Name: Taking Liberties
Released: 2009-07-14

True Stories

S2009 · E12 — Taking Liberties

S2009:E12 · Taking Liberties

Episodes

18 episodes in this season

The Great Chinese Art Revolution

60 min

A President to Remember

60 min

Black Gold

60 min

Red Oil

60 min

Kenya Murder Mystery

60 min

Act of God

60 min

Close Encounters in Siberia

60 min

Tears, Tiaras and Transsexuals

60 min

Another Perfect World

60 min

E10

Pray the Devil Back to Hell

60 min

E11

Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo

60 min

E12

Now Playing

Taking Liberties

60 min

E13

Life After the Fall

60 min

E14

Painting the Mind

60 min

E15

Dancing with the Devil

60 min

E16

Here's Johnny

60 min

E17

The Shock Doctrine

60 min

E18

Heavy Water

60 min

True Stories

TV Series

1h8.0

Documentary

Now playing

Taking Liberties

Season 2009 · Episode 12 · Jul 14, 2009

Riding in on a wave of optimism and real belief in their mantra that things can only get better, the New Labour government proceeded to enact some of the most authoritarian legislation in recent history. With fast-paced satirical style, this Bafta-nominated film shows how, in just over a decade, some rights and freedoms that took centuries to build up have been rolled back or cut away through a personal journey into the decline of civil liberties. The 82-year-old holocaust survivor Walter Wolfgang was lifted bodily from a debate at the Labour Party conference for, as Tony Benn points out, 'rightfully' saying that Jack Straw is talking 'nonsense' about Iraq. We see a man who tries to protest against the treatment of Mr Wolfgang also set upon by security, and learn that he was later handled roughly - and that poor old Wolfgang was next detained by the police under the 2000 Terrorism Act. We meet Moulad Sihali, an Algerian refugee. He was cleared of all charges relating to a non-existent plot to manufacture the poison ricin, but has now been made a prisoner in his own home. He's been fitted with a tracking device, is only allowed outside at certain hours - and then only within a one mile radius of his house - and is forbidden to meet anyone who hasn't been vetted by the Home Office. The specific charge against him? There isn't one. We hear how Maya Evans, a vegan chef, and her friend the writer Milan Rai were arrested under the Serious Organised Crime and Police act for reading out the names of people who have died in Iraq and occasionally ringing a (very quiet) Buddhist bell. Occasionally the footage is very funny. Protestors are told that if they step off the grass verge they have been crowded onto they could be arrested for blocking a public highway. They are told this by a massed group of policemen who are actually blocking the road. There are recordings of the police intimidating grandmothers; protestors being strong-armed; 80-year-olds being dragged along on their backsides by police; Tony Blair staring on silently (in contravention of international law against complicity with torturers) as George W. Bush praises the facilities at Guantanamo Bay. The documentary even succeeds in arousing sympathy for a group of bankers - the Natwest Three. Thanks to a 2003 treaty they were extradited to the US - for a crime they allegedly committed in Britain but that British authorities declined to prosecute due to lack of evidence. In this case, the US authorities were allowed to take these men from their homes and support networks without presenting any new data to the British government.

More details

True Stories

TV Series

1h8.0

Documentary

Now playing

Taking Liberties

Season 2009 · Episode 12 · Jul 14, 2009

More details