Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Apologies, I've not been able to get on line since late Friday. When I noticed that The Manifesto Club has launched a facebook campaign against the prosecution of people on the basis of what they think, say, read, listen to and watch or download from the internet, rather than what they do. They say,
On 8 November 2007, Samina Malik, the 'Lyrical Terrorist', became the first woman to be convicted under new UK anti-terrorist legislation. In fact, her only crimes were writing bad poetry about jihad and downloading ghoulish material from the internet.
Following Malik's sentence on 6 December, the Crown Prosecution Service said her nine-month suspended jail sentence was for 'collecting information, without reasonable excuse, of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism'.
If this is considered reasonable grounds for prosecution today, it is vital that we reassert the principles of free speech and free thought.
And they link to an article by Brendan O'Neill the Editor of Spiked. At the same time this letter in the Guardian was signed by people whom Spiked almost certainly loathe headlined Race, Class and freedom of speech
Samina Malik is a young poet who writes under the pen name The Lyrical Terrorist. She was arrested and charged under the new anti-terror law of possessing items "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism" (Report, December 6). She has now been given a nine-month suspended sentence. Her poetry, found on her computer, was central to the conviction.Should a person's interests, emotions and opinions be used as evidence to convict them in front of a court? The answer would seem to be yes if they are young, working-class and Muslim. Christopher Hitchens recently defended Martin Amis of racist attacks on Muslims (G2, November 21), saying "the harshness Amis was canvassing was not in the least a recommendation, but rather an experiment in the limits of permissible thought".In Britain today, is the right to "experiment with the limits of permissible thought" only accorded to people who have the correct skin colour, religion and academic background?
Iain Banks, Caryl Churchill, Lindsey German, Michael Kustow, Adrian Mitchell, Andrew Murray, John Pilger, Michael Rosen
The issue of principle here is very important, I agree, and I support the call of both groups: the unlikely coalition is itself a sign that something fundamental is at stake. But am I wrong in feeling that there is a bit of agendaitis at work, prepared perhaps for the good reason that Malik might have been sent to jail? One feels like saying that there are idiots around. Why did she list as one of her interests on on the Hi5 website, "Helping the mujahideen in any way which I can..."? For once I feel sorry for the police finding a stash of pro-terrorist sentiments when they raided her house. Were they supposed to say, "According to our law and values you have freedom to write poems that might encourage discriminate death and destruction, but if I was you young girl I'd be careful and we are going to issue you with a warning". Answer yes, but in the circumstances I suspect they feared the consequences of her actions not her thoughts and the conclusion of the Judge that "your offence is on the margin of what this crime concerns" was sensible. In a different way it was completely idiotic to call a school teddy bear in Sudan Mohammad without checking with the school authorities if this was sensible. Each time this happens, what we think and say becomes increasingly a matter for government. Our opinions start be a concern for policy makers. Freedom to be different is undermined, and this is freedom. Those who signed the Guardian letter and the those who started the Manifesto petition are right about this.
