London, June 19, (Pal Telegraph) - Horia El Hadad, a journalist based in the UK, will never forget her meeting with Mahmoud Abu Rideh, a desperate man who is a prisoner in his own home, but doesn't know why. He tells of how he lost his possessions, his freedom and even his family.
The past three weeks have been undoubtedly tough for Mahmoud Abu Rideh. He claims the British government made implicit threats to ‘make problems' for his family unless his wife and six children left the country by the 25th of May. It has now been more than three weeks since his family boarded a plane to Jordon after having had their passports stamped to never allow them to travel back into the United Kingdom, despite being British citizens.
Now Abu Rideh says he cannot take it anymore.
"I haven't done anything wrong. Why doesn't the government try me? If it has evidence then it should take me to court, in front of a judge, and tell me I am a threat to this country. The government just wants me to suffer. It wants to kill my spirit. I don't know why it's doing this. The government hates me," he said.
The 38 year old Palestinian was came to the UK in 1997 and granted the right to remain. Now,he is subject to government imposed ‘control orders' - or restrictions - including a 12-hour curfew, no internet access and a ban on visits from anyone the Home Office has not approved. He is also subject to full body searches carried out by anti-terror officers who visit his home weekly.
Abu Rideh is required to abide by 250 rules like this in total, which he has done for the past four years and four months. Any breech of these rules is considered a criminal offence.
In 1997 Rideh was recognized as a refugee in the UK. But he was detained without charge between December 2001 and March 2005 under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, on suspicion of being involved in terrorism-related activity. The control order was imposed on him immediately after his so-called release in March 2005, under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005.
He claims that he has been falsely accused and the severe treatment by the UK government is driving him to suicide.
"I can't go to the Post Office and send a letter or receive a letter from my family," he claimed.
"I can't have a digital camera, video camera or mobile phone I can't work or have more than £15 on me at any one time. These are very difficult rules to live by," Rideh said.
The desperate father says his control orders are so stringent that the education and wellbeing of his children have been badly affected. Along with the trauma of having to witness raids carried out by gun wielding anti-terror police at his west London home, his children were finding it hard to keep up with their peers at school.
"I have three girls in secondary school and three boys in primary school. How could my children live this way? Why can't they live like other children?
Since Abu Rideh's family left for Jordon three weeks ago, he has been finding it increasingly hard to cope. Now his lawyers are saying that there is a real risk he will commit suicide if his control order is not lifted or if he is not provided with travel documentation to leave the United Kingdom so he can be reunited with his family.
He has already tried to take his own life on several occasions before, but his lawyers fear that his family's departure has greatly increased the risk of suicide.
The wheelchair bound Palestinian is now convinced that he will never see his family again.
"When we received a letter from the Home Office in which they told my family to leave by the 25th of May, I knew it would be the last time I would see them. They were all crying so much when they left. My relationship with them is so good. I love my wife and I love my children. Now I'm thinking about taking pills and cutting my arms and letting them bleed wherever; in the street, in a forest, in a park. I'm not scared anymore. My family will be sad at first but then they will forget the pain. But the government will have to deal with the fact that they are responsible for the death of an innocent man!" He says.
Abu Rideh claims his mental and physical state has been greatly damaged by years of persecution and torture at the hands of the British and Israeli authorities. The stateless Palestinian suffers from post traumatic stress disorder.
Since his ordeal began in 2001 the government's grounds for suspicion were kept largely secret from him and from his lawyers.
"With control orders you don't have to know why you're on them. It's been four years and I still don't know why I have to live by these rules, why I have to live this way." Abu Rideh says.
For more than four years Abu Rideh has not been able to see or challenge much of the material on which the government alleges that he is, or has been, involved in terrorism-related activity.
But his lawyers say that is all be about to change.
Last week the highest court in the United Kingdom ruled that people on control orders will now have the right to know the information used against them, so that they can effectively challenge those orders.
It should be good news for Abu Rideh, a miserable man driven to desperation with nothing left to lose, but its not.
"I am not hopeful about this decision. This country has treated me too badly for me to have any hope left. People think that there is freedom and culture in this country but it is all lies. I don't believe there is justice in Britain." He says.
Human right organizations, however, have hailed last weeks decision as a landmark victory against control orders, saying that it could very well lead to the abolishment of the measures or a fairer trial for the terror suspects.
Now Mahmoud Abu Rideh - who has been charged with several alleged breaches of his control order, but with no substantive terrorism related offences - anxiously awaits his next court hearing, where he will be told whether he can travel to Jordan to be with his family, or whether he will have to resort to the only other option he feels he has.
The Home Office has said it will appeal the House of Lords decision.
The comments come as British courts prepare to deport Salah on charges that he entered the UK despite being served a travel ban. Since his arrest on June 28th, he has remained in British custody.
Saber Kushour is appealing against his 18-month jail term. Photograph: Emil Salman/Haaretz
