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EURSOC: High Pressure Tactics:

“High Pressure Tactics

By EURSOC Two
02 November, 2004

Which European nation has the toughest record in fighting terror at home? Britain, with its decades of experience of IRA terror and its current role as al-Qaeda target? Spain, with domestic terror of its own and memories of the Madrid massacre still raw?

Actually, it’s France. Yes, France, favourite whipping-boy of the right-wing press for its supposedly endless attempts to ingratiate itself with Islamist extremists.

The Washington Post gives a broad overview of the situation. Earlier this year, some EU countries had their Guantanamo Bay terror suspect citizens returned to their care. In Britain, the media contrived to give the men a heroes welcome. The home office was more sanguine, revealing that surveillance of each of the six suspects released will cost £1 million per year. Sweden’s returnees were given legal aid by their government to sue the US government for ‘wrongful imprisonment.’

In France, however, the four prisoners who were sent back in July haven’t been heard from since. They were whisked off by French security forces, who say that they could be held for up to three years without charge.”