LONDON – With his nation shaken by last month’s bombings, British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday announced tough new anti-terrorism measures that include shutting down radical mosques and deporting Islamic clerics who preach violence and hate.
The plan is aimed at isolating religious extremists while giving wider powers to British counterterrorism forces in a country increasingly unnerved by militants. The proposals are an indication that the recent attacks on London’s transit system, which killed 52 people on July 7, have forced the government to re-examine the line between civil rights and national security.
“Let no one be in any doubt, the rules of the game are changing,” Blair said. “The rules of the game are changing.”
The prime minister’s 12-point objective is to rid the country of foreign Islamic militants and crush extremist voices that remain. Blair said his government is working on agreements with other nations to guarantee that people Britain would return to the Middle East and Africa would not be tortured or abused. But emphasizing his determination for tougher anti-terror regulations, Blair said he would seek to amend human rights legislation if the courts don’t support his proposals for deportation and banning certain political parties.
Human rights groups and liberal members of Blair’s Labor Party immediately criticized the measures, which also call for making it a crime to “glorify” terrorism and cracking down on Web sites and bookshops peddling militant writings. Opponents said the plan would violate free speech and other civil rights.
“Coming to Britain is not a right,” said Blair. “And even when people have come here, staying here carries with it a duty. That duty is to share and support the values that sustain the British way of life. Those that break that duty and try to incite hatred or engage in violence against our country and its people have no place here.”
Britain and Europe have long been frustrated by religious clerics coming from the Middle East to preach hatred of the West from neighborhood mosques.
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