'Appalling' anti-terrorist laws draw criticism

beatriz

The new anti-terrorist laws will formally establish a state of fear ın Australıa. It ıs fear, not vision, that is driving this government, our society and shaping our cities. These laws will mark the end of imagination, trust and belief, all the ingredients for human advancement.

As I tried to explain the current Australian state of affairs to our AFP members and friends in Turkey, I am aware that this truth is at odds with the image that the 'global media' tries to promote. Australia is a country that has been run by 12 years of backwards thinking, division, racism, prejudice and of human right violations of those victims of our wars - this ıs not shown ın CNN or any of the major media monopolies.

Australia should be a better place, we deserve peace and a positive and inspiring vision for the future. One that allows us to learn from others and benefit from the knowledge of those who the Howard's government, in his arrogance, tries to dismiss.


'Appalling' anti-terrorism laws draw criticism

Civil libertarians and lawyers say the anti-terrorism laws agreed upon by the Commonwealth and the states today are appalling.

Under the laws, which Prime Minister John Howard describes as "unusual", state and territory police will be given extra tracking powers and will be able to detain terrorism suspects for up to two weeks without charge.

The laws will also make provisions for a review after five years and a sunset clause at 10 years.

Terry O'Gorman, of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, says the agreement is an appalling state of affairs.

contınue readıng: ABC http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1469669.htm

beatriz

More on these anti-terrorism laws...

Anti-terrorism laws put rights at risk: Fraser

Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser says Australians could be treated unfairly under the Government's anti-terrorism laws unless a human rights act is introduced.

Mr Fraser made the comments at Sydney's Town Hall, where he was helping to launch a draft Australian bill of human rights.

The former prime minister says the common law does not protect the normal rights of Australians, and the new anti-terrorism laws threaten liberties that people take for granted.

"To be arrested under these powers - they don't say arrested, they say detained - the authorities or ASIO only needs to believe that you may know something which is relevant to something to do with terrorism," he said.

"They don't have to believe that you are guilty of anything."

Mr Fraser also compared parts of the proposed new anti-terrorism legislation, agreed to by state and Commonwealth leaders last month, to South Africa's apartheid laws.

"Some parts of the control orders seem to me to be very similar to the banning orders which was universally condemned in relation to apartheid in South Africa," he said. (...)

continue reading: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1475584.htm

beatriz

find more: http://www.peopleforconstitutionalhumanrights.org/

Shelley

I am strongly opposed to this blatant affront on our
freedom - but I just feel totally tongue-tied when I try to express the
reasons why - it just seems so OBVIOUS.
So that's why I don't knwo what to write - I just didn't want to look stupid!
But I'll support a letter 100%.

Anonymous

I support Chas Savage and all like him in his sense of outrage and desire
for seditious action (The Age, 24.10.05– thanks AfP for the link). We are
abdicating our democratic responsibilities through complacency and are
serving ourselves up a dictatorship by stealth as a consequence.
I agree with Beatriz’s suggestion that we focus our argument as building
professionals on the functioning of society in such an environment and the
effects of this on the built environment.
Su

peter_j

The more I read the worse it looks. I have just found a lawyer's reading of the proposed bill (a small chunk of which is to be passed today, the rest tomorrow?), here is an excerpt:

In all of these hypothetical cases, the play, or film, or book, or song, or picture, or television programme could well be found to constitute, objectively, the "urging", of a person or persons exposed to it to engage in proscribed conduct. In any such case, ordinarily all of those involved in the dissemination of such works would potentially be guilty of sedition under the Bill: writers, directors, producers, actors, singers, painters, editors, publishers, distributors, broadcasters. All would arguably have "urged" such conduct.

At the very least, it seems to me that the increased uncertainty about the scope of the new offences and the potential severity of the punishment for them would inevitably tend to stifle, or to drive underground, the free expression of opinion and of creative or artistic responses to public and governmental affairs.

Blackstone Chambers PETER GRAY SC
28 October 2005
http://margokingston.typepad.com/harry_version_2/2005/10/sedition.html

ANOTHER QUOTE FROM SAME PAGE

"The argument here is "Is this legislation necessary?" In my book, it doesn't pass the "Why?" test. I go back to the beginning: if it was possible to neutralize the threats under the old legislation, why do we need new legislation? We know nothing can stop a nutter hiring a truck, wandering around umpteen garden shops, driving into the foyer of a public building and blowing the thing sky high. These laws certainly won't stop acts of random violence so what's the point?"
Malcolm Duncan

It feels as if the country is just sleepwalking into this legislation, not really questioning what it's about and why we need it. I tried reading the legislation, courtesy of the ACT, and found it impossible as each clause referred off to another document which I didn't have. It caused me to switch off it was so dull, a bit like listening to our Attorney General "answer" a question. I wonder if the Government is trying to bore people into acquiescence.

Looking forward to your letter - hope you get lots of signatures.

peter_j

Peter Gray's reading of the sedition clauses is sending the visual and literary arts communities into a spin. Cartoonists and their publishers are particularly worried.

[S.T.] Gill's visual record of the Eureka Stockade, [Albert] Tucker's images of evil and [Sydney] Nolan's post-World War II paintings are just some of the works that might have offended the sedition clause in the proposed legislation, says Tamara Winikoff, the executive director of the National Association for the Visual Arts...

Playwright David Williamson, yesterday did not mince his words: "It's one of the major functions of art — to look critically at what's going on around you. I think this is the most authoritarian government this country has ever had and it doesn't like voices of dissent.

"You get the feeling that the concept of democracy is not strongly held by this government. It's as if there's only one political line, one opinion. Everything else is attacked with a ferocity unlike anything in our nation's history." http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts/towards-a-cultural-blackout/2005/11/03/1130823314106.html

Protest events are one of the more obvious methods used to "urge" an under-represented point of view. In February 2003, 2% of Australians marched against the imminent invasion of Iraq, causing Howard some fury, as Shaun Carney wrote at the time:

In accusing the marchers of providing comfort to Saddam by exercising their cherished democratic right to free speech, the Prime Minister must believe there is little or no political downside... But why did the Prime Minister make his job even harder by insulting them?... Given that the campaign to oust Saddam is, we are told, motivated by the desire to introduce democracy in Iraq, it was an interesting - perhaps even a confusing - intervention. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/02/21/1045638484989.html

How could the government's new sedition laws have affected that day? Would people have been less likely to organise or participate in the marches? Would councils have been less likely to issue a permit? Would the media have been more guarded in their interpretation of the marches? What role could the police have taken as speakers loudly encouraged dissent?

Anonymous

I'm not sure if I have any particularly original insights into the situation, but it's a bit of a double outrage really - the laws themselves are dangerous and simply not necessary, and then the government invents some sort of unspecified "direct threat" to demolish the opposition and rush them through! All of this while Australia somehow remains on "medium alert", whatever that is supposed to mean. Perhaps it's like ordering a "medium" sized soft drink at the cinema, where medium is the default name for the smallest size they have...

As a small but topical aside, I don't know if anyone happened to see Dateline on SBS a few weeks ago when they did an expose on the massive amounts of foreign money the Indonesian government is making out of "terrorist" acts (such as the various Bali bombings and many others) which it appears to actively incite? It seems that a bit of state-sponsored terrorism is a very persuasive method for having other governments such as the US and Australia send a whole lot of "defence" money your way...

Of course, in a broader context and getting back to this discussion on the "terror" laws, I'm sure most people have noticed the tendency of this government (in line with prevalent US doctrine) to offload through privatisation essential services such as healthcare, communications, roads, etc. whilst clamping down ever-tighter on civil liberties and
boosting military spending? Seems it's all purely driven by whatever's good for business, i.e. short-term profit & long-term disaster...

beatriz

Our Architects for Peace Steering Committee has been working extra hard for the last few days, to put together a letter expressing our concerns and opposition to the "anti-terrorism legislation".

URGENT: Sign up NOW - tell our leaders that Architects for Peace opposes the anti-terrorism laws.

translation from Catal

beatriz

‘Rights’ could have informed new laws
[ UniNews Vol. 14, No. 21 14 - 28 November 2005 ]

By Matthew Johnston

Having a Bill of Rights can help ensure that new laws – such as Australia’s new anti-terror legislation – adhere to human rights standards, according to two University of Melbourne law experts. Director of the University’s Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies, Dr Simon Evans, and the Centre’s Deputy Director, Dr Carolyn Evans, are looking at the human rights performance of Australian legislatures in an Australian Research Council funded study of human rights and legislative processes. (...)

continue reading: Uni Melbourne News - http://uninews.unimelb.edu.au/articleid_2964.html

peter_j

Steve must have read our letter?! This is good news. I hadn't realised that the State premiers didn't approve the Sedition Law amendments.

Victorian Premier Steve Bracks has split with the Howard Government over its proposed changes to the law of sedition, saying they are too broad and threaten free speech.

Law Council President John North backed him up, saying

"It's this concept of urging another person to do certain acts, which is undefined, and therefore in the wrong hands could be used to include broadcasters, journalists, publishers and other media commentators. The Law Council believes these directly threaten freedom of speech and expression, and they are also unnecessary."

The Attorney General is having trouble seeing where the problem is though, the Age noting that, "[Ruddock] indicated that a guard against wrongful prosecutions was that his office had to approve any sedition charge." Which I guess is supposed to make everyone feel a lot more comfortable...

THE AGE 14.11.05 (REGO REQ'D)

beatriz

Terry Lane does a great job describing these laws in various scenarios, including one in which John Howard could be trusted - difficult one, I know... but this is how he goes about:

No more beating about the bogeyman
Perspective
Terry Lane
November 13, 2005

I know we are talking about a Prime Minister who gave us children overboard and weapons of mass destruction and I appreciate it is not easy to give him and his underlings the benefit of the doubt in this case but hey! Just suppose that for once we are not being deceived by self-serving opportunists; what should we make of events?

The Prime Minister tells us we live in such dangerous times that only the suspension of habeas corpus and the introduction of detention without charge will save us from gruesome death. His anti-terror legislation also makes it a crime to incite disaffection for Her Britannic Majesty and her layabout offspring - and the connection between Mrs Battenberg and mad suicide bombers escapes me, but we will concede that he knows something we don't. He wouldn't be threatening republicans with seven years' jail if it were not important, would he? His law will also make it an offence to side with the enemies of our "proclaimed" friends, presumably meaning the US, Britain and Israel. Another seven years in the slammer.(....)

continue reading: The Age - http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/getting-it-out-in-the-open/2005/11/12/1131578269958.html#