October 29, 2008	Wednesday	Shawwal 29, 1429

LONDON, Oct. 28: The UK has finalised a package of measures aimed at making it harder for ‘extremists’ to enter the country.

The so-called ‘foreign-born extremists’ will be the main target of the new policy and rules will be introduced to make them retract controversial statements, and refute specific allegations made against them. That is, the burden of proof would lie with the accused.

Currently, the burden of proof lies with the authorities, who must show that alleged extremists still hold the views ascribed to them.

Those accused of advocating illegal action may also have to make a public statement of their support for democracy if they want to stay in Britain.

The new rules are also set to hand new powers to the Home Office to name people blocked from entering Britain and share their details with other countries. Currently individuals involved are guaranteed anonymity unless they choose to go public and fight their ban.

On Monday, Home Secretary Jaqui Smith said the government planned to “name and shame” some extremists banned from entering the UK.

“Where it is in our interest we will name these people,” the Home Secretary told MPs in the House of Commons.

“Coming to the UK is a privilege, and I don’t want to extend that privilege to individuals who abuse our standards and values to undermine our way of life.”

In the past three years, 230 people have been barred from entering the country on grounds of national security and for “unacceptable behaviour” — including inciting hatred and stirring up or glorifying terrorism.

Meanwhile, a senior civil servant on Tuesday pleaded guilty to breaching the Official Secrets Act after leaving top-secret documents on Al Qaeda and Iraq on a train. It is understood the assessment also contained reports on the state of the Muslim terror network in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan.

His case followed an investigation launched in June. One of the documents was a seven-page report by the joint intelligence committee entitled Al Qaeda vulnerabilities.

Classified as top-secret, the intelligence assessment on Al Qaeda was so sensitive that every document was numbered and marked “for UK/US/ Canadian and Australian eyes only”.

The document reportedly contained names of individuals or locations that might have been useful to Britain’s enemies.

The security breach was the latest in a series that has embarrassed the government. In November last year, discs containing child benefit records of 25 million people were lost. In January the details of 600,000 potential recruits were lost by a naval officer.