal gangs bristling with expertise to carry out its assaults on its sincere and effective protagonists, wherever they may be again around the globe. ALL OF WHICH is far from my seeking THE SLIGHTEST “two-tier” approach with LESSER rights and safeguards -r o l and due process - than for any of us. Though far from naive what do we truly achieve should we treat those failing to give a fig about a decent society if we should fail to afford them all the entitlements as to fair trials and the burden and standard of proof we see as OUR birthright. There must be NO-repeat, NO- “us “and “them” in this particular equation. After all it is the supposed martyrdom then claimed which would as it always has been the optimal recruiting sergeant for any undemocratic entity or nation. Difficult? Of course; whoever said it was easy?
SO sorry: I ought to have said that the particular bomb threatened Gathering at Villepinte was on the last day of June in 2018. Apart from many, many others, there were as I recall without detailed references before me at least FIVE Law Society Past Presidents and a handful of senior Society spokespersons such as myself. The gatherings nonetheless have continued both in Paris and for a time near Tirana in Albania where the 3,00 or so Camp Ashraf II dissidents and designated refugees in mortal danger whilst located in Baghdad had been given sanctuary by the Tirana regime. Again, therefore, I have both a philosophical and personal stake in all of this, especially since I had persuaded those Law Society stalwarts to attend!
It's all very interesting. I found Hall's inclusion of "separatism" in his risk analysis odd. It's half a century since the Tartan Army's minor incursion outside Perth and people coming home to a real fire in Wales. He seems to be hinting at action against peaceful supporters of Scottish and Welsh independence. And I find his "I make no comment" comment far too transparently, unsubtly, 'hey, I'm a clever lawyer, look what I did there'. And I think the whole combo of putting out his coming speech in full then making the speech to the carefully chosen Policy Exchange all a bit too centring of himself. So there.
First things first: in no conceivable way am I buying into Sir T. Blair’s deplorable assertion from as I recall 2005 that “the rules of the game have changed”. By that he meant that the rule of law and due process should be diluted for suspected terrorists. In the 2005 underground and bus bombings I had been within a whisker of being blown to smithereens when walking past the BMA headquarters a bare minute or so before the bus bomb had been detonated. On that day I had been en route for a meeting of the National Council of Resistance in Iran as a part of its and the U.K. Parliamentary campaign to deal with the rampant State terrorism of the then (and NOW) brutally undemocratic, mysoginistic and UNIslamic (in any true sense) Mullah’s regime. The host was Lord [Robin] Corbett but there were many cross party Parliamentarians, lawyers, academics and exiled Iranian freedom fighters. That meeting WENT ON regardless. At the NCRI’s annual Summer Gathering at Villepinte, Paris, I was one of many tens of thousands of exiled Iranian activists, lawyers, academics and Parliamentarians from around the globe and of all political hues listening to and participating in a conference with the -also exiled- President elect of the NCRI as its keynote speaker. BUT FOR the vigilance of our hosts and the security services and police services of-wait for it- France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria, we might all have been killed or maimed in a terrorist bomb attack orchestrated and peopled by representatives of the Iranian secret service AND -again, wait for it- the Islamic Republican Guard Corps [IRGC]. Little wonder that as with all the speakers at THAT conference/ rally as with scores over my many campaigning years with them called passionately for - the proscription of the IRGC (inter alia). I could go on; I understand increasingly the reservations of the U.K. government because of the associated severing of all diplomatic ties but this particular mendacious regime breaks all pledges and cocks a snook at all attempts at civilised engagement with any example of the professedly free world. I am with Jonathan Hall KC when he asserts that the shoe of current proscription legislation is an untidy fit for the manner in which the regime- to achieve deniability- recruits and pays solitary oddballs AND criminal gangs bristling with expertise to carry out its assaults on its sincere and effective protagonists, wherever they may be again around the globe. ALL OF WHICH is far from my seeking THE SLIGHTEST “two-tier” approach with LESSER rights and safeguards -r o l and due process - than for any of us. Though far from naive what do we truly achieve should we treat those failing to give a fig about a decent society if we should fail to afford them all the entitlements as to fair trials and the burden and standard of proof we see as OUR birthright. There must be NO-repeat, NO- “us “and “them” in this particular equation. After all it is the supposed martyrdom then claimed which would as it always has been the optimal recruiting sergeant for any undemocratic entity or nation. Difficult? Of course; whoever said it was easy?