AUSTRALIA: Habib to campaign on human rights
Not your ABC | 02.02.2007 06:37 | Repression | Social Struggles | World
The citizens of Australia and other democracies enjoy the liberty they do because of the inherited wisdom of centuries that the rule of law must govern the relationship between the state and individual.
Excesses by a powerful state
Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib has officially launched his campaign as an independent for the New South Wales state seat of Auburn in Sydney's west.
Mr Habib says his campaign is about human rights.
Mr Habib says he has been asked by members of the community to stand in the election.
The transfer of Mr Habib from Pakistan to Egypt by US authorities in 2001 was unlawful.
The release of Mamdouh Habib does not absolve the Government from explaining its citizens long detention.
The citizens of Australia and other democracies enjoy the liberty they do because of the inherited wisdom of centuries that the rule of law must govern the relationship between the state and individual.
Citizenship is supposed to carry with it several inviolable rights that protect the individual against excesses by a powerful state. Australians Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks are two such individuals who have been denied these rights with the disgraceful acquiescence of their Government. Mr Habib was released from US military detention after more than three years, without facing any charges, shows how arbitrary this exercise of state power has been.
Mr Habib has been the subject of egregious violations of legal principles, some of which date back to the Magna Carta, the great charter of English liberty. The US and Australian governments had colluded to deny the Mr Habib's rights to habeas corpus, trampled over the presumption of innocence without laying charges against him, denied him the prospect of a fair trial and failed to ensure his protection from ill-treatment and torture, which he suffered.
Related:
Hicks: Canberra Convergence
Thanks to supporters in Canberra an add will be appearing in the Canberra media Thursday 1/2 & Saturday 3/2. Looking forward to see you all.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/01/138271.php
http://perth.indymedia.org/index.php?action=newswire&parentview=45145
Mr Habib says his campaign is about human rights.
Mr Habib says he has been asked by members of the community to stand in the election.
The transfer of Mr Habib from Pakistan to Egypt by US authorities in 2001 was unlawful.
The release of Mamdouh Habib does not absolve the Government from explaining its citizens long detention.
The citizens of Australia and other democracies enjoy the liberty they do because of the inherited wisdom of centuries that the rule of law must govern the relationship between the state and individual.
Citizenship is supposed to carry with it several inviolable rights that protect the individual against excesses by a powerful state. Australians Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks are two such individuals who have been denied these rights with the disgraceful acquiescence of their Government. Mr Habib was released from US military detention after more than three years, without facing any charges, shows how arbitrary this exercise of state power has been.
Mr Habib has been the subject of egregious violations of legal principles, some of which date back to the Magna Carta, the great charter of English liberty. The US and Australian governments had colluded to deny the Mr Habib's rights to habeas corpus, trampled over the presumption of innocence without laying charges against him, denied him the prospect of a fair trial and failed to ensure his protection from ill-treatment and torture, which he suffered.
Related:
Hicks: Canberra Convergence
Thanks to supporters in Canberra an add will be appearing in the Canberra media Thursday 1/2 & Saturday 3/2. Looking forward to see you all.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/01/138271.php http://perth.indymedia.org/index.php?action=newswire&parentview=45145
Not your ABC
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Bush knocked down the towers - 9/11 Truth
02.02.2007 20:52
Ask yourself
5. "Home-grown terrorists"
On June 2, 2006 the arrests of seventeen Muslim men and youths in Toronto on terrorism charges made headlines around the world. And yet any careful reader of the news stories which followed these arrests could not help but be struck by a number of anomalies. The case was represented as a major triumph of police and intelligence work, and the dangers involved were underlined by massive paramilitary theatrics at the arraignment hearings, including grim-faced snipers-on-rooftops, and helicopters thumping overhead. But how were we to interpret these theatrics? Did Canadian intelligence agencies really anticipate that squads of heavily armed terrorists might descend on the Brampton courthouse in a desperate Robin-Hood style attempt to free their captured comrades? Or would it be cynical to think that the state was trying to panic the Canadian media and the public at large with this graphic demonstration of how terrified we should all be-if not of the handcuffed prisoners, then certainly of their shadowy accomplices. The logic is clear: if the brave and clever men who dress like ninjas, carry big automatic weapons and work in intelligence are worried, then the rest of us ought to be gob-smacked with fear.
This message appears to have got through quite widely-not least to an American versifier on the Buzzflash website who proposed ironically that his compatriots should stop worrying about building a fence along their southern border to stop Mexican immigration, given what seemed more urgent problems to the north:
Putting up a Mexican fence
May not be the best defense.
Let's build one near Toronto
And get it finished pronto.43
No-one, presumably, had told him about the existence of Lake Ontario.
Snipers and helicopters notwithstanding, there turned out to be a bizarre disjunction between the material resources the arrested group (if it was a group) possessed, and what the Toronto police claimed were their goals: blowing up the Houses of Parliament, the CN Tower, the headquarters of CSIS (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service) and the CBC, and beheading Stephen Harper. For the arsenals of weaponry revealed by the arresting officers were distinctly unimpressive. In addition to five pairs of boots, they consisted of "six flashlights, one walkie-talkie, one voltmeter, eight D-cell batteries, a cell phone, a circuit board, a computer hard drive, one barbecue grill, a set of barbecue tongs, a wooden door with 21 bullet marks and a 9 mm hand gun."44
Oh yes-and centrally displayed, a bag of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, as evidence that the group had intended to emulate Timothy McVeigh's feat of destroying the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City with an ammonium nitrate fuel oil (ANFO) truck bomb.45 Not that any of the accused had actually been in possession of that or any other bag of ammonium nitrate fertilizer-much less fuel oil, or an appropriately configured truck in which to mix the two, or a detonating device-in the absence of which ammonium nitrate makes plants grow, but won't blow anything up, not even the headquarters of CSIS. Yet one or possibly more of the accused had been lured by a police agent into making a purchase order of a large quantity of ammonium nitrate, and had accepted delivery of some quantity of a harmless substitute chemical, at which point the police swooped.
Most media outlets found nothing worthy of comment either in the entrapment of the accused or in the extreme sketchiness of the accused terrorists' equipment. But the motif of decapitation, which was headlined in many accounts of the arrests,46 ought to have prompted a pause for critical reflection. This motif evokes the most lurid misdeed of the arch-terrorist Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi-who for several years (until, that is, a narrative of his extinction seemed more useful than stories of how he ran the Iraqi resistance more or less single-handedly on behalf of al Qaeda) was represented by the Pentagon's fabulists as a demonic Scarlet Pimpernel: that "demmed elusive" one-legged Jordanian was here, there, and everywhere.47
In the spring of 2004, a fortnight after revelations about the torture and murder of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Graib were headlined throughout the American media, Zarqawi very conveniently videotaped himself beheading an American captive, Nicholas Berg. It would be an understatement to call this videotape problematic. Berg, who had been arrested by American forces, was acknowledged as having been in their custody shortly before his death; in the videotape he is wearing American orange prison overalls, while a plastic chair in the background closely resembles chairs that appear in Abu Graib torture photographs. Cries of anguish were dubbed onto the tape, but Berg was clearly already dead when he was beheaded. Zarqawi, his executioner, whom the CIA described as having an artificial leg, is vigorously bipedal, and speaks Arabic without his known Jordanian accent. In brief, the video appears to be a black-operations product, and Berg a victim of the same people who ordered the Abu Graib atrocities.
The reason for the Zarqawi video's manufacture seems obvious. It abruptly reversed the valences of news about torture and executions, making an American the hapless victim and a brutal terrorist the perpetrator. And it allowed media pundits to argue that whatever the lapses of a few 'bad apples' on their side, their adversaries were wholly barbaric. Meanwhile, damning evidence of the responsibility of Bush, Rumsfeld and other senior officials for systematic torture in the American gulag could be flushed down the memory hole.
In the case of the Toronto 17, the beheading motif strengthened associations with al Qaeda by linking the accused with Zarqawi-even though, behind the headlines, it appeared that beheading Stephen Harper was not a crime any of them had actually proposed to carry out, but rather something an imaginative police officer had speculated in a synopsis of accusations one of them would be likely to want to do.48
The outlines of an interpretive framework-or framing narrative, if you like-were thus in place. Like McVeigh, whose method and object of attacks they are accused of wanting to imitate, the Toronto 17 are constructed for us as 'home-grown terrorists'; but the association with Zarqawi's most sensational supposed crime makes them at the same time barbaric outsiders, with spiritual loyalties to the Islamist terrorist international for which his name is a metonymy. The links to both key aspects of this framework, we can observe, are provided by the police: the first through entrapment, and the second through mere supposition.
Only some time after the arrests did the elaborateness of the entrapment scheme become apparent. Early reports made much of an alleged "training camp" session the group conducted in Washago, Ontario in December 2005-one of the leaders of which, Mubin Shaikh, turned out to have been a CSIS mole, who has received $77,000 for his services and claims to be owed a further $300,000.49 Shaikh seems to have taken some trouble to establish his 'cover' role, agitating so noisily for the acceptance of sharia courts in Canada that fellow Muslims urged him to desist. Yet as multicultural chair of Liberal MP Alan Tonks' York South-Weston riding association, he let the mask slip: according to the association's website, this "Traveller, philosopher, theologian ... is not your ordinary Torontonian. At first look, one might think they've encountered an extremist but on second take, you realize you've been had!"50 It would appear that whatever technical expertise the Toronto 17 possessed was also provided by the government: a second mole, an agricultural engineer, "provided evidence to authorities that the conspirators had material they thought could be used to make bombs."51
Most journalists who covered the story found nothing out of the ordinary in the fact that after their arrests the men and youths were subjected to sleep deprivation torture-confined in brightly illuminated isolation cells and woken every half-hour-by authorities obviously desperate for evidence.52 Nor were they able to remember that three years previously another large group of Toronto Muslims had been arrested on suspicion of plotting similarly lurid acts of terrorism-which had turned out to be no more than products of the active imaginations of RCMP and CSIS agents, Toronto police detectives, and Immigration Canada officials. In that case, an investigation called Project Thread (and re-named "Project Threadbare" by skeptics) led to twenty-four men being arrested as members of an al Qaeda sleeper cell with plans to destroy the CN Tower, blow up the Pickering nuclear power plant, and set off a radioactive dirty bomb. The allegations were eventually dropped, and no charges were laid. And yet the men were held in maximum security detention for months, no statements of exoneration were issued, and seventeen of them were deported, in a manner marked by flagrant illegalities, to countries where the mere suspicion of terrorist affiliations could have very dangerous consequences.53
There may then be good reason to suspect that the Toronto 17 are "terrorists" in much the same sense as were the father and son in Lodi, California who, after being set up by a lavishly paid agent provocateur, were talked by FBI interrogators into confessing they had attended an al Qaeda camp in Pakistan (or perhaps Afghanistan or Kashmir) which they located variously on a mountaintop and in an underground chamber where a thousand jihadis from around the world practised pole-vaulting.54 Or perhaps they could be compared to the infamous "Miami Seven," members of an oddly un-secretive "Sons of David" cult who are accused of having conspired with al Qaeda to conduct terror attacks "even bigger than September 11" against targets like Chicago's Sears Tower: the men, who had no visible means of carrying out such attacks, actually committed nothing worse than the thought-crime of swearing allegiance to al Qaeda-an oath that was administered by their FBI agent provocateur.55
One begins to notice how regularly these much-hyped terror threats dissolve into mist and confusion. The vaunted "UK poison cell" whose members planned to murder thousands of Londoners with ricin turned out not to be a terrorist conspiracy after all.56 The "red mercury plot" ended with another embarrassing but largely unpublicized acquittal: the 'terrorists', as John Lettice writes, "had been accused of an imaginary plot to produce an imaginary radioactive 'dirty' bomb using an imaginary substance."57 The deployment of 250 London policemen to shut down an equally imaginary chemical bomb factory in Forest Gate resulted only in the near-murder of a man who, though otherwise innocent, was indeed both Muslim and bearded.58 No less asinine was the huge international stir in August 2006 over a purported "liquid bomb plot": most of the alleged plane bombers possessed no passports and only one had an airline ticket, and the bombs that someone in Pakistan had been tortured into saying they planned to make in aircraft toilets are a technical absurdity.59
Even in cases in which large-scale terrorist atrocities have been perpetrated, there are serious doubts about the official accounts of what occurred. The London bombings of July 7, 2005, for example, are said to have been carried out by suicide bombers-a story that is contradicted by the testimony of survivors that the explosions blew the floors of the underground carriages upward from below.60 If the bombs were not carried onto the carriages, but detonated from beneath, then the purported Islamist fanatics said to have been responsible for these appalling crimes cannot have been the actual mass murderers.
Australia's Terrorism Wake Up Call [164]
The horrific bombings of the Sari Club and Paddy's Bar in Bali, on October 12, 2002, considerably strengthened the hand of the CoW in pursuing the War on Terror. Here was an opportunity to harden the hearts of the Australian and US public against Islamic fundamentalists. It was also a chance for the Indonesian government to justify harsh measures in the war against terrorists and secessionists, such at those in the province of Aceh.
================================
Now you mentioned it?
by Parrot Press Saturday February 03, 2007 at 08:17 AM
Here is a short list of what the bad people have been doing in Australia. Just in case you missed out getting the real news from the mess media!
=============================
Hicks: Canberra Convergence
Thanks to supporters in Canberra an add will be appearing in the Canberra media Thursday 1/2 & Saturday 3/2. Looking forward to see you all.
SDO Demo Crazy Failures mp3
It is not about defending D Hicks, it is about OUR rights of protection from powerful individuals and state - radical radio 30 mins stereo
In the face of mounting opposition, Australian government backs new Guantánamo courts
“It is time for the 50,000 members of the profession—from High Court judges to articled clerks—to have the courage to withdraw their services for a day to make it clear to John Howard and Philip Ruddock that we are ashamed of them. Both of them obtained law degrees predicated on the belief in the presumption of innocence. They are a blight on the profession,” Birrell wrote.
Sedition on the streets of Melbourne
SeditionCharter.org is a collection of individuals who want to challenge Australia's sedition laws publicly. This Indymedia reporter met them on the streets of Melbourne outside the offices of the Victorian Justice Department holding their weekly vigil and leafleting the public about the sedition laws.
HREOC renews call to end mandatory detention
21 January 2007: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission - HREOC has released a report on Villawood (Sydney), Baxter (Port Augusta), Perth, Maribyrnong (Melbourne) and Northern (Darwin) Immigration Detention Centres. It details observations made during visits in October and November last year by Human Rights Commissioner Graeme Innes and his staff. In a statement HREOC has renewed its call for an end to Australia's mandatory immigration detention laws...
Bring David Hicks Home Vigil
People gathered outside the Commonwealth Department of Foreign Affairs in Casseldon Place today to protest the ongong detention without trial of David Hicks. David Hicks has started his sixth year of detention in the US administered Guantanamo Bay Camp on the island of Cuba, still without trial. Much of this time has been in solitary confinement. Hicks alledges he has been subject to torture and abuse by US authorities.
Australian Parliament must reject US kangaroo courts for David Hicks
Bring David Home campaigners are calling for a Canberra Convergence on the opening of Parliament on Tuesday 6 February at 11am on Parliament lawns.
UN report: More than 34,000 Iraqi civilian deaths in 2006
Children are also increasingly vulnerable, with many having lost multiple family members. Some desperate parents engage in trafficking of their children outside Iraq to work as sex slaves or child laborers, or offer them for unlawful adoption.
AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT MUST ACT BRING DAVID HOME
“Australians, across the political spectrum, are now demanding the release and repatriation of David Hicks and members of parliament must do all that is necessary to redress the travesty of justice that has seen this young Australian spend five years and two months in legal limbo,” Ms Obeid added.
Close Guantanamo Bay - Melbourne Protest
Some quick video clips from today's protest at Casselden Place organised by Civil Rights Defence as part of global protests against Guantanamo Bay.
Man refused bail over rocket launcher charges, discrepancies?
Peter Debnam is also a 'chip off' the old neo-liberal rocket launcher 'war criminal', block, John Howard, who has a very good reason to hype up and generate fear in the community for an illegal and degrading war in Iraq. Sinister?
Australia: Here we go again more Howard gov't lies
DO YOU SEE THE PATTERN? IF NOT WHY NOT! WAKE UP AUSTRALIA GET THE MESSAGE OUT IT IS TIME TO TAKE JOHN HOWARD OUT OF PUBLIC OFFICE AS A FRAUD! BEFORE HE TOTALLY DESTROYES THE FABRIC OF OUR SOCIETY.
Another scapegoat or two bite the dust!
John Howard the rocket launcher and his AFP now lay the blame of lost rocket launchers on a scapegoat in custody. Typical propaganda to make himself look good. Again! But now there is a specific target and I strongly suggest it's John Howard's war on terror and how much of a boost he can give to his fear factor so he can continue war mongering!
Xenophobic rocket launcher, so why was it reported really?
Police say they are unsure if the claims, published in a 'Sunday newspaper', are true and they are now being investigated. [So why was it reported today by howard's 'abc' and the 'Melbourne age'?
Community probe reports of AFP training with CIA and M15
"We can determine that there have been other reports about the illegal and degrading wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the complicity of the AFP in the Bali bombing in 2002, and now the fire sale of Australian military hardware, including a rocket launcher found on a tip. After the rocket launchers that went missing from the Australia War Force just recently and that's part of the inquiries that we are making," They said.
==============================
U.S. Army Subpoenas Independent Journalist to Testify
Ring a bell? Jack Thomas and Four Corners!
Read on or better still watch the program if you can.
Australian court orders re-trial on terrorist charges
His re-trial is a warning that the political and media establishment will stop at nothing to try to secure convictions to bolster the “war on terror” and overturn essential protections against official persecution, such as the rules against torture and double jeopardy.
Political scapegoat to face retrial for a Walkley award
But the facts about his torture seems a little difficult for John Howard's ABC to spit out in today's news! And John Howard's motives should be very clear to everyone. Scapegoats have become the latest fascism.
Australia Complicit in CIA Bali Bombings: Community
[There is] no doubt whatsoever of the CIA's involvement and the complicity of the Australian goverment and that view is shared by us and by our counterparts in Indonesia.
Bring David Hicks home - thousands of people rally across Australia
"John Howard, he doesn't want (to) bring David Hicks here for so many reasons, because he's a good witness against the crime of the government overseas."
Billboards going up, lawsuit filed, David Hicks home by Christmas?
Finally, this Saturday December 9, you can join thousands of Australians nationwide to mark the fifth year of David's detention without trial. Peaceful protests are being coordinated by a coalition of action and human rights groups including Fair Go for David and Amnesty International, with key speakers at each event including Major Mori in Melbourne. Order your own Bring David Hicks Home sign and check out the details of a gathering near you.
NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION-FIVE YEARS TOO LONG-BRING DAVID HOME NOW!
Close Guantanamo prison camp - Stop the war on civil liberties
Hicks: Major Mori speaks
According to Mori, All it would take is for the attorney-general to make a telephone call [to Washington] and David would be coming home. But the Australian government has a political problem, he said, because for five years they've labeled Hicks an accused terrorist or a terror suspect. Theyve admitted that if Hicks was brought home they could not charge him with anything because he has not committed a crime under Australian law. Mori believes the Howard government is still hoping the US will do the dirty work for them.
No compo for malice, rendition, false imprisonment, assault - including torture - government secrets?
The court was also told that the Government will be mounting two confidential defences in the case - one of which will only be released to Mr Habib's lawyers.
hoWARd's connections with the abc in Australia and abroad
[So you have to have a story behind it to make up for the distance between false flag opps in Indonesia all the way across to Iraq and Afghanistan that's a huge leap to cover without a terror tale to hook into? What about the Icon of the Terror movement G W Bush? At least we know he's guilty! Osama bin Laden hasn't been found guilty of anything, yo!] And Indonesia has been blowing up bombs in their own country just to move people out of villages for years!]
Australia: Anti-Muslim “terror plot” unravels
Without waiting for any evidence, Prime Minister John Howard and his ministers immediately claimed that the arrests provided disturbing new proof that “home-grown” terrorists were preparing attacks in Australia. Howard told parliament: “If they have broken the law or been involved in terrorism, well they deserve everything they get.”
Draconian scapegoat orders 'stacked against' Thomas
A constitutional law expert says the system is stacked against Melbourne man Jack Thomas.
'Control order' should frighten all Australians
Greens Senator Kerry Nettle today condemned the issuing of a 'control order' to Jack Thomas by the Attorney General Phillip Ruddock and renewed The Greens call for this arbitrary power to be removed from law.
Australia: The torture of Jack Thomas
Given the High Commissioner’s role and the reference to “high places,” there is every indication that the Australian government sanctioned these abuses. What is indisputable is that, acting on its behalf, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions sought to secure convictions that depended entirely upon the completely unreliable statements that Thomas made in his desperation to stop the beatings, avoid being sent to Guantánamo Bay and be allowed to go home.
Jack Thomas served with control order
Anyway who cares about civil liberties should be outraged at this decision. We hear about authoritarian governments putting people under house arrest in Burma – well, now it’s happening right here in Australia!’
Professor George Williams says
University of New South Wales law expert Professor George Williams says the matter could be tested in the High Court.
He says the case will reduce people's confidence in the
justice system.
"The fact that a jury is not involved, the fact that the criteria are loaded against the person because the standard of proof is significantly lower than it would normally be, mean that even though a judge, I have no doubt, will attempt to give a fair hearing and do his or her best - doesn't matter," he said.
"You've got the system stacked against someone.
"This is not a normal process and indeed that's exactly the problem with it."
If they were any tougher they'd Rust!
Tougher terrorism laws predicted after Thomas ruling?
A top defence lawyer says he is concerned the Government might push for tougher anti-terrorism laws as a result of the quashing of convictions against Melbourne man Joseph Terrence Thomas.
abc 18 Aug 06
Judge quashes Thomas conviction
This is fantastic news. Congratulations to Jack and the Thomas family! It is a vindication of everyone prepared to fight for basic rights -- and makes the bus trip all the more important. We're in the process of putting a press release out. Good news for a change!
Joseph Thomas conviction immoral
AN EMBARRASSING conviction based on TORTURE IMMORAL
DPP should lose the plot!
Now why would the DPP do that? Based on some notion I suppose, that john hoWARd (the hangman) wants to use Thomas's butt again, to raise the fear stakes in the introduction of the new Anti-Liberty-Dissent Directives!
David Hicks’s release from Guantánamo
The ongoing imprisonment of Hicks, which is designed to psychologically destroy him, has further underscored the contempt for legal precedent and democratic rights that characterises the entire Australian political establishment.
Andrew Sullivan and the Tortued Truth
Mr. Habib said he was taken to a room with hooks on the wall and a barrel, set sideways like a roller, on the floor. His arms were stretched out, he said, and each wrist was handcuffed and fastened to a hook on the wall. By his description, the only way not to be left hanging was to stand on the barrel; an electric wire ran through it. Mr. Habib said he believed the interrogators in that room were Pakistani.
Mr. Habib said that when he refused to confess to being part of a 1995 terror plot, one man turned on the current. He lifted his feet to avoid the shock, he recalled, and he was suspended from the wall.
"I lost everything," he said.
The American Concentration Camp located at Guantanamo Bay must be closed. Let the people go free. Pardon them. Show them Christian charity. Stop this evil.
International Protest Day calls for the end of Guantánamo Bay
Lawyers denied access to secret truth in scapegoat case
In preparing his defence case, two of his lawyers, solicitor Adam Houda and barrister Peter Lange, saw information that the Commonwealth says they should not have had access to.
Anti-terrorism laws target non-suspects: expert
The forum will look at Australia's legal response to terrorism but would be minded to think of it as scapegoating for john hoWARd's illegal and degrading war of aggression on Iraq that's errorism on purpose. In short, the 'fear' of the politics of a war criminal!
BRING DAVID HOME NOW!
National Day of Action calling for the repatriation of David Hicks - 5 years of imprisonment & torture at the hands of the US army is more than enough: SATURDAY 9 DECEMBER 2006 - 12NOON - SYDNEY TOWN HALL Wear orange - bring drums
The Sydney Morning who?
Mum asks Downer to help sons in prison and the Sydney [Boring] Herald thought they would help out?
Sydney Daily Telegraph (Murdoch owned) skirt the anti terror censorship laws with deliberately false yet cunning stories?
Australian media seizes upon Muslim cleric’s comments to whip up xenophobia
There is now an inescapable necessity for all those opposed to militarism and war, and committed to the defence of democratic rights, to develop an independent political opposition to the xenophobic campaign being directed against Muslims. No faction of the media or political establishment has any opposition to the drive to militarise society under the banner of “Australian values”, and all are complicit in the cultivation of anti-Muslim communalism.
Homegrown war criminal's 'a serious problem in Australia'
Jump, scream, run and hide the muswims are coming to get you! Everywhere I turn there is another terrorist. I opened the sugar bowl this morning and there was a terrorist cockroach just waiting to get me, after stealing my sugar mind you. So we must be very alert and very alarmed. How else would a war criminal get re-elected after a holocaust and what looks like a third interest rate rise this year? Mostly, Howard's goals can only be attained, amongst other things, if he pushes race hate buttons and whilst you continue to live in fear.
Another Gov't Scapegoat Denied Freedom
However the governments criminal acts and clergy all lie and cannot be believed to the gross dissatisfaction of the general community which have no confidence in the violation of human rights and dignity based on hearsay and rhetoric about thought crimes.
Scott Parkin and Iraqi Asylum Seeker win court victory
In a huge victory - Scott Parkin and two Iraqi asylum seekers have won the right to view their negative ASIO security assessments in the Federal Court. The decision will expose the governments bogus attempts to link peace activism and asylum seekers with terrorism.
THOUGHT CRIME IS NOT A CRIME! DROP THE CHARGES!
Doubtful justice in Lodhi sentencing
In Lodhi’s case, this has meant that the threshold of what constitutes “beyond reasonable doubt” has been lowered to an alarming degree. Justice and civil rights are the victims of this “war on terror” in which the government and security agencies benefit politically from convicting supposed terrorists. It is likely that Lodhi’s conviction and sentencing demonstrates, as in the Thomas case, that terror laws are being used to jail people who are not terrorists.
QLD errorism suspect prepares bail application?
Appearing via video link today for a mention, Amundsen regularly spoke over the magistrate, saying he wanted to make another bail application because he now has technical information to prove that the devices in his home were not bombs.
Lodhi gets 20 years for thought crime?
But what effect of what bombing attack? Thought crime attacks cause no vicitims or I might add no real threat to anyone! More fear has been created by the authorities baseless charges of crimes that were never committed and by the parrot press screaming out terrorist.
Amendments to proposed anti-terrorism/liberty directives have been dismissed in the Western Australian Parliament.
Convicted attention seeker Jack Roche called by afp as informant
A convicted 'attention seeker' Jack Roche now an afp informant has given hearsay evidence at the committal hearing for 13 men facing [alleged] terrorism charges in Melbourne.
American Concentration Camp located at Guantanamo Bay
Lodhi lawyer welcomes Thomas appeal win
Perhaps the abc should get another Walkley award?
Prosecution playing 'dirty tricks' in terrorism trial
The defence lawyers for Melbourne's 13 terrorism suspects have accused the prosecution of playing dirty tricks.
The prosecution today played a taped conversation between defendants Shoue Hammoud and Bassam Raad in which the prosecution alleges Raad suggests the authorities that put other members of their group in jail need to be slaughtered.
But in a heated volley of legal argument, defence lawyers said the reference to slaughter instead refereed to Raad's fears about what could happen to his friends in jail.
The defence lawyers said the prosecution was trying to drum up outrageous headlines to excite the media and to compound the fear being peddled in the Australian community.
The defence lawyers said the prosecution should just get on with the evidence.
ABC 18 Aug 06
Court hears fishing expedition letter 'referred to sacrifices to a cause'
The letter reads: "My love, How I miss you already? What would I ever do if we were separated for more than a day? Inshallah I will never find out. May the only cause for our separation be the cause of Allah. And may he grant me paradise alongside you as queen of your Hoor." [kiss, kiss, kiss, hug]
Faheem Lodhi - another non-terrorist jailed under Australia's 'anti-terror' laws?
Jack Thomas, a non-terrorist, has been jailed under Australia's anti-terror laws. Now Faheem Lodhi has been convicted under the terror laws on flimsy, circumstantial evidence. It is likely he is another non-terrorist jailed for political purposes under the terror laws.
Terrorism scapegoat was kidnapped, court hears
The Melbourne Magistrates Court has heard a man charged with [allegedly] directing a terrorist organisation was kidnapped last year.
The court was told Abdul Benbrika alleged in a conversation recorded by police that he was questioned and hit during an abduction which lasted about six hours.
The defendant did not indicate who was responsible for the alleged kidnapping.
Magistrate Paul Smith heard police initiated an internal investigation into the alleged kidnapping, but it was dropped after numerous efforts to contact Benbrika.
HoWARd's abc 15 August 2006
Magistrate allows AK-47 photo to prejudice scapegoat trial
No doubt that the magistrate seeks to incorporate the media throughout the proceedings of these innocent men because of a lack of concrete evidence and just so they can be used as scapegoat's for hoWARd's war on terror.
Former medical student to stand trial in kangaroo court!
Lawyers for the 23-year-old argue the charge is not constitutionally valid because they say the laws cannot cover alleged acts committed on foreign soil which do not have an Australian connection.
Student loses bid for High Court hearing
Lawyers for the 23-year-old argue the charge is not constitutionally valid because they say the laws cannot cover alleged acts committed on foreign soil which do not have an Australian connection.
Attorney General Ruddock is Oddball over anti-terrorist laws!Attorney
Attorney General Ruddock attacks different laws.
Australia's Guantanamo
Have the 13 Muslim men arrested under Australia's new anti-terror laws been subjected to Guantanamo Bay-style conditions? It's an allegation being made by Civil Rights Defence
Major Michael Mori writes re David Hicks
The US Supreme Court has ruled the special Guantanamo trials illegal. An acceptable solution from the Americans is likely years away and our Government has run out of excuses not to act. Nearly 40,000 Australians have put their name to the Open Letter calling for David Hicks to be repatriated. I hope you'll join us now by clicking on the link:
Judges weigh 'Joseph Thomas's' appeal! Get your facts right!
What would she have imposed for stealing a passport?
Standardising terrorism in the prison population?
Try giving us hope, access to our communities, a sense of caring by the outside community. And letting us out to make restitution instead of building festering anger.
Scapegoats accused 'exploited' by guberment prostitutor
The rest of the prisoners had to stay in jail in AA maximum security segregted with no contact with human people in a box within a box with no fresh air or sunlight with the worst of the worst offenders.
Jury indicated it could not reach a verdict, but was ordered to push on?
These charges were that he collected maps of the Australian electricity supply system in preparation of a terrorist act (15 years), BUT WITH NO DETAILS ABOUT THE PREPARATION ACCEPT MATERIAL TO SUPPORT THOUGHT CRIME? that he sought information on chemical prices for the use of explosives for a terrorist act (life), BUT NO SOUND EVIDENCE ABOUT WHETHER THE CHEMICALS WERE GOING TO BE PURCHASED OR USED FOR THE USE OF EXPLOSIVES OR A TERRORIST ACT and that he possessed a document with information on the manufacture of poisons and bombs in preparation for a terrorist act (15 years). THAT HE LIKE MANY OTHERS MAY HAVE DOWNLOADED FROM THE INTERNET WHICH IS NOT ILLEGAL USUALLY?
A dangerous precedent: Australian man convicted of “preparing terrorism”
Since 2001, the government has seized upon the “war” declared by US President George Bush for both domestic and international purposes. Under the guise of combating terrorism it has participated in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, diverted attention from mounting economic and social problems at home and legitimised previously unthinkable police state-style measures, including semi-secret trials, “preventative” detention and the ability to impose life sentences without any evidence of an actual terrorist act.
Secret evidence used in Australian “terrorist” trial
Lodhi was bundled into the court building in shackles, in full view of the media. The display was intended to convey the impression that he is a violent and highly dangerous individual. Like several other Muslim men charged with terrorist offences in Australia over the past year, Lodhi has been denied bail and held in virtual solitary confinement in a “super max” prison, cut off from family and friends. Under state and federal “counter-terrorism” laws, the traditional presumption in favour of bail has been scrapped. It will only be granted in “exceptional circumstances”. On receiving a confidential affidavit from the Commonwealth, Magistrate Michael Price imposed a number of secrecy orders despite vigorous objections by lawyers for Lodhi and by media organisations. The orders mean that the affidavit itself will remain suppressed, and the media is barred from disclosing even the general nature of the material relied upon in it.
Merry Christmas Mr Kent and Mr Haddara
After and ASIO fishing expedition they were charged last month with knowingly belonging to a Melbourne-based terrorist group, that did not exist.
ASIO raid family home
This is an assault on civil liberties, for all Australians - on the eve of Human Rights Day 2005 that marks the day in 1948, that the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Shame hoWARd shame on you!
Tight security impedes scapegoat case
Indymedia has learnt this includes a bank account his supporters say was set up to fund legal representation for Muslims facing any kind of legal action. The prosecution is understood to allege the money was intended for terrorist purposes.
Some evidence is prejudicial to national insecurity
It has been previously reported that he is facing nine charges and is accused of planning a major terrorist attack on Sydney defence sites and the electricity grid using downloads off the internet and having 100 rolls of toilet paper to wipe his arse after low level bombs and farts. Shit!
Terrorism suspects' custody conditions 'inhumane'
"This treatment is very cruel and inhumane and what I've put forward to the Premier Morris Iemma to intervene and put an end to this scandal," he said.
Things and places identified
He said Mulahalilovic worked as a handyman, lived with his wife, parents and brother and, with the help of family members, could provide around $1 million security to ensure his freedom until trial.
Dangerous handyman terror threat?
But the only mother of SATAN here is John HoWARd and his new Ant-Terrorism Bill!
Terror suspects 'kept in dark'
"They're all kept in solitary confinement, they're kept in Guantanamo Bay style conditions and they're very oppressive," he said.
What are the dangerous chemicals police found when they went fishing?
If police say they were making bombs when they were painting motor vehicles then the only terrorist act that wasn't prevented was when police went on a fishing expedition.
Man shot by police in fishing raids
But there is no such thing as an independent investigation team in NSW because police investigate themselves and cannot be relied upon ever.
ASIO fishing expedition makes arrests
Are you satisfied truthseeker? Well I'm not this is just another public relations exercise that no one can prove. But trust us we know best?
hoWARd, ruddock, ellison, keelty and news ltd plotted chaos
Now they go on in the article to describe themselves as intelligence officials? But I'm sorry to say that any group of people who ask another group of people to believe what they believe based on no evidence is amongst the most unintelligent and lost group of people the world has ever known.
Houses raided over 'possible' political attack plans?
"Furthermore, nothing is reasonable about a raid on people's homes because for an alleged possibility. For those sorts of enquiries one should approach a 'soothsayer' and if you get the all clear only then should they approach people via the front door with the appropriate warrant to search one's home. A warrant based on concrete evidence that has been filtered by a juge or magistrate of the court to see whether the material is frivolous or vexatious."
If he'd been given his passport he'd be a free man
During his trial Mr Mallah's defence counsel said he was only trying to sustain the media spotlight when he sold details of his plans to an undercover officer posing as a journalist.
Melbourne man charged over ASIO links
Apparently this victim will appear before the Melbourne Magistrates Court later today and hopefully he won't be sent to the nearest "AA" Super-max prison for "social isolation" just in case ASIO aren't telling us the truth!
Australian prisoners' linked to Bin Laden: Ten News
Hatzistergos: "For example, because of a perceived risk that they may engage in, or incite other persons to engage in, terrorist activities."
Terrorist prisoners held in a "box within a box" with no "fresh air or sunlight" at Goulburn HRMU may incite alleged terrorists in Long Bay to blow up Long Bay Prison's Twin Towers?
Mercy for murderers
Every family member of a 'victim' must feel this way. So when you think of the innocent victims in Bali then also think of the innocent victims in Iraq and Afghanistan the very reason for Bali.
hoWARd, will keep chilling you!
All this nonsense to hide the fact that the Bali bombing was not State Sanctioned Terror when it clearly was in relation to the explosive used in the second Bali bomb blast in 2002 which was clearly military hardware.
Tammy Sparrow