The Kindness of Strangers

Well, last night I attended a party to welcome home Hicham Yezza. Hich is the guy we’ve been campaigning to have released from his inhuman and unjust incarceration after being falsely arrested on suspicion of terrorism in May. The poor guy was released yesterday from a detention centre in Dover and came straight to the welcoming party before even going home to collect his thoughts. He walked into a crowd of dozens of well-wishers, blinking into a plethora of cameras and flashlights (the BBC was there, interviewing) yet he conducted himself with such dignity and humility that it was we who felt humbled and awe struck.

Hicham is innocent; that much we know. But the intractable Home Office officials have painted themselves into a corner with his case, and yet won't admit it. They can’t even decide what it is that they believe he has done – they don’t even have access to the original paperwork from when Hicham first arrived in this country thirteen years ago. So, on a vague suspicion that he just might be here illegally (but not being able to say why) they imprisoned a perfectly decent citizen for thirty-two days. This is totally unacceptable – to deny a man his liberty on nothing more than a vague misunderstanding when they don’t even know the facts of the case themselves, is simply an abuse of power.

The most pernicious aspect of this whole debacle is that the Home Office feels that it has a face that needs saving. Its officials know that they have forced an aberration of justice, yet they feel incapable of admitting so. They have been prepared to waive Hicham's human rights in order to sustain their own dogma and to hell with the disruption that this may cause to a law-abiding individual's life . Do you know, one of their justifications for sending him to a detention centre in Dover (just about as far away from Nottingham as you can be) was that he “has no friends or family in this country, so it doesn’t matter where he is kept”. This is a man who has lived and worked in Nottingham for thirteen years and who can demonstrate his bedrock of loyal support by the hundreds of people who turned up for the ‘Free Hich’ rally at Nottingham University’s campus on the 28th May, and by the hundreds of letters, faxes, emails and text messages he has received since he was arrested. To call the authority’s standpoint in this matter crass, is an understatement.

It was a delight to see this articulate and dignified individual back amongst his friends last night. His story makes me ashamed to be British. The law may be an ass, but it’s a fat-ass at that. These kind of deviations from common sense must happen all the time – I’m certain that Hicham’s case isn’t unique – and I suspect that this ‘incident’ might have passed unnoticed by me if it hadn’t been for the call to arms from my friend Gearóid Ó Cuinn. Other people in Hicham's situation may not be so lucky; they may not have a network of intelligent and educated colleagues who are able to raise the alarm and to mobilise a campaign in the way that Gearóid and others did. Clearly, our campaign has been an irritant to the Home Office which was presumably hoping to spirit Hicham out of the country before anyone would notice.

So I would warn you all to be vigilant. Hicham is an Algerian, and he’s a Muslim. But in this case, it’s our own Government that is behaving as the terrorist; it’s King Gordon’s own troops that are attempting to wrap us in a horse-hair blanket of fear in our beds.

Don't let them get away with it.