Terrorize your lyrics – Suspended sentence for Samina Malik

Suspended sentence for the ‘lyrical terrorist’ – Independent Online Edition > Crime

The Crown Prosecution Service said: “Samina Malik was not prosecuted for writing poetry. She was convicted of collecting information, without reasonable excuse, of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

“She claimed in her defence that she was ‘a lyrical terrorist’ who wrote poetry which ‘did not mean anything’, but this was rejected by the jury.”

Another blow for civil liberties

This case shows the increasing encroachment of the criminal law on civil liberties since 9/11 and 7/7.

Salima Malik’s conviction was secured under the widely drawn Terrorism Act 2000 which makes it an offence to be in possession of written material likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

But in describing her actions as on the margin of the criminal law the judge appeared to be signalling that Labour’s anti-terror laws trod a very fine line between protecting the public from terrorism and curbing the right to freedom of expression.

Her conviction has been seized on by civil libertarians, who have complained that Labour has brought in a number of offences that amount to a threat to the rights of free expression.

Liberty, the human rights group, says free speech is a victim of the war on terror, with offences of “encouragement” and “glorification” of terrorism threatening to make careless talk a crime.

Robert Verkaik, Law Editor

Today several weblogs have the Samina Malik day in order to stand up for free speech in general and her case in particular. See here and here and also here for an earlier post of mine on this issue.