Trevor Phillips, head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, was on the ‘Today’ program speaking about 42-day detention:
This measure would effectively suspend for [sic] the human rights and in particular they suspend them for one part of the community … The application of these powers would be to Muslims in this country
(This summary quote is provided by the BBC. Listen to the whole segment from the ‘Today’ program and you’ll discover it’s worse than it reads here.)
Dearie me. This would still be a highly irresponsible suggestion if the words were spoken by your window-cleaner; for the head of the EHRC to be pushing such a line is recklessness writ large.
The “application of these powers” would be to terrorist suspects, Trevor. There are a few things we’re not great at in this country, but right now we don’t pass laws to restrict the freedom of any particular race, creed or religious group.
Of course, what Mr. Phillips really means is that he has an inkling that the majority of terrorist suspects are likely to be Muslim, but he doesn’t have the balls to say so.
If 42-day detention is the reprehensible, manifestly unjust proposal that its opponents say it is, why is the bulk of opposing argument utter bilge?
