Under current UK anti-terror laws you can be locked up and repeatedly questioned by police for up to 28 days without being charged. You might not even be told why you are there.
Pre-charge detention refers to the period of time that an individual can be held and questioned by police before being charged with an offence.
For individuals suspected of terrorism, the maximum period is currently 28 days – seven times the limit for someone suspected of murder.

On June 11th 2008 the UK parliament will vote on the counter-terrorism bill, including extending the maximum limit for pre-charge detention to 42 days.

The UK already has the longest period of pre-charge detention in the western world, and there is no evidence that a further extension will make us any safer. There are serious flaws in the anticipated Government proposal, including:

• Powers for the Home Secretary to extend pre-charge detention in individual cases beyond 28 days without any evidence of a genuine emergency situation.
• Weak Parliamentary oversight as MPs are not allowed to vote when powers are activated.
• Inadequate judicial oversight, as the courts will not be able to review the decision to extend pre-charge detention.

Liberty believes that a further extension beyond 28 days is unjust, unnecessary and will not – as the Government has argued – make us any safer.

The UK government’s bid to detain terrorism suspects for up to six weeks without charge violates the fundamental right to liberty and risks undermining counter-terrorism efforts, Human Rights Watch said today.

The government’s human rights watchdog last night served notice that it would immediately launch a legal challenge to the government’s plan to extend the pre-charge detention limit to 42 days if it reached the statute book. The Equality and Human Rights Commission, chaired by Trevor Phillips, published legal advice from Matrix Chambers that the extended limit would violate the European convention on human rights. Phillips said: “As the body charged with the promotion of human rights, we agree with ministers that the right to life is paramount, but that does not give us the liberty to take actions that unnecessarily violate other human rights … Should the proposed measures be carried, the commission will immediately move to test its legality by launching a judicial review.”

Scotland’s chief legal officer, Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini, has also come out against the idea, stating the move is “not supported by prosecution evidence”. Earlier this week, Angiolini’s counterpart in England and Wales, the director of public prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, repeated his view that the change was not needed.
Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general, says there is no case for extending the limit and that he opposes it because it would send a negative message to the Muslim community.

Prominent human rights defenders the world over have spoken out against the governments proposals
Archbishop Desmond Tutu: “The best way to combat terrorism is by maintaining and strengthening the freedoms that terrorism seeks to destroy. The protection of those freedoms will not be advanced by increasing the period in which terrorism suspects can be held without charge.”
Noam Chomsky: “It is most disturbing, indeed shocking, to learn of the plans to extend detention without charge to a level that should be completely intolerable in any free society, and will surely be welcomed as a model by brutal and repressive governments everywhere.”
Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of ACLU: “The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is fighting to ensure our nation returns to the rule of law, including closing Guantanamo Bay and bringing prisoners to the United States to be charged and tried, or transferring them to countries where they will not be tortured. Our efforts would not be helped by our friends across the Atlantic developing their own brand of injustice – detention without charge for over a month.”

Link to Liberty
Link to hrw.org