Terrorism Bill

The case has been made from all parts of the Committee that the glorification provision should be eliminated from the Bill. Little more needs to be said, save that what was left in the Bill if it were taken out would provide a reasonable basis on which prosecutions could take place. By keeping glorification in the Bill, we merely make the provisions of clause 1 indefensible. There is another issue, which I touched on in relation to the Catholic martyrs of the 16th century. In the context of Islamic fundamentalism, there is the question of glorification, its relationship to martyrdom and the connection between Islam and politics. As Gandhi once said, those who do not understand the connection between religion and politics do not understand what religion is all about. In relation to the criminal law of terrorism, it is extremely dangerous for us to get into the difficulties inherent in mixing up the glorification of acts that are themselves connected with a religious view of life. I refer to one or two cases in which the argument for removing the glorification provision is well made. In the trial of Tom Paine for publication of ““Rights of Man”” in 1792 and ever since then, English law has never penalised those who praised conduct that would be described as deplorable. Instead, we have convicted those whose language, by intention or foreseeable effect, leads to the commission of violence or disorder. That principle was applied in the case of Rex v. Caunt in 1947 in a decision by Mr. Justice Birkett. In that case, the editor of a local Morecambe newspaper was prosecuted for seditious libel, alleged to have been committed when he published an anti-Semitic article after the public hanging in Palestine of two young British sergeants. In many respects the article was no less provocative than some of the broadcasts that we have heard recently on the BBC and other channels, but Mr. Justice Birkett advised the jury that they could not return a verdict of guilty on the ground that the editor’s intention was to provoke merely hostility or ill-will between Jews and non-Jews—more was required. Mr. Justice Birkett said that"““sedition has always had implicit in the word public disorder, tumult, insurrections or matters of that kind””." The gentleman in question was acquitted when the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. The principle that Mr. Justice Birkett applied was sound. If we include the glorification provision, we will create a new crime of uncertain definition, which will be thoroughly counter-productive.