Anti-terror laws
Human rights are always a touchy subject, particularly when it comes to the Australian/US/British anti-terror laws. it seems that as far as all three governments are concerned, the anti-terror laws are simply a loophole in the law that can be used to harass and intimidate innocent people as and when they see fit.
Most of the time we would assume that police or intelligence agencies are required to have some form of evidence before arresting, harassing or indeed shooting members of the public. Your article in GLW #673 (BRITAIN: Police shoot man in "anti-terror" raid) highlighted how far this has gone. These men were subjected to a violent raid without evidence and were detained and questioned without being given the right to professional legal advice. One of the brothers was even accused of being a member of the Ku Klux Klan! Call me naive but I'm not sure the KKK would be particularly interested in having a 20-something Muslim among their ranks. It's beginning to look as if evidence has become a luxury rather than a necessity and common sense has become obsolete.
But, on the plus side, there are a few people in the British legal system who have not completely lost their minds. In December 2004 the High Court ruled that holding suspects without charge — even those suspected of being terrorists — was an unlawful act. However to combat this, home secretary John Reid introduced "control orders". This meant that individuals can be restricted to their homes, and have curbs placed on access to phones, the internet and other people. They can be ordered to hand in their passports and give the police unrestricted access to their homes.
Reid said that "control orders had been introduced to protect the public against foreign citizens who posed a risk to the country". He said that if foreign terrorist suspects could not be deported because they might face torture, the government had to find another way to "protect the public if prosecution were not possible".
Under this legislation, 14 British citizens of foreign origin have been detained in their homes, many without any evidence of criminal or terrorist activity.
On June 28, however, there was a surprise turnaround which came as a shock to Blair and his government and has hopefully come as a reminder that there is still some belief in human rights and that the government isn't entirely above the law. The High Court ruled that the control orders were in breach of article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prevents detention without trial. It said that home secretary had no power or legal right to impose these orders upon any individual.
The ruling has thrown the anti-terror administration into disarray and once again Blair is doing all he can to avoid the subject. The judgment has made over half of the
control orders illegal and has opened the door for people who previously thought the government had become untouchable.
George Byrne
Britain
Via email [Abridged]
David Hicks
I hope David Hicks makes it home with what's left of his mind intact. It's not who he is, nor what he may have "done", but what he represents that has them running scared. He represents a part of the great unravelling — just as the long imprisonment of Nelson Mandela was the beginning of the unravelling of the South African government, which had become totally corrupted in its efforts to remain entrenched, so long after its use-by date.
To dwell upon Hicks in isolation is to be blind to the sea of corruption in which he floats.
In an June 13 interview broadcast on ABC TV's Lateline program, University of Wisconsin history professor Alfred McCoy, whose 1972 book The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade is regarded as seminal work on the CIA's involvement in drug trafficking, said: "Guantanamo is not a conventional military prison. It's an ad hoc laboratory for the perfection of the CIA psychological torture. Guantanamo is a complete construction. It's a system of total psychological torture, designed to break down every detainee contained therein, designed to produce a state of hopelessness and despair that leads, tragically, sadly in this case to suicide."
Now, simply Google "CIA + drugs" and you will find out how the CIA supplements its already bloated black budget. Google "Afghanistan + opium" to find out how the CIA's latest investment is appreciating.
If you had been to northern Afghanistan in person, you might even know something of this operation first-hand. It makes you think, doesn't it?
Chris Shaw
Carisbrook, Vic [Abridged]
Raoul Wallenberg
Sixty-one years ago, Swedish diplomat and honorary US citizen Raoul Wallenberg was seized by the Soviet Army after having risked his life saving tens of thousands from Nazi death camps. To this day his whereabouts and fate remain a mystery. The official Soviet line has always been that he suffered a heart attack and died in 1947. However, there are reports of people that met Wallenberg right into the 1970s and 1980s.
The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, an educational NGO that promotes the values of solidarity and civic courage, currently has the "Let's Bring Raoul Home" campaign underway in order to solve this mystery. The campaign calls for distinguish personalities to write letters to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, asking for the release of vital information on Wallenberg's case. Moreover, more the 20,000 people from all corners of the globe have already signed the on-line campaign form.
Stephanie Surach
International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation
New York City [Abridged]
Labour aristocracy
The capitalist media and their politicians have been focusing their attention on what they regard as the aspirational voter. It is a new term for an old concept. Marist writers have called them the aristocracy of labour.
The aspirational voter who the conservatives of the major parties aim to attract will make themselves available while they think capitalism has something to offer them. When the economic cycle changes and they are affected by the transfer of industries to countries where the wages are much lower than here, their attitude and political orientation will change.
They will come to realise that the parties of capitalism have used them and then let them down very badly.
Bernie Rosen
Strathfield, NSW [Abridged]
Palestine
Some people are defending Israel's very violent response to Corporal Gilad Shalit's capture by Palestinian extremists by pointing out that Palestinians voted for a Hamas government and that Hamas has initiated terrorist attacks in the past.
However, reports suggest Hamas's political leadership did not have prior knowledge of the Shalit abduction. Furthermore, many Gaza residents (including children) didn't vote for Hamas and others voted for Hamas because of their domestic policies rather than to support their foreign policies. Finally, there is a significant moral difference between saying you endorse terrorism and actually carrying it out; and few Palestinians are themselves terrorists.
Over the past century, US governments have wrongly given military aid to dozens of repressive overseas administrations. But how many people now defending Israel would say that military action harming the general US civilian population would have been justified because of the way their government's behaved?
Brent Howard
Rydalmere, NSW
US bases
Yet again it appears that John Howard is going all out to turn our wonderful country into the 51st state of the USA. If he is serious about allowing thousands of US troops to come here and US bases to proliferate, then I suggest that the population of this country is in for a rude shock. In England, France and Germany, I have witnessed the arrogant, disrespectful and loud behaviour of US marines who appear to think that they own the place. The constant training jets flying over countryside are a constant disruption to daily life and a constant reminder of warmongering and aggression. I really despair about where we are headed under this government.
A. Hodges
Birdwood, SA
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, July 19, 2006.
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