With the Swindon Festival of Literature beginning next week, MARION SAUVEBOIS previews the visit of Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti

FOR nearly 15 years, Shami Chakrabarti has campaigned to protect civil liberties and basic human rights.

Since taking the helm as director of advocacy charity Liberty, she has celebrated tremendous milestones in the ongoing fight to safeguard freedom.

With politicians threatening to trample on the basis for all unalienable liberties, the Human Rights Act, she is taking a stand out on the ground and in her book On Liberty.

“Saving the Human Rights Act is the overarching issue,” said the lawyer and campaigner, will be speaking at the Arts Centre on May 14 as park of .

“Some parties in the election are trying scrap the Human Rights Act and pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Human Rights Act and the Convention on Human Rights really matter. I have had the whole text [of the Human Rights Act] printed at the end of the book. Everybody should know their rights and freedom.”

Shami, who studied Law at the London School of Economics, worked as a lawyer in the Home Office from 1996 to 2001, before joining Liberty as in-house counsel. She was appointed director of the human rights charity in 2003.

“I really enjoyed working in the Home Office for nearly six years. I learnt a lot about lwaw, politics and policy. I’ve always been interested in human rights work so it seemed like a natural progression to move to Liberty. The previous director left and I threw my hat in the ring. That was the moment I went from being a lawyer to the director of the organisation and a more mainstream campaigner.”

She grew heavily involved in the charity’s engagement with the war on terror and the anti-terrorism policies implemented in the aftermath.

Under her leadership, the group recorded landmark victories on many fronts. A protracted battle against 42 days pre-charge detention proposals throughout 2007 and 2008 prompted the Government to drop the proposals.

“A lot of the encroachment on rights and freedom has been done in the name of the war on terror.

“Our biggest victory was defeating pre-charge detentions. We fought really hard in Parliament for 18 months. It was a very tough campaign.”

Another notable achievement was the organisation’s successful challenge of police ‘stop and search’ under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act at the European Court of Human Rights.

“We have had some great victories in the court of Human Rights against stop and search without suspicion - that took us the best part of 10 years to bring it to court.

“There have been smaller victories every day. Every time somebody comes to Liberty for legal advice and says they were able to persuade their school, the police, or employer to behave decently - that’s a victory.”

Many a time, her fights have placed the campaigner and Liberty at odds not only with Government but public opinion.

“I found that the more you explain your values, the problem with a particular Government policy and the fact that there are more alternatives, the more you bring people around. What we have to do is persuade everybody that rights and freedom matter. Anyone could have their rights taken away.”

These considerations are at the core of On Liberty and matters she will raise during her visit to the Swindon Festival of Literature on May 14.

“The book is about the big challenges that we have faced and that we continue to face. I hope it will stimulate people’s thinking about human rights and how important saving the human rights act is for the public.

“People often perceive human rights as being about foreign nationals or terror suspects. We are all individually vulnerable. You never know when you will need human rights protection.”

Shami Chakrabarti will be at the Arts Centre on May 14 at 6.30pm. Tickets to her event are £8. To book call 01793 524481 or visit swindontheatres.co.uk.