Dangerous times

If I asked a group of people what they are frightened of, I would get a wide range of answers; some people would say spiders, someone might say crime, another something totally random. I want to ask you one very important question, have you ever been frightened of your government? The answer, unless you have lived under a dictator would probably be no.

You might think this is a strange question and sounds rather extreme, and you might say the title of my posting is a little over the top. I want to tell you this, what I am about to write is something that we should all be concerned about, and, may I even say fearful about as well.

I have written about the EU on a few occasions and I have looked at a number of things that concern me about it, but what bothers me most is; the corruption, the total lack of scrutiny, accountability and democracy. So let me explain what I am talking about, firstly the EU brought into law what is called The European Arrest Warrant (EAW) in January 2004, and the British Government with very little scrutiny agreed to it.

Under the EAW extradition of a British subject becomes a mere bureaucratic formality. Under the EAW there are 32 categories of offence. Some are not even specific offences under English law. The reason for introducing this law was under the pretext of fighting terrorism, as you can imagine no terrorist subjects have been extradited. Since 2004 over 1,100 people have been extradited from the UK. Most were foreign citizens being returned to their own countries, over 100 were British citizens. You might say what is wrong with this, if they have committed crimes in a foreign country they should stand trial, but let me explain this, unlike our system the European judicial system is different because you are guilty until proven innocent.

Andrew Symeou a 19 year London man was accused of manslaughter in Greece, before being extradited to Greece he went to the Appeal Court in London and it was clear that there was no case to answer and the evidence was fabricated, but they were powerless to do anything to stop it and he was extradited. He spent 11 months in the hellhole prison of Korydallos, a prison cited by Amnesty International as one of the worst in the world for its inhumane conditions. He was eventually given bail and still awaits trial.

On the 27th July the Coalition Government announced that it was opting into the European Investigation Order. This means any EU member state can investigate you even if an alleged offence is not a criminal matter in the UK. This is one more step towards total integration of all European states.

The next step on the agenda is that of Trials in Absentia. Under an EU Framework Decision Trials in Absentia must be transposed into UK law by 2011, or 2014 at the latest. This will mean that a British citizen can be tried in their absence in another EU country and if found guilty the British police will have to arrest them so they can be dispatched to imprisonment in the state concerned.

You cannot argue against it or appeal against it, so imagine travelling to Bulgaria or Romania and unknown to you, you are accused of something. The man who accused you of a crime goes to court, on his evidence you are convicted and sentenced and there isn't anything you or the British Government can do to stop you being extradited, no appeal, no nothing. You might think I am picking on the Romanians and Bulgarians, it is widely accepted that these countries are institutionally corrupt and their Governments are largely in the hands of organised crime. As you can imagine their judicial and legal systems are not up to the standard of ours. But never mind they are members of the EU and have signed up to the European Convention on Human rights so far as our Government is concerned everything is OK.

We now have situated in Hampshire a European Police College, to train senior European law enforcement officers. The new Director of the College is a Hungarian called Mr Ferenc Banfi. He reportedly wants to see a European-wide FBI style police force.

Mr Banfi was a member of the Hungarian Communist Party and a policeman under their murderous communist regime. Speaking of Europol (the European police force) he said "It is only a question of time before Europol will have executive powers; it might take five or ten years but it will happen". Europol doesn't yet have powers to arrest anyone directly but Mr Banfi thinks they soon will, I think we should pay attention to this. Under Europol's legal basis its officers have almost complete immunity from anything they do or say in the course of their duties. A privilege not even extended to the Soviet Union's NKVD during the height of Stalin's terror.

You may argue that all this doesn't really matter as long as you don't commit any crime, but don't be too sure, many people in communist states committed no crime but were arrested just for speaking out. You might think I am exaggerating, if you do not believe me, contact you local MEP or Google all I have talked about, and you will quickly realise that we are truly living in dangerous times.