UK: TPIM proposals retain many elements of control orders, warms Amnesty

 

“The TPIM proposals seem to have dropped the harshest measures of the control order regime, but continue to raise many of the human rights concerns that made control orders unfair.

 

“Imposing serious restrictions on people’s rights, on the basis of secret ‘evidence’ that they can’t effectively challenge in court, is not made acceptable by trimming-off some aspects of the old regime. 

 

”It is deeply disappointing that the UK Government is seeking to replace one piece of counter-terrorism legislation which seriously restricts human rights with another regime that retains many of the same features, including the use of ‘secret evidence’. This, in short, is what the proposed Terrorism Prevention and Investigative Measures legislation would do if it became law.”

 

Amnesty International has opposed the control order regime since it was established in 2005 and, in responding to the Government's review of counter-terrorism powers last year, called for the system to be scrapped. The organisation is now examining the new proposed legislation in detail.