Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2013-09-10-Speech-2-510-000"
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"en.20130910.50.2-510-000"2
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"Mr President, I think the Council statement revealed the question of why we are here and why we are listening to a statement on what was essentially a UK act, under the Terrorism Act 2000, where an individual was detained. The reason we are here is that there was doubt as to whether that UK Act was being proportionately and correctly implemented. In the words of a former Attorney General, the use of that power was both not proportionate and incorrectly used.
When an examining officer knows that someone is not a terrorist, they cannot detain that person under that Act. This is why, across the political spectrum, there was severe doubt as to whether David Miranda should have in fact been detained for the maximum nine hours when it was clear that he was not prima facie a terrorist. That is where the doubt entered and, as Mr Weber correctly said, that pressure was applied. This is an allegation which has been tested in our High Court and is the subject of proceedings, but it clearly sent messages across the world that political pressure was being applied in this case.
Ms Kroes, as one of your colleagues said in the College of Commissioners, if we are going to cast doubt in other countries about the question of media freedom and pressure, we should apply that across the board. This is the problem that we have. This particular Act did not come as a result of 9/11, but it came in relation to Northern Ireland in the year 2000. We should not be applying such legislation in relation to somebody who had close proximity to Glenn Greenwald.
I asked the Editor-in-Chief of
in the European Parliament enquiry last week what effect this situation is having on journalism, both in
and amongst journalists more widely. His answer to me was that it was having a chilling effect on media freedom and on journalism. That is the problem we are now encountering, that across the media world the detention of David Miranda is having ‘a chilling effect’.
This is the problem. This is a national situation and – as you rightly said, Commissioner – there is security and the right of security in our national Member States and the right for intelligence services personnel to be protected: of course there is.
I believe that
is redacting and editing its stories so as not to put people in danger. This is not just about having information out there in an irresponsible way, as we heard in the committee inquiry last week; it is our responsibility to ensure that this balance is correct but that we do not have a misuse of legislation, either in one Member State or across the European Union. We should have Article 10 of the ECHR applying to journalism, media freedom and a good environment in the European Union for media freedom. That is what this statement should be about and that is why we are here today. I want to hear from you a defence of media freedom."@en1
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