Tag: terrorism

UK Human Rights Report: Current Threats and Government Actions


Monthly report on human rights in the UK

December 2025

Amnesty has for many years, focused its efforts on human rights issues overseas. Recent actions by governments of both persuasions have meant a greater focus on the threats to rights here in the UK. Only this very week, the prime minister and other ministers are in Europe trying to seek agreement to a ‘modernisation’ of the ECHR arguing it is necessary to tackle the immigration ‘crisis’. In this post, we review aspects of our rights which are current or under threat.

Freedom of Expression

The outcome of November’s High Court hearing of the legal challenge mounted by Liberty and Amnesty to the ban on Palestine Action is still pending.  Amnesty’s Director of Communications claims that ‘the Government’s ban is a disproportionate misuse of the UK’s terrorism powers and breaches articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights – which protect freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association.

“We have seen the chilling consequences of this decision across the country – with thousands of arrests in recent months.  These mass arrests, and the silencing that organisations and individuals have felt, is a clear and frightening example of how the UK is misusing overly-broad terrorism laws to suppress free speech. Terrorism powers have never been used against what was previously direct-action protest and if this precedent is allowed to stand, it opens up a bleak future for protest rights in the UK.” 

Amnesty is seriously concerned at reports of the worsening condition of members of the Filton 24 who are on hunger strike after the damage to two aircraft at Brize Norton last year as protest against the Israeli Elbit Systems’ involvement in Gaza. None of the prisoners have been charged under the Terrorism Act but prosecutors have said both offences had a “terrorism connection”.  Amnesty has consistently opposed the use of anti-terrorism powers in these cases claiming they have been used to justify excessively lengthy pre-trial detention and draconian prison conditions.   

Arrest of Britons overseas

Amnesty International is urging the UK Government to develop a clear and consistent approach to the unjust imprisonment of British people overseas, including a new strategy that should include as a minimum:

  • the Government calling for an arbitrarily-detained person’s immediate release (including publicity where requested by the family)
  • pressing for access to a lawyer, a fair trial and medical care where relevant
  • demanding consular access insisting that UK officials be able to attend trials
  • regularly meeting with family members to outline the Government’s overall approach in the case.

The UK Government’s failures on this issue, highlighted in a recent BBC drama and documentary on the case of Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe, continue today.  British nationals, including Ahmed al-Doush, are not receiving the level of diplomatic support required to secure their release.  Ahmed was arrested while on a family holiday in Saudi Arabia in 2024 for social media posts.  The Manchester-based father of four was convicted under terrorism legislation and sentenced to 10 years in prison, later reduced to eight.

The UK Government has failed to advocate for Ahmed, not taking a position on his case, despite being provided by information indicating that his detention is a freedom of expression case.  Amnesty International continue to campaign so that Ahmed can be reunited with his family and urges the UK Government to advocate for his release if he is being held solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression.

Use of Facial Recognition by police

A Government consultation into police use of facial recognition is set to launch imminently.

Liberty has been calling on the Government to follow the example of other countries which have introduced laws around police use of facial recognition technology – and has urged Ministers and police forces to stop expanding its use until those laws are in place.  Alarm has been raised at the finding that faces of children are included on the records of some police forces.

Liberty wants the inclusion of the following safeguards:

  • The independent sign off before facial recognition is used
  • Police to only use facial recognition technology to search for missing persons or victims of abduction, human trafficking and sexual exploitation; to prevent an imminent threat to life or people’s safety; to search for people suspected of committing a serious criminal offence;
  • Watchlists to contain only images strictly relevant to the purposes above;
  • However, Amnesty International wants a global ban on this technology on the grounds that it violates the human right to privacy, it inaccurately targets minorities, especially people of colour and women; it intimidates people from free expression of views;
  • It cites racist bias in examples of the use of mass surveillance technology by US policing of black communities, and also Israeli policing of Palestinians.

Change declared to European Convention on Human Rights

After the UK recently joined Denmark and Italy in pressing for a rethink of aspects of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), especially in relation to migration law, the Council have now taken the first steps to reshape how European courts interpret human rights.  Amid fierce debate over the balance between ECHR and national migration controls, ministers made a joint declaration which will now task 46 foreign ministers with drafting a political declaration to be adopted at the next meeting in May 2026.

The Council oversees the ECHR while its court enforces those rights across 46 member states including all 27 EC countries.  Greater national flexibility is demanded in response to human smuggling, border security and the expulsion of offenders.

Sir Keir Starmer and other heads of state have restated that, while wishing to see some ‘modernisation’ of the Convention, there is no intention of abolishing it.  The move is seen as a response to protest from far-right groups across Europe and ‘uncontrolled’ immigration and the perception that the right to family life inhibits states from deporting convicted foreign criminals.

Human rights groups are raising concerns at the dilution of the original Declaration of Human Rights as non-negotiable, universal and inclusive of all minorities. 

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Human rights laws ‘protecting terrorists’


Previous minister of Defence Ben Wallace protests at the ‘lunacy’ of rules such as ECHR
September 2023

Ben Wallace, the former Defence Secretary, has a piece on the front page of today’s Daily Telegraph (13 September 2023) under the headline “Wallace: Human rights laws protecting terrorists” written by Isabel Oakeshott and Daniel Martin.  The sub heading is “Ex-minister attacks ‘lunacy’ of rules such as the ECHR that block rendition of suspects’. 

He claims that human rights laws including the ECHR have become a serious risk to national security and are thwarting efforts to stop terrorists.  The two main reasons the ex-minister gives are that one, they are unable to kill individuals, usually by drone and two, we are unable to render people across borders or arrest people in countries whose police forces are unacceptable, means that we are more often than not forced into taking lethal action than actually raiding and detaining.  He says we are unable to carry out raids such as the US did to kill Osama bin Laden. 

It is an extraordinary article for a senior politician to have agreed to appear in a national newspaper.  Firstly, it is of a piece with a decade of fairly relentless attacks on the Human Rights Act (HRA) and the various promises to abolish or rewrite it which never seem to appear.  The benefits of the act for ordinary people in their quest of justice against the state does not get a mention. 

But the truly extraordinary part of it is the clear statement about wanting to murder people in a foreign country as a form of foreign policy.  We are quick to condemn foreign states such as Russia who attempted to murder a man in Salisbury for example, but seemingly, it is perfectly OK for us to murder a suspected terrorist in a foreign land.  In any event, how certain are we that the proposed victim is a terrorist and is plotting to carry out an attack here?  Last week, a suspected terrorist escaped Wandsworth prison and stayed away for 4 days with the finest of our security and police forces combing the country for him and with his photo on the front pages of our newspapers. In the events leading up to the Iraq war, our government and their security advisers were telling us that Sadam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons evidence of which was never found.

How certain can we be therefore that an attempt to murder a suspected terrorist in a foreign land would be successful in finding and killing the right person? Terrorist take great pains not to carry mobile phones and regularly move around. What about deaths of family members and possibly children?

There is also the moral point.  We are a member of the UN’s Security Council and as such, we should be promoting the law abiding behaviour in our and other’s international relations.  It is true that this is frequently ignored by a variety of nations, nevertheless, it would be difficult for us to adopt the high moral ground if we go around the world killing suspected terrorists ‘plotting against Briton’.

The article is full of dubious reasoning and bellicosity.  “Somalia may say you can blow up al-Shabab” he writes “because they’re our enemy as well, but if we go in and they surrender, we get told their detention pathway isn’t compliant [with ECHR law]. It’s a ridiculous catch-22 position, which doesn’t reflect the threat”.     

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Increased #terrorthreat


There were announcements by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, and by the Prime Minister last week saying that the terror threat has been raised to ‘severe,’ one down from the highest.  This came about following news that people have been leaving this country to fight for the #IslamicState formerly known as .  Some are said to be returning and having been radicalised, pose an increased threat to this country.

A package of anti-terrorism measures are currently being worked on for presentation to Parliament when it reconvenes.  The decision was taken following advice from the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre.

Governments – and ours is no different – are frequently looking for more powers especially of an intelligence nature.  They want to demonstrate that they care for our safety and it is a way to be seen to take action.  The fact that inaction has been clear in terms of what is going on in Iraq and our policy towards it doesn’t seem to matter: at home new powers are needed and MPs will no doubt airing their views inside and outside the House of Commons.

Are these extra powers really needed?  The government and its agencies already have a huge armoury of powers at their disposal enabling them to intercept messages, phone calls, internet traffic, emails and so forth.  As has been shown, there is too little control being exercised by parliament over this activity and the key committee had little idea of the scale of it.

These proposals, combined with the parallel plans to make people stateless, show that there is a degree of knee-jerk reaction to events in Iraq.

The worry has to be that the proposals will represent a further erosion of our liberties.  Once the new powers are enshrined into law and the terror threat is reduced, will they be removed?  Unlikely on past form and they will have represented a ratcheting up of intrusion into our lives.

Our liberties and freedoms were hard won and we need to be especially vigilant when governments seek to limit or curtail them.  It will be interesting to follow the debate when it happens.

 

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