Woomera protest a terrorist act?

BY SUSAN PRICE

SYDNEY — Senate hearings had confirmed that the recent refugees' rights protest at Woomera, during which fences at the Woomera detention centre were pulled down, would be classified as a "terrorist act", under legislation currently before the Australian Senate, Greens Senator-elect Kerry Nettle told an April 10 Sydney meeting.

The meeting was organised by Smash Racism to discuss proposed new "anti-terrorism" laws, which carry penalties of life imprisonment for supporting, holding information about or participating in, terrorist acts.

Speakers, including film-maker Paula Abood, and the Indigenous Social Justice Network's Ray Jackson, condemned the legislation as racist, because it would increase police harassment of black and Arab Australians who are unfairly stereotyped as "troublemakers" and terrorists.

Speaking of the legalised racist harassment in the United States, Abood pointed out that before the laws were passed, police "racial profiling" techniques meant that "driving while black" became a cause for harassment, and now "flying while Arab" was also.

"I spent 14 years trying to prove I wasn't a terrorist", academic and acquitted prisoner Tim Anderson told the meeting, "But now I think [under the legal definition] I am one". He pointed out that the definition of a "terrorist" probably covered everyone in the room.

Nettle also told the meeting that the ALP was likely to support the legislation, which could go through parliament when it reconvenes on May 14. A campaign meeting against the laws will be held on April 23, at the Grand Midnight Star Social Centre, 55 Parramatta Road, Homebush.

From Green Left Weekly, April 24, 2002.

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From GLW issue 488