guardian | Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act has been widely criticised for giving
police broad powers under the guise of anti-terror legislation to stop
and search individuals without prior authorisation or reasonable
suspicion – setting it apart from other police powers.
Those
stopped have no automatic right to legal advice and it is a criminal
offence to refuse to co-operate with questioning under schedule 7, which
critics say is a curtailment of the right to silence.
Last month
the UK government said it would reduce the maximum period of detention
to six hours and promised a review of the operation on schedule 7 amid
concerns it unfairly targets minority groups and gives individuals fewer
legal protections than they would have if detained at a police station.
The
government of Brazil issued a statement in which it expressed its
"grave concern" over the detention of one of its citizens and the use of
anti-terror legislation. It said: "This measure is without
justification since it involves an individual against whom there are no
charges that can legitimate the use of that legislation. The Brazilian
government expects that incidents such as the one that happened to the
Brazilian citizen today are not repeated."
Widney Brown, Amnesty
International's senior director of international law and policy, said:
"It is utterly improbable that David Michael Miranda, a Brazilian
national transiting through London, was detained at random, given the
role his partner has played in revealing the truth about the unlawful
nature of NSA surveillance.
"David's
detention was unlawful and inexcusable. He was detained under a law
that violates any principle of fairness and his detention shows how the
law can be abused for petty, vindictive reasons.
"There is simply
no basis for believing that David Michael Miranda presents any threat
whatsoever to the UK government. The only possible intent behind this
detention was to harass him and his partner, Guardian journalist Glenn
Greenwald, for his role in analysing the data released by Edward
Snowden."
