Shami, Shami, Shami.

The Daily Telegraph has been plugging a Q & A with Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti and inviting readers to submit queries. So I submitted a question which was one of the ones that she answered which I'll reprint that part below:

Q: Liberty has long opposed the deportation of the likes of Abu Qatada and others with links to very dangerous groups on the grounds that there is a possibility that the poor dear might be tortured in Jordan. Is it the position of Liberty that if someone has entered this country from a another country with a poor human rights record, that they must be immune from deportation no matter how they behave once they are here or how they got here. Do their rights to remain here trump the right of everyone else to be able to get rid of terrorist sympathisers. Posted by Ross on December 4, 2007 3:55 AM

SC: Torture is wrong. This is an absolute principle that distinguishes democrats from both tyrants and terrorists who believe that human life is cheap. The rule against torture cannot just be about what you do with your own hand or it would be permissible to get others to perform your dirty work. If we say that it is fine to deport people to places of torture, why is extraordinary rendition (where people are sent for torture for the purpose of gaining intelligence) wrong? In civilised societies we bring criminals to justice rather than torturing them. If our so-called Middle-Eastern allies in the “War on Terror” clean up their act, there will be no problem with deporting their nationals.

So we only have to wait until Jordan turns into Switzerland before we can rid ourselves of psychopaths from that country. Yes Jordan tortures people and that is a reason for not deporting someone for say insulting their king or campaigning for democracy, however if asylum in the UK doesn't put the beneficiary under any obligation not to whip up violence against us or our allies then it is simply a suicide pact. To put it another way, if someone were being chased down the street by a mob it would be right to let him in your house for protection, however if he then starts setting fire to the curtains and molesting your dog then he has forfeited any right to be protected.