MPs walk out over terror law
by mahmood on 18/07/06 at 12:19 pm · email · print
Ten MPs stormed out of parliament yesterday in protest after a controversial anti-terrorism law was approved.
They claimed parliament had passed a bill that the people simply did not want.
Political and human rights activists have previously criticised the law, saying it was vague and could be used to try ordinary criminals on terror-related charges.
MPs have made amendments to the government-backed legislation, including reducing sentences and dropping the death penalty for terror-related crimes that did not cause deaths.
Parliament’s foreign affairs, defence and national security committee chairman Ahmed Bahzad defended the bill and said it was considerably different to the one proposed by the government.
“If we carried out further amendments to the law, the government would have certainly withdrawn it immediately,” he told MPs yesterday.
“The law has major differences, with the death penalty being dropped from all but one clause – and that is if there is loss of life through a terrorist act.”
Other clauses originally included the death penalty for terrorist acts in which there was no loss of life.
It applied to the perpetrators and those who had funded, supported or conspired with terrorists.
The committee substituted this with life imprisonment or heavy jail sentences, though they halved the jail sentences for some terrorism-related offences.
Islamic Bloc spokesman Mohammed Al Shaikh, who was one those who stormed out, said the amendments would not make a difference because the whole law was based on assumption.
“People don’t want the law and yet parliament is discussing and voting on it,” he said.
“What is this? Is this the best way to represent the people who have trusted us?”
Others who left were, legislative and legal affairs committee chairman Yousif Zainal and vice-chairman Shaikh Abdulla Al A’ali, financial and economic affairs committee acting chairman Jassim Abdula’al, Islamic Bloc president Ali Al Samaheeji, services committee vice-chairman Mohammed Al Khayat, Fareed Rafee, Abdulnabi Salman, Sameer Al Shuwaikh and Hassan Bukhammas. They later returned to their seats to continue discussions. The law will be now referred to the Shura Council.
GDN :: Mohammed Al-A’ali :: 17 July ’06
Mahmood’s Den · Kill the infidels!
Jul 18th, 2006
[...] While all of this is happening, Palestine, Iraq and virtually the whole Arab world continues to descend into the abyss and tyrants and governments all over are using this period to continue to strangle their own populace while the world news organisations and media are concentrating on hapless Lebanon. [...]