HomeWill the upcoming pan-European arrest warrant stifle Muftis and Imams in the EU. The new laws will come into effect January 01, 2004 and it appears that they are tough. If I understand the laws correctly acts of xenophobia will carry a prison term of up to 3 years( my understanding is that it was originally going to carry a 2 year sentence but it was upped to 3) and it’s going to be up to the accused to prove that they didn’t engage in anti Semitic acts.
If the enforcement is unilateral then I foresee an EU with prisons bulging with Radical Islamic Fundamentalist and skinheads (I hope they make good company).
I imagine that all the various websites originating in the EU will quickly disappear and the ones that have the server elsewhere will likely also be banned.
Snips:
…The new plans define racism and xenophobia as aversion to individuals based on "race, colour, descent, religion or believe, national or ethnic origin. The offences covered by this proposal include public incitement to violence or hatred for racist or xenophobic reasons, and directing, supporting or participating in the activities of a racist or xenophobic group. For these conducts, a "minimum maximum" penalty of two years is proposed. The public dissemination of racist material by any means, including the Internet, must also be regarded as a criminal offence. (EUobserver.com 29/11/01 and EU press release 28 November 2001)…
...Now that the Prime Minister has signed up to the European arrest warrant (The European arrest warrant will come into force on 1 January 2004) it will soon be possible to be arrested for acts that are not illegal in Britain but are outlawed in another EU state, and then be extradited to face trial abroad in a country with no legal aid that does not give bail to foreigners. As with all EU legislative proposals, the arrest warrant did not have to be voted on by Parliament first...
Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom decided on Thursday to introduce the EU arrest warrant one year earlier than announced. During an informal meeting of EU justice and home affairs ministers in Spain, the six countries announced they would introduce the EU arrest warrant as of 1 January 2003. The six countries' governments are set to draw up a list of legal changes they have to apply before the end of the year, so as to allow the law on an EU arrest warrant to enter into force. According to the Spanish justice minister Angel Acebes, it is even possible that some countries out of the six apply the mandate before the end of the year. The European commissioner for justice and home affairs, Antonio Vittorino, welcomed the decision, saying this showed "discussions about a common justice zone are not just rhetoric" (Euobserver.com 14.02.2002)
The events of Sept. 11 were shamefully used as an excuse to implement a measure European bureaucrats had been seeking for years -- the pan-European arrest warrant. This measure permits a public authority in any one member-nation of the European Union to issue a warrant for the arrest of a person in any other member-nation, and have them extradited to face trial for crimes whether or not the act in question was a crime in the nation where the person was arrested. Furthermore, the extradition is automatic -- there is no chance for a hearing to determine the validity of the charge. This development is alarming for several reasons. Most particularly, it erases the critical protection of habeas corpus from British law for persons accused under this system. English, or common, law and Continental law are fundamentally different. Since medieval times, English law has required that an arrested person be taken promptly before a judge, where the authorities must make a reasonable case that the person has actually committed a crime. The onus is on the government to demonstrate there are good reasons for arresting and trying him. The accused has the right to reasonable bail, unless the government can prove that it should be denied. In contrast, in Continental, or civil law systems, a person can be held for long periods of time before charges need be filed, and the onus is on the accused to prove his innocence. The simple provisions of common law have been an effective and powerful constraint on executive, prosecutorial and police misconduct in England, and subsequently in America and the rest of the common-law world, for centuries. They still are today. In contrast, throughout that time period, civil law states in Europe and their former colonies, such as Latin America, have frequently suffered abuse of executive and police powers. The European Union is constantly manufacturing "rights" in the sense of various benefits their governments must tax and regulate their citizens to provide. These include things like the "right" to a full night's sleep, which recently seemed to threaten the abolition of overnight flights in Europe. Yet in pursuit of such "rights" they seem intent on eradicating the most effective set of real rights humankind has known. The British and Irish now face the prospect of being dragged from their own soil without a hearing to face trials without juries or presumption of innocence for violation of laws made by foreign parliaments, for acts which are not crimes in their own lands. This effectively makes the least democratic European state the legislator for all the rest. Ironically, the Europeanists deny that they seek a centralized European superstate. Yet even after 200 years of federal union, American states continue to retain the power to protect their citizens from arbitrary extradition to other states. No person can be extradited from one American state to another to stand trial for a charge that only exists in the other state. Yet Europeans are now losing this protection. (Anglosphere Beat WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 UPI)…
http://www.kc3.co.uk/~dt/CorpusJuris.htm
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