The Guardian’s Defence and Security blog carries an article by Richard Norton-Taylor on the Justice and Security Bill and its proposals to extend ‘closed material procedures’ (CMPs) or ‘secret trials’ to civil courts.

The House of Lords is due to vote on the bill next week.

Norton-Taylor writes that the bill has “provoked the most disingenuous and misleading defence by its supporters in the government and among the securocrats”.

He refers to the bill as being “designed to prevent any significant information in the hands of the security and intelligence agencies from ever being disclosed in civil court hearings in Britain.” He dismisses the arguments put forward by former Justice Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, and the former head of MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, who insist that the legislation will not affect the disclosure of intelligence information. Norton-Taylor goes on to cite the example of intelligence discovered in Tripoli, Libya, which has subsequently led to legal challenges against a number of public officials for alleged involvement in rendition and torture by Sami Al Saadi and Abdel Hakim Belhadj.

Such information, Norton-Taylor writes, “would be protected by the bill if the government had its way".

He goes on to cite the ‘devastating report’ published this week by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, in which the Government’s proposals are described as a “radical departure from the UK’s constitutional tradition of open justice and fairness”.

Norton-Taylor also cites the views of the Government’s Independent Reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson QC, who told the JCHR that "In fairness to the government, under the procedure devised by the bill the judge does have the last word. The only difficulty is that that word is dictated to the judge by the secretary of state.” In his evidence to the JCHR, Anderson further warned that the UK is ‘on probation’ by the US over intelligence sharing amid American fears that security and intelligence is being compromised.

Recent admission by the government that the need to protect its reputation has prompted the proposals supports claims that the government, under pressure from the security services, is seeking to shield itself from future ‘embarrassment’ caused by cases such as that of Binyam Mohamed. The Daily Mail and Guardian this week reported of almost 20 outstanding torture cases against the government.

Amongst its recommendations, the JCHR report states that information protected by secrecy should be restricted to that which would reveal the identity of UK intelligence officers, and foreign intelligence provided on the promise of confidentiality. It also recommends that “the Secretary of State’s power to extend the scope of the Act by order be deleted from the Bill”, and that “a closed material procedure is only ever permitted as a last resort”.

The Justice and Security Bill puts one of the cornerstones of justice - the right to an open and fair trial - at stake. As Norton-Taylor concludes, “It is now up to the Lords, and then the Commons, to decide whether to protect basic principles of open justice or pave the way to even less accountability — and greater mistrust — of the security and intelligence agencies, as well as succumbing so readily to pressure from the US.”

Local paper, Cambridge News, reports on an attack of vandalism on the Mill Road mosque building.

Offensive, racist graffiti was daubed on the walls of the building including the words “terrorist scumbags”.

The Mill Road mosque project has been the target of consistent anti-Muslim sentiment in recent months with the English Defence League protesting against the planned mosque and a leaflet circulated to locals exaggerating the plans submitted to the local council.

The mosque received planning permission in August last year.

The websites Civil Society Finance and Third Sector Online both cover a meeting of charity regulators in Parliament  discussing the impact of terrorism legislation on charity operations.

Haroun Atallah, finance director of Islamic Relief (IR), told regulators that terrorism legislation introduced after 9/11 is hindering the work of international charities, like Islamic Relief, with donations often being blocked and bank accounts closed down. He told the meeting that rules introduced with the intention of fighting terrorism may even be increasing the risk of radicalization because of unintended consequences.

From Civil Society Finance:

“Islamic Relief has recently had its bank account closed by UBS, and is under constant scrutiny by other banks due to nervousness about counter-terrorist regulations, the charity's director of finance told an audience of international charity regulators yesterday.

“Islamic Relief… has both incoming and outgoing transactions stopped on a daily basis either temporarily or permanently, said Haroun Atallah, who is a former auditor.

“Atallah says things changed significantly for international charities after the September 11 attacks. He says for charities like Islamic Relief and others working in Gulf regions scrutiny is particularly high:

"Charities like us were put in a situation where you had to explain yourself at every juncture, way beyond what any other charity had to do."

“He says that regulations preventing the movement of funds under the guise of anti-terror methods, are also preventing relief funds reaching those who need it on the ground.

He stated that some banks were "going over the top in their reaction".

Islamic Relief, Ataullah said, was ‘black-listed’ but was given no full explanation from UBS as to why this was the case.

He told the meeting that banks now saw charities like IR as ‘higher risk’ and were acting to eliminate or mitigate the risk by stopping work with them. Ataullah emphasised that "the banks are very nervous, but I think the extent of their nervousness is driven by who is the customer".

Third Sector online adds that IR's relief efforts in some regions, such as the Persian Gulf, have had to be closed down due to the level of scrutiny experienced. It also notes Ataullah's remark that, "…introducing these rules will [not] help the war on terror. It will act, if anything, as a recruiting sergeant in that part of the world."

The revelations over the hindrance of the work of charities such as IR are worrying. Not only are there material consequences for those who are in need of aid, but the issue is concerning for the way in which Muslim charities - even large and reputable ones such as IR - are singled out and subjected to greater scrutiny and suspicion.

This is not the first time that a Muslim charity has been suspected in such a way. In 2010, Muslim Aid was the target of a smear campaign by the Daily Telegraph’s Andrew Gilligan, who claimed it had ‘paid hundreds of thousands of pounds …to two organisations allegedly linked to terrorist groups’. Muslim Aid was cleared of any wrong-doing by a Charity Commission investigation later that year. More recently, this June, the Charity Commission launched an investigation into the Masjid-al-Tawheed mosque in Leyton, east London, for “potential links to terrorist organisations”.

Local paper, News Shopper, reports that a protest by the English National Resistance against ‘sexist’ signs at the local mosque will take place on Saturday 18th May.

The ENR, led by former BNP councillor Paul Golding, have taken exception to signs displayed at the NWK Muslim Association in Crayford signposting separate entrances to the mosque for men and women.

The ENR had urged the mosque to remove the signs objecting to the “form of apartheid…in line with Islamic principles that view women as inferior to men.”

Shameful really that far right groups should attempt to shield their anti-Muslim prejudice behind alleged sexism.