guardian.co.uk,
Paul Lewis and Rob Evans, Wednesday 23 January 2013
 |
Mark
Kennedy, an undercover police officer who infiltrated a group of
environmental
protesters. Photograph: Philipp Ebeling
|
A senior
United Nations official has called on the British government to launch a
judge-led public inquiry into the "shocking" case of Mark Kennedy and
other undercover police officers who have been infiltrating protest groups.
Maina Kiai,
a UN special rapporteur, said the scandal involving undercover police
cultivating intimate sexual relationships with political activists over long
periods of time had been as damaging as the phone-hacking controversy that
prompted the Leveson inquiry.
He said he
was "deeply concerned" about the UK's use of undercover police
officers in non-violent groups exercising their democratic rights to protest.
"The
case of Mark Kennedy and other undercover officers is shocking as the groups in
question were not engaged in criminal activities," Kiai told a central
London news conference. "The duration of this infiltration, and the
resultant trauma and suspicion it has caused, are unacceptable in a democracy.
"It is
a clear violation of basic rights protected under the Human Rights Act, and
more generally under international law, such as the right to privacy."
He added:
"This is not a James-Bond-type movie issue. I think it is unacceptable
that the state can pay somebody who will use women, and be part of their lives
and then just devastate them and leave them. That's unbelievable."
Kiai is the
latest senior figure to call for a full investigation into the controversy
since the Guardian began revealing details of the spy operation two years ago.
The undercover policing controversy will be raised in parliament next month
during a special hearing hosted by the home affairs select committee.
Undercover
police have been living double lives for several years among protest groups,
sometimes even residing with female activists and spending weeks abroad with
them on holiday. At the end of their deployment, the police spies vanish
without a trace.
The
surveillance operation, which has continued to plant long-term spies in protest
groups despite recent controversies, comes under the remit of an initiative to
combat what police call domestic extremism. Many of the targets of the
operation have turned out to be law-abiding anti-capitalist campaigners or
protesters against global warming.
In at least
three cases, relationships between police and the women they were spying on
have resulted in the birth of children.
The UN
rapporteur's preliminary report follows a 10-day fact-finding mission to
London, Belfast and Edinburgh. Kiai met campaigners, senior police, civil
servants and the home secretary, Theresa May. He said she told him a full
inquiry into undercover policing was "not something on the agenda".
However,
Kiai, who has responsibility in the UN for the rights to freedom of peaceful
assembly, said he believed the case of Kennedy and others had left a
"trail of victims and survivors in its wake" who deserved answers.
Eleven
women and one man are bringing a high court legal action for the emotional
trauma suffered as a result of "deeply personal" relationships they
formed with men who turned out to be police officers.
A judge
ruled last week that some of their claims should be heard by the Investigatory
Powers Tribunal, an obscure body that usually deals with complaints against MI5
and MI6.
Mr Justice
Tugendhat cited the fictional case of James Bond to argue that when parliament
introduced legislation allowing covert police to have personal relationships
with targets, they must have assumed they may have sexual encounters.
Rejecting
the idea that it could be a "James Bond movie issue", Kiai said:
"I therefore call on the authorities to undertake a judge-led public
inquiry into the Mark Kennedy matter, and other related cases, with a view to
giving voice to victims, especially women, who were deliberately deceived by
their own government, and paving the way for reparations."
The
government has so far resisted calls for a judge-led inquiry, instead choosing
to back a host of other separate reviews into the conduct of Kennedy and
related issues.
Fifteen
inquiries have so far been launched into the controversy since January 2011.
All have
been held behind closed doors, a process Kiai said was inadequate because it
did not allow victims the opportunity to speak about their concerns.
The largest
of the inquiries is being run internally by the Metropolitan police, the force
that has overseen the spy operation against protesters since 1968. It has
declined to provide any detail about the scope or remit of the inquiry.
Jenny
Jones, a Green party member on the London Assembly, welcomed Kiai's
intervention. "The hacking of voicemail messages was an invasion of
privacy and lead to a judge-led inquiry into the practice," she said.
"In contrast, the gross invasion of privacy by the police into the lives
and families of 11 women – who were not criminals – will be dealt with in a
secretive tribunal which not even the women will be able to attend."
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