Issan Ghazni's speech at Spring Conference on amendment to Civil Liberties Motion

This speech is the result of work carried out by Marisha Ray who is a London Assembly Candidate and former executive member for community safety in Islington as well as a former chair of an enquiry into CCTV surveillance. Marisha is unable to be here at conference today and so as chair of EMLD, I am also speaking on her behalf.

Conference, imagine you lived in a country where a particular community, an identifiable community was far more likely to be monitored than others.

Not just a particular individual in that community- no, all the individuals in it.

Imagine a community in which if you were particularly well connected you were even more likely to be monitored than the others, more likely to have your phone conversations taped, more likely to have your mobile phone software altered so your phone was used as a remotely activated bug- as indeed all mobile phones can be, not only tracking your whereabouts, but also acting as a device recording your face to face conversations.

Imagine a country where you were in the group of people with the face that didn't fit and that meant you were most likely to have your emails intercepted,

Where your text messages are intercepted, and all your communications monitored.

Now conference, imagine a country where the legal system was so complex that it was unfathomable to a person newly arrived in the country, and indeed only understandable to an elite, where ignorance was no excuse in the eyes of the law, yet there was no way of being well-informed with such an ill-assorted collection of self-contradictory statutes.

A country where it was almost impossible to keep within the overbearing burden of rules, regulations and statutes unless you'd grown up in the country and taken in the indigenous values from birth.

A country where some communities, including those of certain ethnic minorities, and also politicians, were more likely to be monitored than others.

A country which is perceived as unfair to all new comers and indeed to all but a small well-educated elite, and to those with the money to employ them, and that country is our country! Right here, right now.

Now conference, imagine a community which you'd grown up in and in a neighbourhood which you called home which treated not only you, but all of your family and closest friends this way.

Now imagine a community where you have to be careful about every unguarded, innocent comment which could be misinterpreted; a community where your young children and elderly relatives have also got to be careful about every remark they make, so you'd keep things secret from them, you could never be open with them.

Where not only they, but their families will be subject to this intrusion, and where they know this will take place.

Where every personal detail about their family will be recorded and kept and where there is no privacy for those who have a certain profile, nor for their nearest and dearest.

Now conference, imagine a community where they value the privacy of the family.

Imagine a community where absurd lines of enquiry and investigations police reveals just how easily the police can misinterpret information they gain.

Imagine a community where people believe they have been subject to police persecution thanks to an oppressive, ill regulated legal framework for surveillance and monitoring.

And then conference, imagine a city in which the police are perceived to have diminishing integrity.

A city where it is believed those at the top of the police see themselves to be beyond the reach of the law.

Where the sense of "do as you would be done by" had been entirely lost without trace.

And where we can only assume that there might be a few bad apples lower down in the police force too.

That city is London, our capital.

Conference, the effect and strain of persistent surveillance and unrelenting investigation on not just one individual but on a whole community, on its physical health, on its mental health and community cohesion are reported, but not adequately researched. The evidence remains un-gathered while our minority communities in theUKare investigated and perceive themselves to be persecuted whilst lacking democratic representation.

Conference, the EMLD sponsored amendment to the main motion on equality impact assessment has been accepted without discussion.

I therefore welcome this motion and in particular, the call for equality impact assessments of surveillance to be fully examined and the evidence of its effects to be taken into account.

Please support this motion and lets stand up for a more liberal, free and fairer Britain for us all.

Thank you.