Making My Blood Boil

Apparently it makes David Cameron's 'blood boil' to know that 'this man is still in our country' and he also knows that he speaks for every other Briton.  Really?  You don't speak for me Dave.  Personally, it makes my blood boil to know that David Cameron is still walking freely around the UK and, worse, is apparently Prime Minister.  Unfortunately, I'm told that we can't get him deported as he is a UK citizen and isn't an alleged terrorist.  Unlike Abu Qatada, the object of Cameron's ire, who was deported to Jordan over the weekend, amid much rejoicing from the right-wing tabloids and various Tory rent-a-quotes.  At last we're rid of this living, breathing risk to the UK's security, despite the best efforts of those pinko lefty Judges who kept putting his so-called human rights ahead of our safety, is the gist of their rantings.  The trouble is that nobody can actually say what it is that Abu Qatada is supposed to have done, or be accused of.  Can you?  I bet you can't!  The fact is that this so-called 'radical preacher' has broken no laws and faced no charges of terrorism or anything else in the UK.  This whole shoddy business relates to things he is alleged to have done in his native Jordan.  But exactly what these things are remains unclear.  Certainly nobody is saying that he is an actual terrorist.  The closest to a specific charge we've got is that he allegedly 'incited terror', which could mean anything.  Probably just writing something critical of the Jordanian government.

But here in the UK, the ain concern of the right-wing nut jobs, sorry, Tories, was that court after court, both in the UK and EU, had the audacity to keep telling successive Home Secretaries that they couldn't legally deport Qatada.  Forget all the hot air the right are blowing about how this proves we need to scrap the human rights act, the reason these courts blocked his deportation was simple: the evidence of his alleged 'crimes' provided by the Jordanian government wouldn't have been acceptable in any court in the UK or EU as it was obtained under duress.  Which is a polite way of saying obtained through torture.  Such 'evidence' is never reliable, (for reasons I've set out elsewhere on this blog and have no intention of rehashing here).  Indeed, the deportation only took place after Qatada himself agreed that he would return to Jordan without further objections if the Jordanian government finally ratified an agreement with the UK that such evidence wouldn't be used in any trial.  Clearly, he is confident that there is no 'real' evidence the Jordanian government can muster to ensure a conviction.  Quite frankly, this whole shabby business has been a sorry episode in British history, of which we should be thoroughly ashamed.  The fact is that Qatada has been demonised by successive governments, (but particularly the current one), in order to legitimise their attacks on human rights legislation.  Really people, what with this and the recent Prism revelations, the various police misconduct and corruption allegations, how can you not see that we aren't just sleep-walking into a repressive reactionary regime in which our civil liberties are severely curtailed, but that we're practically there already?