MOSCOW, November 21 (Sputnik) — The UK Home Secretary Theresa May will provide the MI5 security service and local police with the authority to force terror suspects to relocate from their homes, the Telegraph newspaper reported Friday.
This step represents a return to the control orders policy in the United Kingdom, adopted in 2005 and amended in 2011, restricting an individual's liberty in order to prevent their suspected terrorist activity within the country.
Control orders previously used by police to restrict the movements of suspected terrorists were replaced by the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (TPIMs) in 2011, which law enforcement officials say limit their ability to contain terrorism at home.
Use of control orders allows law enforcement officials to relocate a suspect to a town far from their home. Judges can impose 16-hour curfews and forbid suspects from meeting certain people, and forbid a suspects’ use of mobile phones and the internet.
The push to restore control orders had risen sharply amid allegations of British citizens returning to their home country after working in the Middle East as jihadist mercenaries, especially in Syria and Iraq, two countries currently experiencing prolonged civil war and rampant terrorism.
According to UK Prime Minister David Cameron, at least 500 citizens of the United Kingdom have gone to Iraq and Syria to fight alongside Islamic State (IS), a Sunni extremist group, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State and the Levant (ISIL). IS has been fighting the Syrian government since 2012.
