Guy Herbert wrote in with this strangeness a while ago, but for some reason it was trapped by the overzealous Samizdata.net spam filters, only to be discovered today. Better late than never!
This is a very strange story, given the British authorities’ current obsession with illegal immigration. Three Albanian men have been arrested for trying to leave Britain and others charged with trying to help them. What’s really strange is that it is heavily implied by police that the men were illegally present in the country, but there’s no suggestion yet that they are fugitives from the law for any other reason. So what on earth is the point of trying to keep them here? Is it that self-deportation shows up the Immigration Service’s incompetence in that department?
Britons are now inured to (the entirely extra-legal) requirement to show a passport before being permitted to travel abroad on planes, trains, and ferries. That causes no outrage, and I confidently predict this arrest will not either. But it should.
If one may not leave nor enter the country without government permission – which is what these arrests imply – then we are already living in a (rather large) open prison, even before everyone is numbered and tagged.
Guy Herbert
As far as I can make out, the fact they might have been involved in some serious nastiness is another issue as actually it does seem they were arrested for, well, leaving the country, and only then did it transpire they were wanted. Odd. I wonder if there is more to this than the media articles indicate?
That’s also why I oppose immigraton controls. The only real border is the one at the edge of your private property. All other borders are an imposed prison to somebody or other.
Try this URL; it is directly from the SMCCDI site.
http://www.daneshjoo.org/smccdinews/article/publish/article_4218.shtml
OOOOPS; sorry…wrong post !!
Happens in Cuba all the time.
Passengers show airlines their passports at the start of the trip so that the airline is satisfied the passengers can legally land at their destinations. An airline that brings in a passenger with the wrong papers has to take him back again, at airline expense. There may be a parallel here: the fugitives don’t have the papers to enter France, and so are being prevented from going there by Britain. In any event they are engaged in unlawful flight, and were charged (with murder) after their apprehension.
East Germany had a crime called Republikflucht (deserting or fleeing the Republic), a parallel to Fahnenflucht (deserting the colors), a military crime. Both punishable with a rifle shot, of course. The Marxist argument was that the State had invested in the subject’s education, etc. and had a right to capitalize (as it were) on same.
Fortunately, we can still (mostly) go to Canada w/o question…
Pete,
Which begs the question, “Why?’
As far as I can tell, the proper libertarian solution would have been for them to be in a French jail instead of a UK one and for the UK to extradite them for the murder charge.
From what I understand, the original charge was just to hold them until the murder paperwork was finished. Frankly, I would vent my spleen on more worthy material.
anonymous coward points out something that wasn’t disclosed at the time of my original note, that the men were indeed supected of a real crime.
However, that does not explain why they were not at first arrested for the real crime. It looks to me as if the self-smuggling offense is one more piece of unprincipled, administratively convenient, strict liability, an unanswerable charge that can be used arbitrariky to control our movements. (Remember the “sus” laws, anyone?)
Penalties applied to airlines and other transport-owners for transporting illegal travellers have exactly the same rationale, but are morally even worse founded. Why should they be punished for actions of others that they cannot control?
Why should they be punished for actions of others that they cannot control?
Collective or bystander punishment is standard procedure for any unpopular rule. Those threatened can be dragooned into acting as unpaid police, and their loyalty to the rule-breaker divided.
Quite. My question was rhetorical. That’s why collective punishment is adopted; it is not why it should be adopted. It shouldn’t.
But it isn’t unpopular, Julian. I fear the public feels better if it sees someone, anyone, fiercely punished, regardless of their actual culpability, or the reality of the mischief done by the “crime”. In fact, the more fictitious the crime, the more wallowing in punishment-frenzy is practiced. How else to maintain the impression of the nominal perpetrator’s wickedness?
The Albanians were arrested on suspicion of murder of a fellow Albanian in Hove.
We can’t let the rot set in. If Albanians can quit Britain whenever they please, there’ll be far fewer girls plying for hire in Soho and the unlicensed hot dog trade in Hyde Park will collapse.
I have heard people say that the U.S. is, in fact, becoming a giant prison. I don’t know if I totally agree, but anti-outsourcing belligerents see the U.S. becoming increasingly dependent on China for goods and India for services. I support outsourcing, but I see the irony in this. We have the Patriot act, which runs roughshod over our civil liberties and, in a way, isolates us. The we have U.S. companies outsourcing manufacturing, IT services and white collar jobs to foreign countries. All we are left with is McDonalds and Walmart, which many believe were created by the Matrix.
Tony Sziklai
outsourcing