BY ALISON DELLIT
In the mid 1960s, protesters in Australia broke the law just by holding
street protests against the Vietnam War. Through persistently defying anti-protest
laws, they won the legal right to hold street marches.
This is an example we may have to emulate, if, in early June, the Senate
passes the Howard government's “anti-terrorism” laws substantially intact.
There are six major reasons to oppose, and to defy, these atrocious laws.
1. There is no need for them
The government claims these laws are necessary to protect the public from
terrorists, but at a press conference last month, federal Attorney-General
Daryl Williams was forced to concede that the Australian Security Intelligence
Organisation (ASIO) had identified “no tangible threat” to Australia from
terrorists.
Despite persistent, terrifying, raids on Palestinian, Colombian and
Muslim households in the last six months, ASIO has not even found one crazed
Osama-bin-Laden-look-alike to parade before the media in justification.
But even if there was a real terrorist threat in Australia, these laws
would still be unnecessary. Murder, bombing, flying planes into buildings
and destroying public transport and other systems were all illegal under
previous criminal laws.
The creation of a special terrorist offence metes out harsher punishments
to those who “offend” for political or religious reasons than to those
who commit the same sort of criminal acts for monetary gain.
For example, someone who hacks into a bank's web-based systems in order
to steal commits a crime punishable by a fine or a short prison sentence.
But someone who hacks into exactly the same system to print “Banks suck”
on customers' withdrawal slips could, under the “anti-terrorism” legislation,
face life in prison.
Similarly, someone who hijacks a plane simply to extort money faces
a lower sentence than someone who hijacks a plane in an attempt to force
the Burmese military dictatorship to release political prisoners.
2. They are an attack on solidarity
The government does not seek to criminalise all acts of politically motivated
violence — Australian Defence Force personnel acting under orders are given
specific exemption from the laws. ADF officers can hijack, bomb and kill
in order to advance the political goals of the government. An act of politically
motivated violence only legally becomes “terrorism” when the government
decides that it is not in its interests.
But for thousands of people living in Australia, who fled here from
overseas, the real terrorism is the brutal oppression their nations suffer
at the hands of foreign conquerors. For Palestinians fleeing the Israeli
occupation, Tamils fleeing persecution in Sri Lanka, Acehnese escaping
Indonesia's massacres, supporting armed resistance movements back home
is a form of national self-defence.
The government's earlier decision to outlaw the raising of funds in
Australia for organisations such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) — a large, peasant-based guerilla army engaged in a civil war with
a repressive right-wing government — demonstrates that it intends to criminalise
much more than acts of terrorism. Any support — financial or moral — for
armed resistance movements overseas could be met by hefty jail terms under
the “anti-terrorism” laws.
Even support for non-violent forms of resistance may be criminalised.
Australian organisations can be banned just for endangering “`the security
or integrity of another country”. Had these laws existed a few years ago,
support for East Timor's independence movement would have been illegal.
3. They will be implemented in a racist way
For the last few years, police in NSW (and all other states, at least informally)
have been implementing “racial profiling”, that is, assuming that non-white
youth are more likely to commit crimes than white youth, and treating them
accordingly. Since the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States,
Australian police harassment of Muslim and Arabic youth has dramatically
increased.
The NSW Islamic Council told Senate committee investigating the legislation
that Muslims faced daily harassment from the police and from ASIO. In its
submission to the committee, the council stated that it feared that with
more powers ASIO would step up its persecution of Muslims.
The corporate media and the government have furiously attempted to convince
the public that terrorists are Arabic or Muslim and frequently refugees
(despite expert opinions to the contrary).
If the laws are passed, it is likely that ASIO and the police will intensify
their efforts to harass Islamic communities in order to find al Qaeda sympathisers
”proving” the legislation was needed (even if the sympathisers are not
involved in terrorist acts). Such a campaign would make life much more
difficult for thousands of migrants and ex-refugees.
Because national liberation movements are frequently accused of terrorism,
refugees who come here after struggling against oppression overseas are
likely to be the government's first targets for interrogation and harassment.
They are easier targets than the Australian radical left because of their
social isolation and the racism inflamed by the government's refugee-bashing.
4. They take away basic human rights
These bills take away basic civil liberties. The ASIO amendment bill will
remove the right to silence, and the right to legal representation, from
those under interrogation in an investigation into “terrorism”.
For example, if the ASIO amendment bill is passed, a man suspected having
information about al Qaeda could find his 12-year-old daughter taken into
custody, terrified through a strip-search and then interrogated on her
father's activities for two days straight.
By giving ASIO the power to detain and interrogate, the legislation
makes the institution a secret police force, instead of simply a spy agency.
5. They criminalise dissent and political protest
Although the legislation excludes “lawful protest”, many protests which
become “unlawful” would quickly fit the definition of a “terrorist act”.
Even street marches can become “unlawful” pretty easily — protesters
march in a direction the police have instructed them not to, they bang
on the doors of a building or a protester swears.
Other protests, common in Australia, are unlawful from the beginning
— blockades of corporation's offices, forest blockades or hanging banners
off corporate headquarters. All these activities — carried out for political
reasons and disruptive to “systems” — could be classified as terrorist
acts under the legislation.
While “industrial action” is excluded, thanks to Peter Reith's workplace
relations act, not all union activity is the legally interpreted as “industrial
action”. The “peaceful assemblies” that blocked entry to the waterfront
during the 1999 maritime industry dispute, for example, were not legally
industrial actions.
In questioning before the Senate committee investigating the package
of laws, government representatives confirmed that the pushing over of
the fence at the Woomera refugee detention centre at Easter would fit within
the definition of a “terrorist act”, as would the August 19, 1996 union
protest in Canberra (which broke through the front doors of Parliament
House) and most forest blockades.
Once a protest has been declared a “terrorist act”, anyone who has attended,
helped organise or publicise or even simply hold onto a leaflet about the
protest could be charged with a related offence.
Even if, as the ALP has vaguely suggested, an intent to “violently intimidate
the government” is added to the definition of terrorism, protest action
could still be classified as terrorist — providing it had political aims
and the government claims it was “violent” (as it has for M1, S11, the
Woomera protest and the 1996 union action).
The government is claiming that the laws will not be used against protesters,
and they probably won't be at first. But to have such laws on the books
leaves protesters vulnerable to legal attack if the government is able
to demonise particular protest actions or groups involved in these actions.
6. They protect the government's racism
The introduction of these laws is part of a bi-partisan push to convince
Australians that political “extremes” — including protesters — are dangerous
and need to be suppressed.
This is not a new push. Since the election of the Coalition government
in 1996, Prime Minister John Howard, almost always supported by the Labor
Party, has attempted to demonise almost every significant left-wing protest
— the 1996 union march on Parliament House, the protests outside One Nation
meetings, the high-school walkouts against racism, the “peaceful assemblies”
to defend the Maritime Union of Australia, the blockade against the Jabiluka
uranium mine and the 2000 S11 protests outside the World Economic Forum.
Even the hugely popular protests to force his government to send troops
to the defence of East Timor in 1999 and the 2000 “bridge walks” for reconciliation
were opposed by Howard.
Up to now, Howard has not been able to rollback public support for the
right to protest. However, if his “anti-terrorism” laws win popular support,
it will be a big defeat for those prepared to fight for human rights and
social justice. Not only will the laws intimidate potential protesters,
they will help to feed a climate of fear within which police will feel
more confident to use horses, batons, capsicum spray and water cannon on
protesters.
We cannot let this racist government use the tragedy of September 11
to silence its critics, giving itself more space to peddle the lie that
the world's problems are caused by its most unfortunate and that human
rights are under attack from those who have none.
We must vocally oppose these laws, and demand that they be completely
rejected. If they are passed, we must defy them — confidently, collectively
and passionately continuing to protest, to offer solidarity to those in
Third World, and to defend refugees and migrant communities under attack
in Australia.
From Green Left Weekly, May 22, 2002.
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