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Former Security Chief: UK exploiting terrorism to restrict liberties

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Feb 17, IRNA -- A former head of Britain’s MI5 security agency has accused the country's Labor government of exploiting the fear of terrorism to restrict civil liberties.

Dame Stella Rimington said that the people in Britain felt as if they were living 'under a police state' because of the fear being spread by ministers. She also said that the US has gone too far with Guantanamo and the tortures.

Her warning comes on the heels of a study published by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)that accuses the US and the UK of undermining the framework of international law.

In an interview with Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia and published in the Daily Telegraph Tuesday, Rimington insisted that the UK does not go as far as the US, saying that the British security services were 'no angels', but they did not kill people.

"MI5 does not do that. Furthermore it has achieved the opposite effect -- there are more and more suicide terrorists finding a greater justification," she said.

Rimington, who was Britain’s first female security chief between 1992 until 1996, has previously been critical of the government's policies, including attempts to extend pre-charge detention for terror suspects to 42 days and the controversial plan to introduce ID cards.

"It would be better that the government recognized that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism -- that we live in fear and under a police state," she said.

On Monday, ICJ president Mary Robinson said it was 'time to take stock and to repeal abusive laws and policies' enacted during the last seven years since the 9/11 attacks in the US.

"Human rights and international humanitarian law provide a strong and flexible framework to address terrorist threats," argued Robinson, who was previously Ireland's president and UN Human Rights Commissioner.