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The controversial Anti-Terrorism Bill currently winging its way through the House of Lords will allow the police to detain people without charge or trial. The power has been compared to internment in Northern Ireland but the last time a similar step was taken was actually during the Gulf War in 1991.

Its not just the foreign voices, the air raids, the retreating enemy - parallels between today's war on terrorism and yesterday's conflict in the Gulf are not just confined to the military arena. The fear of the unknown, of the threat of the enemy bringing their retaliation to our shores, was as pervasive then as it is now. Arabic writer and academic Abbas Shiblak was arrested on the day the Gulf War began. "I came back late at night after a sailing course," he told Today. "They said we have an order to detain you from the Home Secretary. I asked them to show me the papers and I noticed that my name was spelt wrong and address even spelt wrong."

Though born in Palestine, Abbas lived in Britain for 16 years, got married here and had two children who'd been born in England. He was well-known for being against Saddam Hussein's regime, and for supporting dialogue between Arabs and Israelis - hardly the greatest danger to crown and country. "For a liberal democracy like Britain, certainly they should have other ways of dealing with international terrorism than this terrible breach of human rights," an exasperated Mr Shiblak told the programme.

Abbas was imprisoned for 3 weeks; others for up to 7 weeks. In total, 77 Iraqis and Palestinians were detained as threats to national security. Most were Iraqi students here on government scholarships. Those whose fees were being paid by the Iraqi military were treated as prisoners of war and detained at a camp in Salisbury; the rest were locked up in 3 different prisons. David Blunkett, more airy-fairy in those days perhaps, was one of a number of MPs who highlighted their plight. "How many residents in the United Kingdom of Palestinian or Arabic origin have been detained under security regulations arising out of the conflict in the Gulf," he asked the home secretary at the time.

The detained did have the opportunity to plead their innocence to a committee of three wise men, chaired by an appeal court judge, but as they were never told why they'd been arrested, the hearings were described by opponents as fishing expeditions by the authorities. Professor Peter Rowe of Lancaster University's Law School has written about the procedures, and told Today: "The panel had information supplied by the security services and they would take that into account without disclosing this to those who appeared before them. The individuals who came before the panel were not allowed legal representation."

The arrests were based on intelligence reports, that were found to be years out of date. The information held by the security services was so good in fact that no one was ever charged with any offence at the end of the war. Sabah Mukhtar, an Iraqi lawyer who helped some of those detained says the whole episode damaged Britain's reputation in the Middle East. "I think it was a most counter-productive exercise. It did not protect Britain against any threat, it did not achieve anything and it left a great deal of ill-feeling and bitterness among people," he said.

The experience during the Gulf War shows that locking people up on the basis of mere suspicion can be a vindictive, shambolic and wholly embarrassing policy for any government to follow. The current administration will have to ensure that their proposals for detention without trial actually lock up real terrorists rather than innocent people.