ENGLAND: DÉJÀ VU - ANOTHER FAKE TERRORIST PLOT MANUFACTURED BY MI5

Anyone who has any familiarity with the period from 1969 to the nineties will recall that both police forces and the security services in the United Kingdom periodically harassed and stigmatised the Irish community in Britain.

There were innumerable alleged plots, security alerts and in several well publicised instances groups of people were `trawled up' by the system falsely accused and sentenced to lengthy periods of imprisonment. It was only after many had served long sentences that they were released and in some instances compensation paid and apologies given.

The same trauma that was visited on the Irish community is now being felt by Muslim communities across Britain. It is more difficult for the police to `fit people up' now as they did with many Irish people twenty five years ago because the advent of PACE (the Police and Criminal Evidence Act) and other judicial reforms make it impossible to extract false confessions or manufacture evidence.

There is however still a malevolent streak in Britain's Security and Police services and this was evidenced this week when police on release 12 Muslims detained in a well publicised series of dramatic arrests earlier this month were detained by the UK border agency with a view to seeking their deportation.

These people are suffering a penalty because they have been found to be innocent of any crime and the UK Police and Security Services have once more had their incompetence exposed.

All fair minded people should be outraged at the treatment of these young people if anything their treatment at the hands of the UK security services indicates that the UK has learned nothing from the countless mistakes it made during over thirty years of `the troubles'.

J B Moffatt Director of Information Celtic League

24/04/09