Gideon Polya, "Free speech dies in police state White Australia", MWC News, 10 November 2005..
FREE SPEECH DIES IN POLICE STATE WHITE AUSTRALIA
Driven by political and media hysteria, Australia will shortly pass draconian extensions of already draconian Anti-terrorist Laws that will entrench Australia as a proto-Nazi Police State.
ALREADY, anyone in Australia faces horrendous penalties through selective, racist, executive interpretation of draconian Ani-Terror Laws, for example:
1 YEAR IN PRISON for failing to surrender your passport “immediately” to an official;
3 YEARS IN PRISON for “intentionally” associating with anyone (e.g. a man on a train) associated with a Government-proscribed organization;
5 YEARS IN PRISON for stating that your spouse or child is held in Preventative Detention without trial;
5 YEARS IN PRISON for not providing requested information, documents or “things” (noting that the “defendant bears the evidential burden” to prove that the answers, documents or “things” don’t exist – a bureaucratic nightmare worthy of Franz Kafka because “proving a negative” is a scientific impossibility);
10 YEARS IN PRISON for membership of a Government-proscribed organization;
25 YEARS IN PRISON for being a leader of a Government-proscribed organization.
Because of politician, Security and media hysteria over a “terrorism threat” DRACONIAN EXTENSIONS to this Anti-Terror legislation are set to pass both Houses of Federal Parliament with BI-PARTISAN SUPPORT over the next few weeks and will turn Australia – one of the world’s oldest democracies – into a Police State.
Peace is the only way and all decent people feel revulsion for violence, terrorism and war – but in several weeks’ time any Australian SAYING SO will potentially face 7 YEARS IMPRISONMENT under all-encompassing SEDITION sections of the new Anti-Terrorism Laws.
Hysterical, racist White Australian corporate Media lying IGNORES the fact that NO Australians have died from terrorist attacks within Australia for 27 years but since 2001 in Australia there have been appalling avoidable deaths, namely 80,000 (from tobacco), 24,000 (indigenous Australians), 14,000 (alcohol) and 2,000 opioid-related deaths from passive US Coalition (including Australian) restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium trade (now 87% world share).
The Yellow Press RESOLUTELY IGNORE the Black crimes of racist White Australia such as Australia's complicity in the carnage involved in the US Coalition War on Terror - the post-invasion avoidable mortality (excess mortality)and under-5 infant mortality in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories total 2.1 million and 1.7 million, respectively, in gross violation of the Geneva Conventions that demand supply of life-preserving requisites to conquered civilians by the Occupying Powers. This constitutes manifest "passive genocide" because annual per capita medical expenditure in these US-occupied countries is less than 1% of that in metropolitan USA.
The US-dominated Australian corporate mainstream media that support “terrorism hysteria” and the Gadarene slide of Australia into a Police State IGNORE the horrendous consequences of UK-US democratic imperialism (democratic tyranny, democratic Nazism) and provide NO quantitative estimates of the actual “terror threat”.
Despite Australian media hysteria about the "terrorism threat", NO Australians have been killed in domestic terrorist acts in 27 years and NO politicians, Security, public servants, academics, journalists or writers (except yours truly) have offered ANY quantitative estimate of the ACTUAL threat. The "annual Australian probability of death" is about 0.0001% (from terrorist attack), 0.001% (from a family member or acquaintance), 0.01% (from a car accident) and 0.1% (from tobacco smoking-related causes). Rather than deal (in order of decreasing seriousness) with deadly tobacco smoking, globally-devastating cars and horrendous domestic violence, White Australia is entrenching Police State Anti-Terror Laws that grossly violate fundamental human rights.
EXISTING Australian Anti-Terror Laws prescribe the following terms of imprisonment: 1 YEAR (for failing to hand over your passport "immediately"); 3 YEARS (for talking on 2 occasions with a member of a Ministerially-proscribed (Muslim) "terrorist organization"; 5 YEARS (for anyone reporting the detention without trial of anyone; for not providing information or documents and for not being able to prove that you did not possess the same (a Kafkaesque scientific impossibility)); 10 YEARS (for membership of a group deemed to be a "terrorist organization by the Minister); 25 YEARS (for being a leader of a group deemed to be a terrorist group).
PROPOSED (and shortly to be enacted) Australian Anti-Terrorism Laws ALSO prescribe Control Orders (e.g. home detention, no Internet, no telephone, non-possession of specified articles, no work, limited communication, must wear a tracking device, "counselling and education" (!!!!) and 5 YEARS imprisonment for any contravention of this detention without trial); Preventative Detention (e.g. for 14 days, strip search, fingerprinting, necessary force applied, location in remand centres for dangerous criminals and 5 YEARS for anyone disclosing such detention without trial); Document seizure (notwithstanding privilege, incrimination or professional confidentiality; 2 YEARS for disclosure of this disclosure notice); Financing "terrorism" (LIFE IMPRISONMENT e.g. for a Muslim innocently making a donation to a charity actually "deemed" to be "terrorist-linked"); Sedition offences (potentially covering any comment critical of the Australian, UK or US governments, their racism, warmongering and war crimes; anyone is liable to arrest anytime even without warrant - however this warrant must be procured "within a reasonable time"; 7 YEARS imprisonment).
30,000 people are reported missing to Australian police each year but fortunately most are found relatively quickly (see: http://www.missingpersons.gov.au/media_releases/2005/NMPUWeek2005_Launch.htm]. However under EXISTING Australian Anti-Terror Laws if a loved one goes missing and just happens to have been detained without charge by Security she will be “out of the system” – subject to the threat of 5 YEARS IN PRISON and AS ADVISED in proposed extensions of the Anti-Terror Laws to be enacted shortly, all that ANYONE can tell you (if they knew) is:
“she is safe but is not able to be contacted for the time being"
Amnesty International, the Australian Law Council, Civil Liberties Groups, senior Judges and the Australian chapter of the International Commission of Jurists have roundly condemned these laws - laws that have popular and bipartisan support because of media lying and racist hysteria.
Legal, civil liberties and Muslim groups have warned that these laws will unfairly target Muslims and could lead to Australia becoming a Police State (see: http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:kCCzeXO3OhEJ:www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1456486.htm+o%27gorman+%22police+state%22&hl=en ].
Amnesty International has condemned these laws, drawing special attention to the following section of the proposed Anti-Terrorism Law that provides a EUPHEMISM for "preventative detention without trial for 14 days": "To avoid doubt, a person does not contravene [the non-disclosure law, penalty 5 YEARS] merely by letting another person know that the detainee is safe but is not able to be contacted for the time being".
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) (Australian section) [see: http://www.icj-aust.org.au/?no=33 ] has provided a detailed condemnation of these draconian Australian Anti-Terror Laws, including the following key analysis:
“Many of these proposals represent serious departure from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) to which Australia is a party. The IPCCR is appended to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986, which has the responsibility to monitor Australian’s compliance with the Covenant. Further, the Commonwealth of Australian and some States and Territories have incorporated the ICCPR into their Evidence Acts applicable in Australian courts. Whilst the UN may not have enforcement powers to force Australia to comply with treaties it has adopted, as a matter of fundamental principle and international law, Australia’s laws should comply with international human rights standards we have signed on to. Under the ICCPR, Australia is only entitled to derogate from civil and political rights after it has declared a state of emergency in accordance with Article 4.”
In 1901, newly independent racist White Australia having largely exterminated the indigenous aboriginal population (from 1 million in 1788 to about 0.1 million in 1900) wanted to bring in explicit "White Australia" legislation but was dissuaded by Great Britain (which did not want the Japanese offended, nor the hundreds of millions of non-European subjects of the British Empire). The solution was to bring in the 1901 Immigration Act that DID NOT MENTION RACE but allowed the racism to be effected IN SECRET by MINISTERIAL DISCRETION (and when necessary, by use a fraudulent "dictation test in any modern European language" to weed out uppity, non-European applicants who didn't get the message).
The White Australia Policy" ceased after passage of anti-racism legislation by the transient Whitlam Labor Government in 1973. However by the 1990s a "secret" New White Australian Policy had resumed through racial profiling and discrimination against "high risk" (typically non-European) countries. The Anti-Terror Laws don't specify Muslims or Arabs (although ALL 18 of the presently proscribed organizations are Muslim and have Arabic names) - BUT they will clearly be administered in a racist, bigoted and discriminatory fashion through secret, executive interpretation.
Thus it is OK for Australian Jews to serve in the Israeli army in the illegally-occupied West Bank or to give donations (small to gigantic) to support illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian - but Australian Muslims or Arabs will face 10-25 YEARS for belonging to Arab insurgent organizations and LIFE IMPRISONMENT for allowing their charitable donations to proceed to such organizations.
Australia is one of the worlds' oldest continuous liberal democracies - in the 19th century it lead the world in relation to democracy, one man one vote, female suffrage, free education, trade unions and reasonable working conditions (although aboriginal Australians were only formally "counted" as Australians after a referendum in 1967, around about the time of cessation of a dreadful policy of forced removal of perhaps tens of thousands of aboriginal children from their mothers [the Stolen Generation]).
When these new laws are in place before Christmas 2005, racist White Australia will have become a proto-Nazi Police State.
Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Please tell everyone before they turn off the light.
And after the hysterical, racist White Australian political-media Establishment DOES turn off the lights, ask yourself: would you buy soap made in Auschwitz, goods made by slave labour or goods and services from a Police State? Would you do business with, visit, tour, study in or indeed have any dealings with a profoundly racist, holocaust-denying, proto-Nazi society that deliberately flouts the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Geneva Conventions?
Dr Gideon Polya, Melbourne, Australia