BY RAY FULCHER
MELBOURNE — "There is no need for the creation of a new federal offence of terrorism because current criminal law is sufficient to catch all the activities perpetrated by terrorists", Chris Maxwell, from Liberty Victoria, told a meeting of 200 people on January 31.
The meeting was called by the Human Rights Alliance — a coalition of Liberty Victoria, community legal centres and the Catholic Justice Commission — to report on "anti-terrorist" laws proposed by the federal government in February.
Under the proposed laws, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) will gain powers of arrest and the legal right to detain suspects for 48 hours without access to legal counsel. A new offence of "terrorism" will be created, as well as broad new definitions of "terrorist acts" that will criminalise legitimate political activity and organisation.
Jude McCulloch, author of Blue Army (a book dealing with police powers in Australia), likened ASIO's proposed detention powers to the British government's repressive internment policy in Northern Ireland. She pointed to the many instances of coerced "confessions", fabricated evidence and the miscarriages of justice that that policy has produced in Northern Ireland.
Damian Lawson, from the Federation of Community Legal Centres, argued that the new laws were "not directed at Osama bin Laden but at political activists". The broad and vague definition of terrorism favoured by the government includes any "act committed for political, religious or ideological purpose designed to intimidate the public with regard to its security and intended to cause serious damage to persons, property or infrastructure".
Lawson pointed out that the government could argue that both the Maritime Union dispute and anti-globalisation protests could fit this definition. He pointed to the fact that similar legislation was discussed in the European Union after anti-globalisation protests there, well before the September 11 attacks in the United States.
Lawson argued that to stop the new laws, campaigners must urge the ALP, the Democrats and Greens to oppose them.
From Green Left Weekly, February 6, 2002.
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