Blair Wins Parliament Vote Criminalizing 'Glorification' of Terror

By ALAN COWELL
The New York Times
February 16, 2006

LONDON, Feb. 15 — After a series of bruising parliamentary duels, Prime Minister Tony Blair secured victory in the House of Commons on Wednesday in a vote to expand counterterrorism laws by making "glorification" of terrorism a criminal offense.

Legislators voted 315 to 277 in a ballot that pitted Mr. Blair's Labor Party against the Conservative and Liberal Democratic opposition. Seventeen Labor dissidents voted against the measure.

Mr. Blair's critics said the vote, one of three crucial parliamentary tests in as many days, was as much a display of political maneuvering as a strengthening of British laws, which already include prohibitions like those used last week to prosecute Abu Hamza al-Masri, a firebrand Muslim cleric. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for soliciting to murder and promoting racial hatred.

Opponents had said the term "glorification" was legally vague and unnecessary. "The existing law is quite adequate to the problem," said Sir Menzies Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats.

But hours before the vote, Mr. Blair insisted in Parliament that "if we take out the word glorification, we are sending a massive counterproductive signal."

Political analysts said Mr. Blair seemed to be positioning himself to argue that the opposition was soft on terrorism. The prime minister, admonishing William Hague, a Conservative opposition leader, said the measure was "absolutely vital if we are to defend this country successfully against the likes of Abu Hamza."

Evoking the terrorist attacks on London's mass transit system last July 7, Charles Clarke, the home secretary, said, "It is the glorification of terror which, in the view of the government, is an essential method for those individuals and organizations who pursue terrorist ambitions and seek to get individuals, like the 7/7 bombers, to commit to their suicidal and destructive ends."

But Mr. Hague accused the government of "ineffective authoritarianism" and called the draft legislation "a press release law designed to catch the headlines."

Mr. Blair announced that he would tighten existing terrorism laws after the July bombings, in which four attackers killed 52 people on the transit system. But there have been several setbacks to his plans.

A proposal to close mosques used by radical imams has been dropped, and a plan to extend the permitted period of detention without charge or trial to 90 days from 14 has been abandoned in favor of 28 days.

Speaking after the vote, Mr. Blair said the new law "will allow us to deal with those people and say: Look, we have free speech in this country, but don't abuse it."

Under British parliamentary procedures, the draft law must go back to the upper House of Lords, which removed the term "glorification" when it first considered the legislation. The upper house could still try to excise the term, provoking a standoff with the House of Commons.

The debate has been sharpened by the trial of Mr. Masri and by protests two weeks ago against drawings of the Prophet Muhammad that were printed in a Danish newspaper.

With a welter of Islamic outrage around the world, a group of Muslim demonstrators on Wednesday converged on the Danish Embassy in London bearing placards including one calling for opponents of Islam to be beheaded. Another praised the July 7 killers as "the fantastic four."

The Wednesday vote followed one on Monday in which the government narrowly won approval for mandatory identity cards and another on Tuesday when Parliament voted to ban smoking in all indoor public places in England.