The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > The AFP gets close to the edge of the law > Comments

The AFP gets close to the edge of the law : Comments

By Bruce Haigh, published 13/4/2010

In pursuing a case against three Australians of Sri Lankan Tamil background the AFP relied on information from the Sri Lankan government.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. All
This is an excellent and outstanding article Bruce.

I have heard that the Sri Lankan Government has been harrassing Australian Tamils for quite some time. A friend of mine who is a Tamil said that Tamils who took part in the lawful protests against the violence in Sri Lanka in May 2009 were receiving death threats from Sinhalese extremists. A number of hate groups such as SPUR operate with impunity in Australia. This is a terrible state of affairs and a government committed to equality and the rule of the law would not allow a foreign government to behave this way to its citizens.

It beggars belief that the Australian Government could accept a security assessment from a government that has been credibly accused of war crimes.
Posted by David Jennings, Tuesday, 13 April 2010 12:00:25 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Good article Bruce.

The description of AFP's and ASIO's reliance on third country governmental advice appears very accurate.

If a given third country is authoritarian then the information supplied to AFP/ASIO is all the more likely to be tainted in ways contrary to Australia's (legal and political) traditions of accuracy and fairness.

As an aside - on ANZAC Day this year our old diggers will stand for hours in the sun in front of the War Memorial, Canberra. While straining they might notice representatives of very active dictatorships remaining comfortably seated in the VIP area.

Australians at that august occasion can ponder at the precedence given to undeserving regimes (shady types) represented in Australia - over our diggers...

Pete
Posted by plantagenet, Wednesday, 14 April 2010 2:37:40 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy