Dark Arts / Terrorism

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Julie wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/28512 :
  
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Julie says:
> But what seems most tied to the terrorism of today is the climate
> of fear and distrust that permeates the Ministry, and their response
> of ignoring human/wizard rights in the name of security. This is 
> particularly evident in the extended incarceration of Stan Shunpike
> and others, arrested on dubious charges, and denied any kind
> of recourse such proof of evidence or a quick trial. (Shades of
> Guantanamo Bay and other places.)

I read those bits, especially the incarceration of Stan Shunpike, as
referring to UK bad responses to IRA terrorism of the 1970s and 89s,
in which random innocent people of Irish extraction were arrested and
convicted on false evidence. During the 1990s, there were endless news
reports of yet another group of convicts who had been claiming their
innocence for 20 years being released after a judge looked into the
evidence presented against them by police crime labs and found it
erroneous to the point of fraudulence. 

Please don't get the wrong idea from my acerbic phraseology. I don't
like the IRA and I don't dislike England or Britain or UK. (For me,
the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Potato Famine are long over.
Anyway, I blame the Potato Famine on the Free Market, not on British
imperialism.) I'm just bloody annoyed that my country (USA) seems to
be unable to learn from observing that UK mistake to avoid making the
same mistake itself.