AUSTRALIA: New Anti-Terror Laws Worry Muslims, Rights Groups

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Bob Burton

CANBERRA, Sep 27 2005 (IPS) - Special powers approved for security services and police agencies at a national summit on terrorism, that included state political leaders, have alarmed members of the Muslim community who fear they will be targeted.

Co-convenor of the Australian Muslim Civil Rights Advocacy Network, Waleed Kadous, dismissed assurances by Australian Prime Minister John Howard, following the approvals Tuesday, that the new laws would not be used to target the Muslim community.

”So far, for example, many Muslim homes have been raided but most of those have not led to arrests, so lots of innocent people are being affected. What’s worse is that these new measures remove existing safeguards and are open to abuse such as random stop- and-search powers,” he said.

”While the laws themselves don’t specifically mention Muslims, in the application of the laws there will be an undue impact on the Muslim community,” Kadous added.

At the Council of Australian governments’ summit on terrorism, Howard gained approval from state premiers for the new laws that gives security and police agencies powers to detain terrorism suspects for up to 14 days.

Significantly, Howard gained the approvals although the country’s six states and two territories are run by premiers from the left-of-centre Labour party, which is politically opposed to the federally-ruling Liberal/National coalition.

While Howard initially proposed suspects be detained without access to the courts, state government leaders insisted that those detained have access to legal representation and judicial review.

Howard invoked the spectre of the London bombings as justification for broad new powers he claimed would help reduce the chances of terrorist attacks. ”We do live in very dangerous and different and threatening circumstances and a strong and comprehensive response is needed,” he said in a media conference after the summit.

While Australian soil has never been hit by a terror attack, 88 of its citizens were among 202 people who died in the 2002 Bali bombings in neighbouring, largely-Muslim, Indonesia. The Australian embassy in Jakarta was also hit by a suicide bombing in September last year- but the ten people who died were all Indonesians.

As an ally of the United States, Australia readily responded with troops for the ‘war-against-terror’ in Afghanistan and Iraq and has been steadily tightening security and anti-terrorism laws since the Sep.11, 2001 suicide attacks on the U.S. using hijacked airliners.

While state government leaders did expressed concern at Howard’s proposal, a briefing by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) seems to have shaken them. ”The situation is serious,” Australian Capital Territory Chief Minister Jon Stanhope said, after the briefing.

Civil libertarians were scornful of citizens’ rights being waved away. ”I think it just shows what a sorry state civil liberties have reached in this country that someone will now be able to be held for 14 days without charge on the basis that the premiers have been secretly briefed by ASIO,” Terry O’Gorman, president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties told ABC Radio.

The summit also approved the Australian Federal Police being able to get a 12-month court order restricting the rights of people deemed to be ”a terrorist risk to the community”, but who hadn’t been charged with any offence.

Other changes to be included in proposed legislation, scheduled to be tabled in several weeks, include expanded powers for the national security agency and creating a new crime of incitement for ”advocating or supporting terrorist ideology”.

In background notes released in early September, Howard had argued that the new crime would apply to those who ”communicate inciting messages directed against other groups within our community, including against Australia’s forces overseas and in support of Australia’s enemies”.

Other provisions will also make it easier for the government to designate groups as terrorist organisations if they ”advocate terrorism” and greater investigative powers of charities suspected of funding terrorist groups.

Ahead of the summit, a coalition of community and legal groups expressed alarm at the proposals in a 47-page analysis and critique of Howard’s proposals, titled ‘Laws for Insecurity?’ They pointed out that terms such as ‘terrorist’ and ‘risk’ as also what constituted ‘the community’ were inadequately undefined.

The powers sought, they warned, would ”place serious limitations on existing rights and freedoms that underpin Australian democracy such as the presumption of innocence, the right to privacy, everyone’s right to be considered equal before the law; [and] everyone’s right to freedom of political and religious association and belief”.

The Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie, agreed the new laws were draconian. ”In many senses, the laws that we’ve agreed to today are, in fact, draconian laws but they are necessary laws to protect Australians,” he said after the summit.

Ahead of the summit, the Law Council, the peak body for the Australian legal profession, had cautioned that the proposals were ”very heavy handed” and should have been subjected to much more community debate and scrutiny.

But even federal opposition Labour Party leader Kim Beazley proposed that on the basis of ”credible intelligence”, police should be given the power to seal off entire suburbs to search people, houses and vehicles without having to gain court approval.

Kadous was dismayed at Labour’s acquiescence. ”We are very disappointed that the Labour Party is not taking a leadership role in this position, but is instead competing in a game of one-upmanship with John Howard to see who can give away our rights more quickly”.

Ahead of the summit, Victorian Premier Steve Bracks, New South Wales leader Morris Lemma and Queensland Premier Peter Beattie argued that the new legislation should be subject to a three-year sunset clause. Howard reluctantly agreed to the changes expiring in ten years time and being subject to review in five years.