Tony Blair insists on banning the "glorification of terrorism"
The British House of Commons voted today, by 315 to 277, to overturn a House of Lords amendment to the Terrorism Bill that removed a prohibition of the "glorification of terrorism" from anti-terror legislation.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted on this, arguing against the removal of the "glorification of terrorism" provision, as recommended by the House of Lords, saying, "By weakening our law on terrorism at this time from what is proposed will send the wrong signal out to the outside world. If we take out the word 'glorification' we are sending a massive counter-productive signal. It is a word, I think, that members of the public readily know and understand and juries will understand."
In an article on the
news.telegraph web site, entitled
"Police will act on glorifying terrorism, Blair pledges," by George Jones, Political Editor, published on February 16, 2006, UK time, about the fight in Parliament over this provision, Mr. Jones writes:
"Conservative, Liberal Democrat and rebel Labour MPs had backed human rights campaigners and lawyers who argued that the concept of glorification was too vague and could catch people commemorating
Guy Fawkes or putting up posters of
Che Guevara.
will the film V for Vendetta run afoul of the British law outlawing the "glorification of terrorism"?
The ten-part graphic novel ("comic")
V for Vendetta, written by Alan Moore and illustrated mostly by David Lloyd, has been transformed into a feature film written by Andy and Larry Wachowski, who also wrote the films that comprise the
Matrix Trilogy.
The movie version of
V for Vendetta, produced by Warner Bros., a division of Time Warner, features a rebel terrorist wearing a Guy Fawkes mask seeking the overthrow of a fictional, near-future fascist British Government.
This film, which patently glamorizes (
Natalie Portman is involved) terrorist resistance to an imagined totalitarian British Government, is scheduled to premiere on March 17, 2006.
back in Britain
The British House of Lords needs to approve the "no glorification of terrorism" provision in the British law before it goes into effect.
For commentary from London on this whole question, go to the piece by Philip Johnston, published on the
news.telegraph site on February 16, 2006, UK time, entitled
"Blair sends his tough signal and provides an alibi for failures of the past."
This commentary focuses on the difficulty of defining "glorification" under the law.
According to the article:
"But it not a word that easily translates into law, even if it would seem to be obvious to Mr Blair….Lord Lloyd of Berwick, a former law lord, said it was an 'unusual' offence, unknown in law, that had its origin in a single line in Labour's election manifesto, which read: 'We will introduce new laws to help catch and convict those involved in helping to plan terrorist activity or who glorify or condone acts of terror.'
"While it is a convention that the Lords do not oppose manifesto promises, Lord Lloyd said the problem was that the document did not explain 'how you could create a criminal offence out of something so broad, so vague and so nebulous as the idea of glorification'.
He added: 'It is very difficult to understand at all and almost impossible, one would imagine, for a judge to explain to a jury.'"
will life imitate art?
No word yet if the glorification of terrorism (against a imaginary, future British Government) in the person of the Guy Fawkes mask-wearing protagonist of the Warner Bros. film
V for Vendetta (played by the same actor,
Hugo Weaving, who portrayed "Agent Smith" in the
Matrix films) will become an issue for either the Burbank, California-based movie studio or the London, England-based government of New Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Or, for that matter, about whether the depiction of angry mobs waving signs the text of which could be thought to constitute "glorifications of terrorism," as was the case during recent demonstrations in London that have, in part, given rise to this very legislation, might itself come under the prohibition embedded in this proposed law and prevent the broadcasting, newspaper publication, or podcasting of this kind of news in any form and thereby create a level of censorship similar to that wielded by the imaginary British dictatorship depicted in
V for Vendetta.
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