Downing Street Says » Glorification-Terrorism

Asked that if the Government got its way, and the Bill reached royal assent, would it be retrospective, the PMOS said it tended to be the case that such legislation was not retrospective. The PMOS suggested that the journalist spoke to the Home Office to be sure.

Put that the Prime Minister had mentioned two points in PMQs, one was glorification, and the other was the describing of terror groups, and was there some clarification to be had on that, the PMOS said he had not seen the final transcript of the exchange, so could not comment further on it.

Asked whether on the glorification measure, would it affect people in Belfast who had murals on their houses that "did nothing if not glorified terrorism", the PMOS replied that what the legislation referred to was present terrorism, not past terrorism. In terms of Northern Ireland, as the IMC report said, the IRA leadership were delivering on the strategic intent to end paramilitarism. In those terms, the question therefore did not apply to that side. However, it was often the case that if someone happened to live in an gable-ended terrace house, there was not much choice about whether there was a mural painted on the wall or not. The PMOS said there was also not much choice to be had about who did it, either. The PMOS said it was clearly signalled that the measure referred to present terrorism.

Asked that if someone came in the middle of the night and painted an "Abu Hamza should be free" type mural on a house, would that be glorifying terrorism, the PMOS said that would be a matter for the police to decide.

Put that when the last Terrorism Bill was happening in November, the Prime Minister had said that it was better to be right than to win, and was this still his attitude, the PMOS replied that the Prime Minister hoped that he would win this. He believed that what the events of the last few days had underlined was the need to send a very clear signal that this country would not only not tolerate terrorism, but also, would not tolerate those who encouraged terrorism. Therefore the Prime Minister hoped that nothing would be done which diminished that clear signal.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

» Wednesday, February 8, 2006

Glorification-Terrorism

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries