Kim Bullimore, Melbourne
On February 24, 35 people attended a legal briefing by Brian Walters, president of Liberty Victoria and lawyer for one of the "Melbourne 10" arrested in the November 8 "terrorism" raids. The meeting was organised by Melbourne's Civil Rights Defence committee.
Walters said that in the lead-up to the arrests in Melbourne and Sydney there was "nationwide hysteria", which the corporate media helped to whip up. He explained that the Melbourne men had been charged with "belonging to a terrorist organisation, but not a proscribed one" and noted that, despite thousands of hours of surveillance tapes, the allegations against the men were "incredibly vague" and there was "no evidence to back up the allegations".
Under the charge of "belonging to a terrorist group" in the new "anti-terror" laws, Walters said, federal authorities "don't have to show that a group was planning to do anything. They just have to show they had sympathy for 'terrorist causes' and that they belonged to a group". He argued that the Melbourne men were "charged with an offence which is essentially a thought crime, and held in conditions worse than murderers".
The vagueness of the "anti-terror" laws mean that they are liable to subjective interpretation, Walters added. "We now have rule by whim [with] the powerful being able to impose their will without clear laws". Our "freedom is being taken by corporate and political power", he said.
Civil Rights Defence meets at 6.30pm every Tuesday night at the New International Bookshop, Victorian Trades Hall. For more information, visit <http://www.civilrightsdefence.org> or phone 0439 454 375.
From Green Left Weekly, February 1, 2006.
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