This week, as part of Dr Demetris Tillyris’ third-year, research-led module on the ‘Ethics of Political Leadership and the Problem of Dirty Hands’, we had the pleasure of welcoming to CCCU Babar Ahmad who shared his tragic story, and experiences with gross injustice. The event, which was kindly organised by our colleague, Dr Erika Brady, Senior Lecturer in Policing, featured an unbelievably depressing, and, at the same time, truly inspirational talk by Babar, and a Q&A session by our very engaged students.

Babar Ahmad was arrested in 2003 on terrorism charges and re-arrested in August 2004. He spent the next 11 years in prison, 8 of which were in the UK without charge before being extradited to the US where he was held in a high security prison for a further year. In 2009, the MET awarded Babar compensation following its admission that its officers abused Babar while he was being arrested in 2003, resulting in extensive injuries. Ahmad was released in 2015 and now speaks on a range of topics including his own experiences with the criminal justice systems.

Babar’s life story raised important implications for radicalisation programmes and constitutes a stark reminder of the perils of racial prejudice and of abuses of power – the extensive and deep scars, both physical and psychological, that cruelties committed by agents of the state can leave  on ordinary citizens. It reminds us of Judith Shklar’s disquieting suggestion that “we say never again, but somewhere, someone is being tortured right now” (Shklar, The Liberalism of Fear, p.27), and of the importance of placing cruelty first, both in our political theorising and in our political practice – of attending, in other words, to the voices of the victims; for,”[t]he voices of victims must always be heard first, not only to find out whether officially recognized social expectations have been denied, but also to attend to their interpretations of the situation” (Shklar, The Faces of Injustice, p. 81).

Dr Demetris Tillyris is Reader in political philosophy and teaches on undergraduate and postgraduate courses at CCCU. He specialises in Contemporary Political Philosophy and the History of Political Thought. Specifically, his research focuses on ethical questions and problems in contemporary public life. He welcomes applications for PhD supervision on these topics.