Amnesty International debates terrorism and human rights

Over 50 Warwick students attended a debate hosted by Amnesty International on the topic of human rights and terrorism last Wednesday, 2 February.

The two guest speakers invited to the event were Anthony Glees, a right wing academic and expert on terrorism, currently head of the Buckingham University Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, and Richard Aldrich, professor of International Security at Warwick University.

The debate covered a wide range of varying topics but principally focused on control orders, extraordinary rendition and the role of faith groups on campus. The event enabled students to put their own questions to the speakers about civil liberties and terrorism.

Unsurprisingly, the issues were hotly contested. When it came to the subject of control orders, Anthony Glees was very much in favour of them being continued. He took the utilitarian perspective that such control orders are a necessary measure to ensure the security of the majority of the population. This was refuted by Richard Aldrich who argued that control orders were not the best way of protecting the population and instead the security services should take on a policy of watching and waiting. Essentially, the debate boiled down to whether the security services should take the risk or not ,and whether it was right to violate the human rights of the minority in order to protect the majority.

On the next topic, both were quick to condemn the use of torture and agreed that water boarding, as carried out by the CIA, did constitute torture. However both expressed difficulty with the way in which torture was defined. Did placing someone in solitary confinement constitute torture? Does playing loud music to prisoners constitute a form of torture? This matter was left unresolved.

A second-year Politics student Alex Biancardi said that he “felt the speakers [made] excellent points about security which one could sympathise with even while ultimately disagreeing with their priorities.”

The topic which provoked the biggest reaction from the student audience was the subject of faith societies on campus. Anthony Glees has previously indicated that he believes faith societies have no role to play in campus life and should be banned in order to promote better higher education. Continuing an argument which he started in an article in the Independent in 2006, he claimed that: “Academics should think the unthinkable. We should not be blinkered by political correctness.”

Mr Glees has also written a book on the subject of students becoming radicalised while at university which has brought lots of media attention. However, many students reacted with confusion to his statements. While many agreed that education should remain secular they questioned how the existence of faith societies on campus prevent this from taking place.

When questioned on this section of the debate, Alex Biancardi commented that: “At times his rhetoric (Mr Glees) verged on patronising and essentialising Islam, and one left with the feeling that Mr Glees sees the world in terms of ‘Clash of Civilisations’. That said, his bravery to express his opinions on the matter given their clear unpopularity among students was highly admirable.”

Sarah Clayton, when asked how she felt the talk went, replied that Anthony Glees “didn’t really answer a lot of our questions.” She went on to say that: “He is actually much more extreme than that and much more right wing.” This sentiment was also echoed by a second-year Philosophy student Ailsa Miller who commented: “I really enjoyed the debate, I thought it covered a very difficult issue well, although I thought Anthony Glees was slightly evasive.”

Amnesty is planning another debate on Monday 14 March where they hope to have Conservative MP David Davies and a former inmate of Guantánamo Bay come to talk to students about issues surrounding civil liberties and terrorism