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A petition of a thousand names has been published in The Independent, charging the government with literally taking liberties. The home secretary Charles Clarke is proposing new laws including house arrest on evidence untested in court and not even revealed to the individual who will lose his or her freedom.

Hazel Blears, the Home Office minister has also said Muslims should accept that they will be targeted by police. She is presumably working on the assumption that a brown skin implies an affiliation to Islam.

The petition calls, among other measures, for an end to detention without trial and "recognition that human rights must not and need not be sacrificed for effective security".

An admirable sentiment but human rights have already been sacrificed. A BBC investigation of Oakington Immigration Reception Centre near Cambridge, run by Global Solutions Limited, which was shown last week, illustrated what happens when political rhetoric and propaganda is swallowed wholesale by the sadistic and bigoted.

The two undercover reporters Simon Boazman and Andy Pagnacco said most of the officers tried to treat detainees with respect but a significant minority were racist and violent.

Fifteen members of staff have now been removed from the front line while an inquiry takes place. They should have been sacked and prosecuted since, arguably, sufficient evidence already exists on film, to merit charges of sexual and physical assault.

One Global Solutions employee, Jason "Wolfie" Martin, was filmed shouting abuse at a detainee whose mental health was giving cause for concern, before tipping him out of bed. Another officer boasted. "I've smacked them in their faces when no one's looking. I've busted noses."

A union official said he knew his members were guilty but he made sure they were cleared when a complaint was made. Staff explained rhyming slang such as "Knives and forks and spoons equals coons", and acronyms such as "TGBs for thieving gypsy bastards".

Young men from Eastern Europe were locked in the secure unit on invented charges where they were even more vulnerable to attack. Children were denied proper social services assessments and suffered from a range of ailments including diarrhoea.

We should back Liberty and every other campaigning group prepared to offer resistance to anti-terror legislation that will give further endorsement to what is already utterly inhuman.