World Plea to Brown Over Detention Bill

The government is facing mounting international pressure to drop its controversial plans to extend the period for which terrorist suspects can be held without charge, following unprecedented condemnation from an international coalition of leading intellectuals and religious leaders.

Ahead of a crucial second reading of the terrorism bill on Tuesday, Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of Cape Town and Nobel peace prize winner, the intellectual Noam Chomsky, and leaders of human rights groups, trade unions and Muslim associations around the world are calling on the government to withdraw proposals to extend detention without charge from 28 to 42 days.

The mounting backlash comes as evidence emerges that a number of influential Labour MPs who originally backed the proposals for an extension are poised to do a U-turn. Opposition parties have also confirmed that they will oppose the plan at a later reading, when the bill goes to committee stage.

The growing concern both at home and abroad suggests that the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, will experience acute difficulties getting the controversial plan on to the statute book. The government failed to persuade parliament of the case for an extension when the proposal was first floated under Tony Blair. Now international condemnation is likely to place further pressure on Gordon Brown's administration to jettison the plan.

'The best way to combat terrorism is by maintaining and strengthening the freedoms that terrorism seeks to destroy,' said Tutu. 'The protection of those freedoms will not be advanced by increasing the period in which terrorism suspects can be held without charge.'

Chomsky, a veteran political activist, said Britain was in danger of establishing a template for other countries. 'It is most 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,' Chomsky said.

Htein Lin, the Burmese artist and former political prisoner, said: 'In Burma many people are detained for months, or even years, without a chance to appear in court. I do not want to see that happen in Britain.'

The American Civil Liberties Union has also come out against the proposals. 'We are fighting to ensure our nation returns to the rule of law, including closing Guantánamo Bay and bringing prisoners to the United States to be charged and tried, or transferring them to countries where they will not be tortured,' said Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU. 'Our efforts would not be helped by our friends across the Atlantic developing their own brand of injustice.'

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: 'Civil society is increasingly concerned that extending pre-charge detention to a breathtaking six-week period flies in the face of many better alternatives.' Opposition to the move has also come from Unite, one of Britain's biggest unions, and 14 Muslim organizations.