Britain's terror laws have left me and my family shattered

I am innocent yet was detained without charge in solitary confinement for
days on end. It was a devastating experience

          o Hicham Yezza
          o The Guardian,
          o Monday August 18 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/18/terrorism.civilliberties

The UN's committee on human rights has just published a report criticising
Britain's anti-terror laws and the resulting curbs on civil liberties. For
many commentators the issues raised are mostly a matter of academic
abstractions and speculative meanderings. For me, it is anything but. These
laws have destroyed my life.

On May 14 I was arrested under section 41 of the Terrorism Act - on
suspicion of the "instigation, preparation and commission of acts of
terrorism": an absurdly nebulous formulation that told me nothing about the
sin I had apparently committed. Once in custody, almost 48 hours passed
before it was confirmed that the entire operation (involving dozens of
officers, police cars, vans, and scientific support agents) was triggered
by the presence on my University of Nottingham office computer of an
equally absurd document called the "al-Qaida Training Manual", a
declassified open-source document that I had never read and had completely
forgotten about since it had been sent to me months before.

Rizwaan Sabir, a politics student friend of mine (who was also arrested),
had downloaded the file from the US justice department website while
conducting research on terrorism for his upcoming PhD. An extended version
of the same document (which figures on the politics department's official
reading list) was also available on Amazon. I edit a political magazine;
Rizwaan regularly sent me copies of research materials he was using, and
this document was one.

Within hours of my incarceration I had lost track of time. I often awoke
thinking I had been asleep for days only to discover it wasn't midnight
yet. My confidence in the competence (and motives) of the police ebbed
away. I found myself shifting my energies from remaining cheerful to
remaining sane. In the early hours, I was often startled by the metallic
toilet seat, crouched in the corner like some sinister beast.

For days on end, I drew cartoons and wrote diary entries in the margins of
Mills and Boon novellas. I spent hours reciting things to myself: names of
Saul Bellow characters, physics Nobel prize winners, John Coltrane albums,
anything to keep the numbness away.

I'm constantly coming across efforts being made to give detention without
charge the Walt Disney treatment: the crushing weight of solitary
confinement is painted as a non-issue; the soul-sapping nothingness of the
claustrophobic, cold cell is portrayed as a mild inconvenience. Make no
mistake: the feeling that one's fate is in the hands of the very people who
are apparently trying to convict you is, without doubt, one of the most
devastating horrors a human being can ever be subjected to. It is (to
misquote Carl von Clausewitz) the continuation of torture by other means.

"Those who have nothing to hide, have nothing to fear," goes the
tautological reasoning of the paranoia merchants calling for harsher, ever
more draconian "security" measures - as we saw throughout the 42-days
debate. They should read Kafka: nothing is more terrifying than being
arrested for something you know you haven't done. Indeed, it is the
innocent who suffers the most because it is the innocent who is tormented
the most. The guilty calculates, triangulates, anticipates. The innocent
doesn't know where to start. The answers and the questions are absolute,
unbreachable, towering conundrums.

I underwent 20 hours of vigorous interrogation while entire days were being
completely wasted by the police micro-examining every detail of my life: my
political activism, my writings, my work in theatre and dance, my love
life, my photography, my cartooning, my magazine subscriptions, my bus
tickets.

Aspects of my life that would have been seen as commendable in others were
suddenly viewed as suspect in my case for no apparent reason other than my
religious and ethnic background. I was guilty of being that strangest of
creatures: a Muslim who reads; who studied engineering yet writes about Bob
Dylan; was a vocal opponent of the Iraq war yet owns all of Christopher
Hitchens' writings; admires Terry Eagleton yet defends Martin Amis;
interviews Kazuo Ishiguro, listens to Leonard Cohen, goes to Radiohead
concerts, all of which became the subject of rather bizarre questioning.

This is not all: outside, lives are shattered, jobs are lost, marriages are
destroyed, minds are damaged, friends and families are traumatised - often
irrevocably so. My parents, whom I wasn't allowed to call, could barely get
any sleep throughout the ordeal. Many of my Muslim university friends were,
and still are, worried about being targeted themselves. For most of my
loved ones, despite my innocence, nothing will ever be the same again. I'm
now jobless, facing destitution and threatened with deportation from the
country I've called home for nearly half my life.

Immense pressure is exerted on law enforcement agencies by their political
mandarins to produce "results": pressure to produce a higher number of
arrests but also the corollary, more dangerous, impulse to justify them at
any cost. Naturally, through a perverted but pervasive circularity in the
logic, lack of evidence becomes the very justification for requesting "more
time". The government claims that checks and balances will ensure
extensions to detention periods are based on verifiable and compelling
arguments. I beg to differ: in my case, the judge was simply bullied by
streams of technospeak until she had no option but to grant extra time.

Fighting terrorism is a serious matter and needs to be tackled in a serious
way - not through empty gimmicks sustained by fear-mongering and alarmist
rhetoric. The real danger is that we are witnessing a slide from the
essential purity of habeas corpus into a Britain where the innocent are
detained until proven guilty.

· Hicham Yezza, an activist and writer, was released without charge after
six days in custody, immediately rearrested on immigration charges and
issued with a removal order to Algeria, after which he was held for a
further 27 days; he is still awaiting a conclusion to his deportation case. 

freehicham.co.uk
-- 
Facts are sacred ... but comment is free

On 18 Aug, 10:58, Robin T Cox  wrote:
> Britain's terror laws have left me and my family shattered
>
> I am innocent yet was detained without charge in solitary confinement for
> days on end. It was a devastating experience
>
>           o Hicham Yezza
>           o The Guardian,
>           o Monday August 18 2008
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/18/terrorism.civilli...
>
> The UN's committee on human rights has just published a report criticising
> Britain's anti-terror laws and the resulting curbs on civil liberties. For
> many commentators the issues raised are mostly a matter of academic
> abstractions and speculative meanderings. For me, it is anything but. These
> laws have destroyed my life.
>
> On May 14 I was arrested under section 41 of the Terrorism Act - on
> suspicion of the "instigation, preparation and commission of acts of
> terrorism": an absurdly nebulous formulation that told me nothing about the
> sin I had apparently committed. Once in custody, almost 48 hours passed
> before it was confirmed that the entire operation (involving dozens of
> officers, police cars, vans, and scientific support agents) was triggered
> by the presence on my University of Nottingham office computer of an
> equally absurd document called the "al-Qaida Training Manual", a
> declassified open-source document that I had never read and had completely
> forgotten about since it had been sent to me months before.
>
> Rizwaan Sabir, a politics student friend of mine (who was also arrested),
> had downloaded the file from the US justice department website while
> conducting research on terrorism for his upcoming PhD. An extended version
> of the same document (which figures on the politics department's official
> reading list) was also available on Amazon. I edit a political magazine;
> Rizwaan regularly sent me copies of research materials he was using, and
> this document was one.
>
> Within hours of my incarceration I had lost track of time. I often awoke
> thinking I had been asleep for days only to discover it wasn't midnight
> yet. My confidence in the competence (and motives) of the police ebbed
> away. I found myself shifting my energies from remaining cheerful to
> remaining sane. In the early hours, I was often startled by the metallic
> toilet seat, crouched in the corner like some sinister beast.
>
> For days on end, I drew cartoons and wrote diary entries in the margins of
> Mills and Boon novellas. I spent hours reciting things to myself: names of
> Saul Bellow characters, physics Nobel prize winners, John Coltrane albums> anything to keep the numbness away.
>
> I'm constantly coming across efforts being made to give detention without
> charge the Walt Disney treatment: the crushing weight of solitary
> confinement is painted as a non-issue; the soul-sapping nothingness of the
> claustrophobic, cold cell is portrayed as a mild inconvenience. Make no
> mistake: the feeling that one's fate is in the hands of the very people who
> are apparently trying to convict you is, without doubt, one of the most
> devastating horrors a human being can ever be subjected to. It is (to
> misquote Carl von Clausewitz) the continuation of torture by other means.
>
> "Those who have nothing to hide, have nothing to fear," goes the
> tautological reasoning of the paranoia merchants calling for harsher, ever
> more draconian "security" measures - as we saw throughout the 42-days
> debate. They should read Kafka: nothing is more terrifying than being
> arrested for something you know you haven't done. Indeed, it is the
> innocent who suffers the most because it is the innocent who is tormented
> the most. The guilty calculates, triangulates, anticipates. The innocent
> doesn't know where to start. The answers and the questions are absolute,
> unbreachable, towering conundrums.
>
> I underwent 20 hours of vigorous interrogation while entire days were being
> completely wasted by the police micro-examining every detail of my life: my
> political activism, my writings, my work in theatre and dance, my love
> life, my photography, my cartooning, my magazine subscriptions, my bus
> tickets.
>
> Aspects of my life that would have been seen as commendable in others were
> suddenly viewed as suspect in my case for no apparent reason other than my
> religious and ethnic background. I was guilty of being that strangest of
> creatures: a Muslim who reads; who studied engineering yet writes about Bob
> Dylan; was a vocal opponent of the Iraq war yet owns all of Christopher
> Hitchens' writings; admires Terry Eagleton yet defends Martin Amis;
> interviews Kazuo Ishiguro, listens to Leonard Cohen, goes to Radiohead
> concerts, all of which became the subject of rather bizarre questioning.
>
> This is not all: outside, lives are shattered, jobs are lost, marriages are
> destroyed, minds are damaged, friends and families are traumatised - often
> irrevocably so. My parents, whom I wasn't allowed to call, could barely get
> any sleep throughout the ordeal. Many of my Muslim university friends were,
> and still are, worried about being targeted themselves. For most of my
> loved ones, despite my innocence, nothing will ever be the same again. I'm
> now jobless, facing destitution and threatened with deportation from the
> country I've called home for nearly half my life.
>
> Immense pressure is exerted on law enforcement agencies by their political
> mandarins to produce "results": pressure to produce a higher number of
> arrests but also the corollary, more dangerous, impulse to justify them at
> any cost. Naturally, through a perverted but pervasive circularity in the
> logic, lack of evidence becomes the very justification for requesting "more
> time". The government claims that checks and balances will ensure
> extensions to detention periods are based on verifiable and compelling
> arguments. I beg to differ: in my case, the judge was simply bullied by
> streams of technospeak until she had no option but to grant extra time.
>
> Fighting terrorism is a serious matter and needs to be tackled in a serious
> way - not through empty gimmicks sustained by fear-mongering and alarmist
> rhetoric. The real danger is that we are witnessing a slide from the
> essential purity of habeas corpus into a Britain where the innocent are
> detained until proven guilty.
>
> · Hicham Yezza, an activist and writer, was released without charge after
> six days in custody, immediately rearrested on immigration charges and
> issued with a removal order to Algeria, after which he was held for a
> further 27 days; he is still awaiting a conclusion to his deportation case.

However rotten this chap got treaty he should think himself lucky that
he was not hauled in
for non payment of council tax. Recently, a pensioner who was an 2nd
WW veteran
got incarcerated for 28 days. He was not allowed any legal
representation under the legal aid scheme,
no fair trial, no jury, and no appeal. Myself, I am waiting for a
responce from the Local council legal
department after i questioned the validity of a Council tax bill, but
they seemed to have gone quiet the last 5 months
after I sent them a notice asking them to refute my claims by legal
affidavit under commercial liability, that a council tax
bill is covered by the bills of exchange act and has to be signed for
it to be valid.

Jonah
>
> freehicham.co.uk
> --
> Facts are sacred ... but comment is free

wrote in message 
news:af95b1c3-c16a-41a1-adef-08abcbf490df@p25g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
On 18 Aug, 10:58, Robin T Cox  wrote:
> Britain's terror laws have left me and my family shattered
>
> I am innocent yet was detained without charge in solitary confinement for
> days on end. It was a devastating experience
>
> o Hicham Yezza
> o The Guardian,
> o Monday August 18 2008
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/18/terrorism.civilli...
>
> The UN's committee on human rights has just published a report criticising
> Britain's anti-terror laws and the resulting curbs on civil liberties. For
> many commentators the issues raised are mostly a matter of academic
> abstractions and speculative meanderings. For me, it is anything but. 
> These
> laws have destroyed my life.
>
> On May 14 I was arrested under section 41 of the Terrorism Act - on
> suspicion of the "instigation, preparation and commission of acts of
> terrorism": an absurdly nebulous formulation that told me nothing about 
> the
> sin I had apparently committed. Once in custody, almost 48 hours passed
> before it was confirmed that the entire operation (involving dozens of
> officers, police cars, vans, and scientific support agents) was triggered
> by the presence on my University of Nottingham office computer of an
> equally absurd document called the "al-Qaida Training Manual", a
> declassified open-source document that I had never read and had completely
> forgotten about since it had been sent to me months before.
>
> Rizwaan Sabir, a politics student friend of mine (who was also arrested),
> had downloaded the file from the US justice department website while
> conducting research on terrorism for his upcoming PhD. An extended version
> of the same document (which figures on the politics department's official
> reading list) was also available on Amazon. I edit a political magazine;
> Rizwaan regularly sent me copies of research materials he was using, and
> this document was one.
>
> Within hours of my incarceration I had lost track of time. I often awoke
> thinking I had been asleep for days only to discover it wasn't midnight
> yet. My confidence in the competence (and motives) of the police ebbed
> away. I found myself shifting my energies from remaining cheerful to
> remaining sane. In the early hours, I was often startled by the metallic
> toilet seat, crouched in the corner like some sinister beast.
>
> For days on end, I drew cartoons and wrote diary entries in the margins of
> Mills and Boon novellas. I spent hours reciting things to myself: names of
> Saul Bellow characters, physics Nobel prize winners, John Coltrane albums,
> anything to keep the numbness away.
>
> I'm constantly coming across efforts being made to give detention without
> charge the Walt Disney treatment: the crushing weight of solitary
> confinement is painted as a non-issue; the soul-sapping nothingness of the
> claustrophobic, cold cell is portrayed as a mild inconvenience. Make no
> mistake: the feeling that one's fate is in the hands of the very people 
> who
> are apparently trying to convict you is, without doubt, one of the most
> devastating horrors a human being can ever be subjected to. It is (to
> misquote Carl von Clausewitz) the continuation of torture by other means.
>
> "Those who have nothing to hide, have nothing to fear," goes the
> tautological reasoning of the paranoia merchants calling for harsher, ever
> more draconian "security" measures - as we saw throughout the 42-days
> debate. They should read Kafka: nothing is more terrifying than being
> arrested for something you know you haven't done. Indeed, it is the
> innocent who suffers the most because it is the innocent who is tormented
> the most. The guilty calculates, triangulates, anticipates. The innocent
> doesn't know where to start. The answers and the questions are absolute,
> unbreachable, towering conundrums.
>
> I underwent 20 hours of vigorous interrogation while entire days were 
> being
> completely wasted by the police micro-examining every detail of my life: 
> my
> political activism, my writings, my work in theatre and dance, my love
> life, my photography, my cartooning, my magazine subscriptions, my bus
> tickets.
>
> Aspects of my life that would have been seen as commendable in others were
> suddenly viewed as suspect in my case for no apparent reason other than my
> religious and ethnic background. I was guilty of being that strangest of
> creatures: a Muslim who reads; who studied engineering yet writes about 
> Bob
> Dylan; was a vocal opponent of the Iraq war yet owns all of Christopher
> Hitchens' writings; admires Terry Eagleton yet defends Martin Amis;
> interviews Kazuo Ishiguro, listens to Leonard Cohen, goes to Radiohead
> concerts, all of which became the subject of rather bizarre questioning.
>
> This is not all: outside, lives are shattered, jobs are lost, marriages 
> are
> destroyed, minds are damaged, friends and families are traumatised - often
> irrevocably so. My parents, whom I wasn't allowed to call, could barely 
> get
> any sleep throughout the ordeal. Many of my Muslim university friends 
> were,
> and still are, worried about being targeted themselves. For most of my
> loved ones, despite my innocence, nothing will ever be the same again. I'm
> now jobless, facing destitution and threatened with deportation from the
> country I've called home for nearly half my life.
>
> Immense pressure is exerted on law enforcement agencies by their political
> mandarins to produce "results": pressure to produce a higher number of
> arrests but also the corollary, more dangerous, impulse to justify them at
> any cost. Naturally, through a perverted but pervasive circularity in the
> logic, lack of evidence becomes the very justification for requesting 
> "more
> time". The government claims that checks and balances will ensure
> extensions to detention periods are based on verifiable and compelling
> arguments. I beg to differ: in my case, the judge was simply bullied by
> streams of technospeak until she had no option but to grant extra time.
>
> Fighting terrorism is a serious matter and needs to be tackled in a 
> serious
> way - not through empty gimmicks sustained by fear-mongering and alarmist
> rhetoric. The real danger is that we are witnessing a slide from the
> essential purity of habeas corpus into a Britain where the innocent are
> detained until proven guilty.
>
> · Hicham Yezza, an activist and writer, was released without charge after
> six days in custody, immediately rearrested on immigration charges and
> issued with a removal order to Algeria, after which he was held for a
> further 27 days; he is still awaiting a conclusion to his deportation 
> case.

However rotten this chap got treaty he should think himself lucky that
he was not hauled in
for non payment of council tax. Recently, a pensioner who was an 2nd
WW veteran
got incarcerated for 28 days. He was not allowed any legal
representation under the legal aid scheme,
no fair trial, no jury, and no appeal. Myself, I am waiting for a
responce from the Local council legal
department after i questioned the validity of a Council tax bill, but
they seemed to have gone quiet the last 5 months
after I sent them a notice asking them to refute my claims by legal
affidavit under commercial liability, that a council tax
bill is covered by the bills of exchange act and has to be signed for
it to be valid.

Jonah
>

Fucking hell Jonah, but you are living dangerously near the edge! 
Questioning the validity of a Council Tax Bill, eh? I can only hope that you 
have the poison capsule ready when they come for you in the middle of the 
night.

On 18 Aug, 12:29, "Bill Again"  wrote:
>  wrote in message
>
> news:af95b1c3-c16a-41a1-adef-08abcbf490df@p25g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> On 18 Aug, 10:58, Robin T Cox  wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Britain's terror laws have left me and my family shattered
>
> > I am innocent yet was detained without charge in solitary confinement for
> > days on end. It was a devastating experience
>
> > o Hicham Yezza
> > o The Guardian,
> > o Monday August 18 2008
>
> >http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/18/terrorism.civilli...
>
> > The UN's committee on human rights has just published a report criticising
> > Britain's anti-terror laws and the resulting curbs on civil liberties. For
> > many commentators the issues raised are mostly a matter of academic
> > abstractions and speculative meanderings. For me, it is anything but.
> > These
> > laws have destroyed my life.
>
> > On May 14 I was arrested under section 41 of the Terrorism Act - on
> > suspicion of the "instigation, preparation and commission of acts of
> > terrorism": an absurdly nebulous formulation that told me nothing about
> > the
> > sin I had apparently committed. Once in custody, almost 48 hours passed
> > before it was confirmed that the entire operation (involving dozens of
> > officers, police cars, vans, and scientific support agents) was triggered
> > by the presence on my University of Nottingham office computer of an
> > equally absurd document called the "al-Qaida Training Manual", a
> > declassified open-source document that I had never read and had completely
> > forgotten about since it had been sent to me months before.
>
> > Rizwaan Sabir, a politics student friend of mine (who was also arrested> > had downloaded the file from the US justice department website while
> > conducting research on terrorism for his upcoming PhD. An extended version
> > of the same document (which figures on the politics department's official
> > reading list) was also available on Amazon. I edit a political magazine> > Rizwaan regularly sent me copies of research materials he was using, and
> > this document was one.
>
> > Within hours of my incarceration I had lost track of time. I often awoke
> > thinking I had been asleep for days only to discover it wasn't midnight
> > yet. My confidence in the competence (and motives) of the police ebbed
> > away. I found myself shifting my energies from remaining cheerful to
> > remaining sane. In the early hours, I was often startled by the metallic
> > toilet seat, crouched in the corner like some sinister beast.
>
> > For days on end, I drew cartoons and wrote diary entries in the margins of
> > Mills and Boon novellas. I spent hours reciting things to myself: names of
> > Saul Bellow characters, physics Nobel prize winners, John Coltrane albums,
> > anything to keep the numbness away.
>
> > I'm constantly coming across efforts being made to give detention without
> > charge the Walt Disney treatment: the crushing weight of solitary
> > confinement is painted as a non-issue; the soul-sapping nothingness of the
> > claustrophobic, cold cell is portrayed as a mild inconvenience. Make no
> > mistake: the feeling that one's fate is in the hands of the very people
> > who
> > are apparently trying to convict you is, without doubt, one of the most
> > devastating horrors a human being can ever be subjected to. It is (to
> > misquote Carl von Clausewitz) the continuation of torture by other means.
>
> > "Those who have nothing to hide, have nothing to fear," goes the
> > tautological reasoning of the paranoia merchants calling for harsher, ever
> > more draconian "security" measures - as we saw throughout the 42-days
> > debate. They should read Kafka: nothing is more terrifying than being
> > arrested for something you know you haven't done. Indeed, it is the
> > innocent who suffers the most because it is the innocent who is tormented
> > the most. The guilty calculates, triangulates, anticipates. The innocent
> > doesn't know where to start. The answers and the questions are absolute> > unbreachable, towering conundrums.
>
> > I underwent 20 hours of vigorous interrogation while entire days were
> > being
> > completely wasted by the police micro-examining every detail of my life> > my
> > political activism, my writings, my work in theatre and dance, my love
> > life, my photography, my cartooning, my magazine subscriptions, my bus
> > tickets.
>
> > Aspects of my life that would have been seen as commendable in others were
> > suddenly viewed as suspect in my case for no apparent reason other than my
> > religious and ethnic background. I was guilty of being that strangest of
> > creatures: a Muslim who reads; who studied engineering yet writes about
> > Bob
> > Dylan; was a vocal opponent of the Iraq war yet owns all of Christopher
> > Hitchens' writings; admires Terry Eagleton yet defends Martin Amis;
> > interviews Kazuo Ishiguro, listens to Leonard Cohen, goes to Radiohead
> > concerts, all of which became the subject of rather bizarre questioning> > This is not all: outside, lives are shattered, jobs are lost, marriages
> > are
> > destroyed, minds are damaged, friends and families are traumatised - often
> > irrevocably so. My parents, whom I wasn't allowed to call, could barely
> > get
> > any sleep throughout the ordeal. Many of my Muslim university friends
> > were,
> > and still are, worried about being targeted themselves. For most of my
> > loved ones, despite my innocence, nothing will ever be the same again. I'm
> > now jobless, facing destitution and threatened with deportation from the
> > country I've called home for nearly half my life.
>
> > Immense pressure is exerted on law enforcement agencies by their political
> > mandarins to produce "results": pressure to produce a higher number of
> > arrests but also the corollary, more dangerous, impulse to justify them at
> > any cost. Naturally, through a perverted but pervasive circularity in the
> > logic, lack of evidence becomes the very justification for requesting
> > "more
> > time". The government claims that checks and balances will ensure
> > extensions to detention periods are based on verifiable and compelling
> > arguments. I beg to differ: in my case, the judge was simply bullied by
> > streams of technospeak until she had no option but to grant extra time.
>
> > Fighting terrorism is a serious matter and needs to be tackled in a
> > serious
> > way - not through empty gimmicks sustained by fear-mongering and alarmist
> > rhetoric. The real danger is that we are witnessing a slide from the
> > essential purity of habeas corpus into a Britain where the innocent are
> > detained until proven guilty.
>
> > · Hicham Yezza, an activist and writer, was released without charge after
> > six days in custody, immediately rearrested on immigration charges and
> > issued with a removal order to Algeria, after which he was held for a
> > further 27 days; he is still awaiting a conclusion to his deportation
> > case.
>
> However rotten this chap got treaty he should think himself lucky that
> he was not hauled in
> for non payment of council tax. Recently, a pensioner who was an 2nd
> WW veteran
> got incarcerated for 28 days. He was not allowed any legal
> representation under the legal aid scheme,
> no fair trial, no jury, and no appeal. Myself, I am waiting for a
> responce from the Local council legal
> department after i questioned the validity of a Council tax bill, but
> they seemed to have gone quiet the last 5 months
> after I sent them a notice asking them to refute my claims by legal
> affidavit under commercial liability, that a council tax
> bill is covered by the bills of exchange act and has to be signed for
> it to be valid.
>
> Jonah
>
>
>
> Fucking hell Jonah, but you are living dangerously near the edge!
.

> Questioning the validity of a Council Tax Bill, eh? I can only hope that you
> have the poison capsule ready when they come for you in the middle of the
> night.

You miss the point. I want them to come for me in the middle of the
night, then I can claim that
their actions have left me and my family shattered. Then just like
your foreign muslim hero's
I can then use the human rights act to get compensation.


Jonah






- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

wrote in message 
news:0455c650-2040-48b3-8bc1-035b6e331bd6@f63g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
On 18 Aug, 12:29, "Bill Again"  wrote:
>  wrote in message
>

big snip

>
>
>
> Fucking hell Jonah, but you are living dangerously near the edge!
.

> Questioning the validity of a Council Tax Bill, eh? I can only hope that 
> you
> have the poison capsule ready when they come for you in the middle of the
> night.

You miss the point. I want them to come for me in the middle of the
night, then I can claim that
their actions have left me and my family shattered. Then just like
your foreign muslim hero's
I can then use the human rights act to get compensation.


Jonah




So, as I suspected, your major motivation is simply jealousy.  I don't think 
that anyone much would bother coming for you during the late afternoon, let 
alone in the night.

On 18 Aug, 15:06, "Bill Again"  wrote:
>  wrote in message
>
> news:0455c650-2040-48b3-8bc1-035b6e331bd6@f63g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> On 18 Aug, 12:29, "Bill Again"  wrote:
>
> >  wrote in message
>
> big snip
>
>
>
> > Fucking hell Jonah, but you are living dangerously near the edge!
>
> .
>
> > Questioning the validity of a Council Tax Bill, eh? I can only hope that
> > you
> > have the poison capsule ready when they come for you in the middle of the
> > night.
>
> You miss the point. I want them to come for me in the middle of the
> night, then I can claim that
> their actions have left me and my family shattered. Then just like
> your foreign muslim hero's
> I can then use the human rights act to get compensation.
>
> Jonah
>
> So, as I suspected, your major motivation is simply jealousy.

How's that, jealous of what?

 I don't think
> that anyone much would bother coming for you during the late afternoon, let
> alone in the night.

So what if they don't. They would be just Losers anyway

wrote in message 
news:af95b1c3-c16a-41a1-adef-08abcbf490df@p25g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
On 18 Aug, 10:58, Robin T Cox  wrote:
<snipped>
However rotten this chap got treaty he should think himself lucky that
he was not hauled in
for non payment of council tax. Recently, a pensioner who was an 2nd
WW veteran
got incarcerated for 28 days.

Reply:    the reason why OAP's get slung in jail for non-payment of council 
tax is usually that they have no income other than a pension, and the 
council cannot get an attachment of earnings order on a pension.  So the 
last sanction (imprisonment) becomes in effect the first sanction for them.


He was not allowed any legal
representation under the legal aid scheme,
no fair trial, no jury, and no appeal.

Reply:     He may not have qualified for legal aid, but then either he'd 
paid his tax or he hadn't.  No much room for legal manoeuvring.   A jury 
isn't applicable, since it's not a criminal matter.


Myself, I am waiting for a
responce from the Local council legal
department after i questioned the validity of a Council tax bill, but
they seemed to have gone quiet the last 5 months
after I sent them a notice asking them to refute my claims by legal
affidavit under commercial liability,

Reply:   What a load of bollocks.  This seems to be an American legal term, 
though maybe it occurs in English/Scottish law too?  If you haven't paid 
your council tax for 5 months, you'd likely be receiving a visit from a 
bailiff by now LOL


that a council tax
bill is covered by the bills of exchange act and has to be signed for
it to be valid.

Reply:   A council tax bill isn't a bill of exchange but a tax payment 
demand.  Just because it's called a "bill" doesn't mean it's a bill or 
invoice - it's just a matter of conventional terminalogy.
But what the heck - if you want to have loads of problems, legal fees and 
whatever, and STILL have to paid the council tax,  good on you.

On 18 Aug, 18:06, "Richard" <(none)> wrote:
>  wrote in message
>
> news:af95b1c3-c16a-41a1-adef-08abcbf490df@p25g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> On 18 Aug, 10:58, Robin T Cox  wrote:
> <snipped>
> However rotten this chap got treaty he should think himself lucky that
> he was not hauled in
> for non payment of council tax. Recently, a pensioner who was an 2nd
> WW veteran
> got incarcerated for 28 days.
>
> Reply:    the reason why OAP's get slung in jail for non-payment of council
> tax is usually that they have no income other than a pension, and the
> council cannot get an attachment of earnings order on a pension.  So the
> last sanction (imprisonment) becomes in effect the first sanction for them.
>
> He was not allowed any legal
> representation under the legal aid scheme,
> no fair trial, no jury, and no appeal.
>
> Reply:     He may not have qualified for legal aid, but then either he'd
> paid his tax or he hadn't.  No much room for legal manoeuvring.   A jury
> isn't applicable, since it's not a criminal matter.
>
> Myself, I am waiting for a
> responce from the Local council legal
> department after i questioned the validity of a Council tax bill, but
> they seemed to have gone quiet the last 5 months
> after I sent them a notice asking them to refute my claims by legal
> affidavit under commercial liability,
>
> Reply:   What a load of bollocks.  This seems to be an American legal term,
> though maybe it occurs in English/Scottish law too?  If you haven't paid
> your council tax for 5 months, you'd likely be receiving a visit from a
> bailiff by now LOL
>
> that a council tax
> bill is covered by the bills of exchange act and has to be signed for
> it to be valid.
>
> Reply:   A council tax bill isn't a bill of exchange but a tax payment
> demand.  Just because it's called a "bill" doesn't mean it's a bill or
> invoice - it's just a matter of conventional terminalogy.
> But what the heck - if you want to have loads of problems, legal fees and
> whatever, and STILL have to paid the council tax,  good on you.

When i wrote to the council legal departmet  I wrote  to someone who
is  a member of the Law society, so
don't try to think you know anything about the Law. You know jack
shit. If i'm supposed ro listen to
your advice then I might as well listen to a rock in my garden. If
someone from the law society write to me and
give an opinion then I'll listen. As for you, you are a nobody.

Jonah