I’ve often thought that if I was ever to write a piece that displayed overt joy, it would act as a harbinger for an inescapable and cataclysmic chain of worldwide disasters. Not wanting to be responsible for bringing about the end of time in the semester’s last issue, I’ve elected to maintain the wantonly lugubrious tones I’ve subjected you to in my previous articles in my analysis of the curious case of Abu Qatada.

The terror suspect dubbed Osama Bin Laden’s “right hand man in Europe” is about as welcome in Britain as a typhoid epidemic. As well as being accused of “providing a religious justification for acts of terror” in this country, the Jordanian government want to try him on the grave charge of plotting bomb attacks. However, there is a fear he wouldn’t get a fair trial because of the risk of evidence gained from torture being used against him. This possibility was taken into account by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), who upheld his appeal against deportation earlier this month. In this twisted game of pass the parcel, Mr. Qatada has been shunted from court to court, smugly undermining the British legal system and costing the taxpayer £3 million in the process. It’s a deeply frustrating case that has plagued successive home secretaries, angered the public and made some lawyers a bit of pocket money along the way.

Many commentators have questioned why Mr. Qatada isn’t simply tried in an English court- a satisfactory answer to which hasn’t been given I believe. Crucially, he has never been charged with a crime while he has lived here, which suggests the evidence gathered against him has either been obtained illegally or just isn’t strong enough. While many are in agreement that he is a blight on the landscape, he is still a suspect who is innocent until proven guilty. To send Mr. Qatada to Jordan under the circumstances would be a gross breach of the principles the government supposedly embodies; they would descend to the level of states they criticise who violate their citizen’s rights and could end up being complicit in an unethical trial that draws upon evidence derived from torture.

The government’s relationship with human rights is a strange one. David Cameron’s recent arms wheeling and dealing pantomime in the Middle East shows the disgraceful lack of morality in foreign politics. Amnesty International rightly criticised the move, arguing they shouldn’t have been sold unless there were “watertight guarantees over them not being used to commit human rights violations.” However, incumbent Home Secretary Theresa May ironically quoted Article 3 of the Human Rights Act she called to be scrapped last year in her decision not to extradite computer hacker and asperger’s sufferer Gary McKinnon to the USA- a decision met with widespread acclaim. Conversely, she had no problem sending 66 year old retired businessman Chris Tappin to the slavering US authorities who accused him of selling batteries for Iranian surface-to-air missiles. These examples highlight the government’s shameful inconsistencies when dealing with cases involving the potential violation of rights. We can see that when human rights stand in the way of national interest, governments willingly ignore them.

Much like the other Middle Eastern states the Prime Minister fellated, Jordan has an atrocious human rights record; which inevitably contributed to the court’s ruling. The government has been accused by Human Rights Watch of routinely torturing prisoners and despite the passing of constitutional amendments that outlaw these practices, their assurances have failed to reassure the judiciary. That it was a British court that upheld his appeal infuriated right wingers, who couldn’t vomit their bulging banks of venom at the European Court of Human Rights for his return.

This week, LUU has been promoting issues surrounding human rights. It is important to remember that rights are inalienable, indivisible and universal. Everyone is entitled to them, no matter what Tarquin, 34, from Hertfordshire says; and this includes Abu Qatada.

By Rudi Abdallah