Now's the time to get real about the erosion of civil liberties and justice in Australia.

Former Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, has established a website to highlight these issues (http://www.australiansall.com.au),

The political awareness group, GetUp, has called for affirmative action to publicly shame our politicians into action, over their broken promise to bring David Hicks home by November 1. (https://www.getup.org.au/secure/donatehicks.asp)

It's about time we, as Australians, stopped being comfortably numb and realised that the Howard government has overseen the most draconian social engineering of Australia since WWII. Our police and spooks have more legally backed power than the German SS during that war and the more recent Soviet Stazi.

This has to stop now!

Iluvator,

I disagree with you on David Hicks, but that’s by the by. What really amazes me is your claim that: “Our police and spooks have more legally backed power than the German SS during that war and the more recent Soviet Stazi.”

You are obviously anti-Howard Government, which is your right, but gross exaggeration and claiming that there is any similarity at all between the SS and Stazi and our police and security forces completely strips you of any credibility.

Further, Malcolm Fraser was an up-himself-arrogant elitist as Prime Minister. He would have walked over you and me without batting an eyelid. He certainly did not express the touchy-feely image he likes to project now, when he was PM.

Fraser had ideas, which, if you are sincere about Hicks, would be totally opposed to your own. Leopards don’t change their spots.

You seem rather confused mentioning Fraser and Get Up, an unofficial arm of the Labor Party, in the same context

Leigh,

Under current "terrorist" legislation a person can be detained for a period of at least 14 days without charge simply for being suspected of being involved contemplating a terrorist act. (So, in practice you could be arrested for simply saying, in public, someone should blow such-and-such a place up. (This was often an expression used by people of my father's generation - they'd all be locked in solitary confinement by now, under the watchful eye of ASIO, if they were alive!) This in itself is an erosion of civil liberties. The even more frightening part is that the detainee is unable to contact anyone about their detention. Go speak to your nearest holocaust survivor and ask them if that sounds familiar !

Indeed, in just writing this comment it may be construed seditious under current legislation and therefore incitement of acts against the government (another offence under new legislation). Indeed this government is very keen to shut down dissenting voices. If you want proof, see here (http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=16896
or
http://www.johnhowardpm.org/speechhistory.html)

So, to all readers... be careful what you write here Big "Johnny" Brother IS WATCHING. (At least until he and his cronies are out of office).

Actually,

Here's the speech that was put on the net. The one Howard SHOULD make.

http://www.johnhowardpm.org/originalspeech.html

If you believe that your 'justification' equates with SS and secret police tactics of totalitarian regimes, you have lost the plot, mate. Life must a a nightmare for you and anyone who thinks like you.

As I said - comfortably numb. Have a quiet think about how Australia has changed since Howard came to office.

It all started with the non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction... how we were enlisted in a war (without a public plebiscite)... how the USA has sought to perpetrate its hegemony - I will not try to add to that since there is much material from very reliable sources on the Internet (unlike that for WMDs).

Even so, Australia is now embroiled in a "global war on terrorism". If we had not joined the "coalition of the willing" would we be under direct threat from terrorists? I think the answer to that can be found by looking at those countries who were not members of that elite club (e.g. New Zealand).

So, the Howard government has sought to put this country on a war footing with legislation which parallels those imposed under emergency law (during WWII) I have talked to some people who lived through that period and they concur that it feels similar (but without the food and petrol rationing). Those who were in the armed forces comment that one difference is that they don't have to carry their I.D. card (somewhat wryly they say it's their pension card now :-( )

So. My question is: Have our civil liberties been compromised? I think, yes.

However, my opinion is quite insignificant - there are many learned folk in the legal profession who have already raised the alarm over this, and the issue of David Hicks' detention. Are they wrong too?

David Hicks. The fact that individuals like Iluvatar compare the actions of the Australian Government to the SS highlights the credibility of people on this bandwagon! I've been to the concentration camps in Poland mate and frankly you need to get away from your computer terminal and see the world rather than make these kind of bizarre rants.

Yep. I think your "learned" sources are wrong too. David Hicks is not your average civilian criminal. He was involved in something which is and always will be a threat to all humanity. As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Hicks can rot to death in Gitmo. Civilized, lawful proceedings do not, in my view, apply to him or his associates. Had I been the one who caught him at his little games, I would have popped him.

I do not think that my civil liberties have been compromised, either. Have yours - really?

Your opinions are undoubtedly as strong as mine, so there is probably little point in discussing the issue further.

Cheers,
Leigh

Got to agree with Leigh, Hicks got himself into this mess and he should think himself lucky.
In previous times he would have been shot out of hand.
What ! No uniform, no paybook and no serial number ?
He is not a soldier, he must be a spy, BANG !
They would have been justified in shooting him.

He was I gather in a group that surrendered when under fire.
Anyone in uniform and with a paybook and serial number would have been
subject to detention until the cessation of hostilities.
Soldiers in that situation can rely on the protection of the Red Cross.
Any other armed person can expect to be shot.

Leigh,

What a callous thing to say about David Hicks..remind me not to cross you.

I for one actually strongly believe my civil liberties have been severely diminished by Howard and his cronies.

Look around you....open your eyes and ears.
Illuvatar is not nearly as far out of left field as you think.

No time to go to sleep.

BAZZ,

Actually, no-one would have been afforded the protection of the Red Cross in Iraq, since the US has proclaimed that invasion beyond the jurisdiction of the Geneva Convention.

Hence their need to set up their unconstitutional military tribunals. Otherwise all of the detainees that were held in Guantanamo Bay could have easily been tried at an internationally recognised war-crimes tribunal.

Q.E.D.

Leigh,

I see you act as judge of David Hicks before he has faced any rightly established court of law. Please do not plead to me for justice if you ever have need of defence. You may just get what you would impose on others.

Hey holyshadow,

I'm pretty scared.

Here's a comment I got from an American friend of mine. He says that in the US they have a "dob-in" (my words) telephone number (711 I think). Anyway it is a hotline to the Dept of Homeland Security. It is for the use of anyone, particularly government employees.

Ostensibly it is for persons to report suspicious activities (like "be alert - not alarmed"). What has happened is that many people have started simply using it to get back at anyone they don't like - their neighbour, boss or just someone who pissed them off. Dept of Homeland Security was been swamped with calls, and they simply cannot investigate all of them. This sounds pretty awful to me. Has this been happening in Australia? I know it's easy enough to dob-in a tax dodger and they investigate a lot of these calls. Surely ASIO can't look at a large number of bogus calls, can they?

FU2,

That is something to be scared about I agree.And I am one to think the worst about this Government since Howard bases so many of our policies on the American models.

I believe there is a growing ,secretive Big Brother campaign pervading the country.Some of it is visible..IR laws and tinkering with Freedom of Speech laws, now talk of introducing the 'Smart Card',smart for the government maybe.
But in may ways we havent yet woken up to, we are already watched and listened too.
Yeah, its scary alright.

David Hicks is Australian, he should be treated as such .

I agree with Bazz. By all rights, his captors could have executed him on sight. No judge, jury or trial, perfectly legal. He was indeed lucky.
The man had no uniform, and was a combatant in a war zone, this equals a bullet in the real world, no questions asked.
FU2, he was caught in Afghanistan, not Iraq, so that statement is not relevant, and even if he were, refer to the previous point. The man had no uniform, and is therefore not covered under the Geneva convention in any way shape or form, except to say he may summarily shot dead. His fate lay with his captors, who had the legal right to kill him (and should have in my opinion), but they must have thought he might yield some intelligence.

I don't want his kind being freed, and returned to live among us. The guy is sub-human slime, and he & all those like him need to be eradicated as soon as is humanly possible.

Leigh,

I take it you don't believe in evidence, judge, jury, trial etc. All it takes for someone like you is to be told by the rich and powerful that someone is guilty and you believe it.

It was people like you who were there at the lynchings and "witch" burnings. It was people like those advocating a fair trial for Hicks who helped to make lynching and witch burning illegal.

It takes a combination of intellect and compassion to make a person stand up against the rich and powerful in order to help the oppressed. I wonder which is lacking in you to bring such a cavalier attitude about a man held without trial for 5 years.

https://www.getup.org.au/secure/donatehicks.asp

Help free Hicks.

Sunisle,well said.American propoganda has brainwashed those to lazy to question or challenge their lies.

.https://www.getup.org.au/secure/donatehicks.asp

That any Australian could support the kangaroo court style military tribunals the as yet innocent Hicks will be subject to, is beyond belief. The terrorists don't have to worry about defeating 'democracy',it's already dead here.

Ican't believe this idiot waffle.
Hicks was in Afghanistan as a member of a force that had taken all liberty, not just civil liberty, from a whole country.
Remember, they carried sticks to beat the women who's dress did not have their approval.
I do hope that those of us with enough sense can continue to protect you from the David Hicks of this world, because its obvious that you don't have the brains to protect your yourselves.

Why all this misplaced sympathy for David Hicks. My sympathies go to my children and anyone else whos legs and arms he and his muslim friends might blow off in a café or something if he is brought back to this country. This fake outpouring of sympathy for David Hicks is just the usual American bashing.
I’d like to see him ever seek justice from his adopted Muslim terrorist friends. They wouldn’t just detain him, they’d probably cut his throat on national television.
That’s just a bit of a comparison between them and the way he’s been treated by the awful Americans and Australians. Makes the Americans not look so bad doenst it.

Sharfkin,

Do you read widely? Even the most unobservant people are aware that more children "with arms and legs blown off"....amd much much more...are a result of the Christian US and it's camp followers. Does the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians- and the same number maimed- count for nothing in your book? And if not, why not?

The occupying Israeli military kills 5-10 civilians a week. Last week a child's arm was clearly visible on the news footage from Beit Hanoun- does the weekly murders by Jewush people not bother you? And if not, why not?

The relatively few- compared to Christian and Jewish- murders by Muslims seems to be the only crimes that bother you. Why is this?

I personally don't group people into religions- I group them according to their actions. And the US and Israeli forces cannot be beaten when it comes to the numbers of their fellow human beings that they have murdered.

Sunisle and some others are not living in the real world.
The very best that David Hicks could have hoped for was that he be
treated as a soldier. In which case he could have been imprisoned in
a POW camp until the cessation of hostilities, no matter how long.
He could have been in detention as a soldier for 50 years or more.

Instead he had the possibility that not being a soldier he might be
released earlier, or being shot out of hand.
This what happens when you have civilians running around in battlefields shooting at people.

The situation in both Iraq and Afghanistan is that there are gangs of
people killing and kidnapping often for money, none of them soldiers
and all crying about how hard done by they are when they are captured
or killed. They simply cannot expect to be treated as soldiers.
It is the fault of these people that so many innocent people get
killed, for how do you tell the enemy from the innocent.
Even when they do get killed, their comrades claim,
"Öh look they killed these civilians" after they have moved the
weapons away.

I mean get real, what the $%^& do you think happens in a war ?

Be still thy bleating heart. Hicks went looking for adventure, he found it.That should make him happy.
He was not forced to go fight with the lot he picked, he chose.
Just because he made the wrong choice does not mean that we have to pay for that.
He is where he belongs. Leave him.

Under the known [I hope] circumstances, if David Hicks had been killed in action, or killed whilst trying to evade capture, then I would simply have accepted that as the customary consequences of him being a voluntary war combatant, whether uniformed or not. But he wasn't killed, he was taken prisoner, allegedly after surrendering. Yes, he could still have been executed as an alleged spy, but that didn't happen either, he was taken into custody.

I'll draw an analogy. I believe in the right to effective personal defense against an unprovoked attack, particularly by an armed assailant. [This is something which I'm not entirely happy with the Australian legal system about, but that's another story, isn't it?]

If David Hicks had been attempting to get into my home, armed and presumably dangerous, then I believe that I would have been within my moral rights by getting the drop on him and killing him, if necessary. [This is hypothetical, of course.] If I already knew him to be a serious threat to humanity in general, I may even have thought that, by doing so, I was doing the world a favour.

But if I had captured him and handed him over to the appropriate authorities, then I would expect him to be securely imprisoned, not mistreated, but not given undue privileges either, and a legally sustainable case brought against him as soon as reasonably possible. During his imprisonment, I would expect that any allegations of inappropriate treatment or unreasonable delay would be made open to public scrutiny, either by open government action and/or by the media.

After a transparently open and fair trial, and if he was found guilty as charged, then I would expect him to be severely punished to possibly the full extent of the law. I think that this is all probably any of his alleged "apologists" are asking for. Now, are we being soft, or what?

What about all the Japanese prisoners taken in World War 2. Should they have all been bought before the courts and given a fair trial.
This is War. War is fought under differnet criteria than civilian crime. We are at War with the Arab world as far as I'm concerned.
Law courts apply in a society in time of non war. In war you fight to win. The gloves come off.
When the Arabs attacked America forwhatever reason I regarded it as an act of war not some ordinary criminal event within society but an attack by foreign forces on allied soil.

Maybe you should see the truth in what you read instead of seeing what you want to see.
The Arabs in Iraq have killed more people than the Americans have. What about when the Americans were giving lollies to a group of about 50 children and the Arabs drove a truck with a bomb on it into the middle and killed all of the Arab children. Couldn’t they have waited until the children went and then targeted the Americans.

If groups of western terrorists were standing in the middle of Australian capital cities and firing rockets into an Arab state (hypothetically) like the Arabs were doing to Israel in Lebanon and the Arabs fired back on them, you would say that the Arabs were targeting innoncent people in those Australian cities would you.

The Arabs are trying to fight a war by lies and stealth, shouting their support for Hamas and Hezbollah one minute but when the other side retaliates suddenly they are innocent citizens again.

Having said that, I believe as I said earlier that the West should stop taking any responsibility for the racial hatred between the Jews and the Arabs which is squarely their own responsibility. Stop supporting the Jews and just pull out and let the Arabs and the Jews take their hatred which has nothing to do with the West out on each other.

Sunisle,

Maybe you should see the truth in what you read instead of seeing what you want to see.
The Arabs in Iraq have killed more people than the Americans have. What about when the Americans were giving lollies to a group of about 50 children and the Arabs drove a truck with a bomb on it into the middle and killed all of the Arab children. Couldn’t they have waited until the children went and then targeted the Americans.

If groups of western terrorists were standing in the middle of Australian capital cities and firing rockets into an Arab state (hypothetically) like the Arabs were doing to Israel in Lebanon and the Arabs fired back on them, you would say that the Arabs were targeting innoncent people in those Australian cities would you.

The Arabs are trying to fight a war by lies and stealth, shouting their support for Hamas and Hezbollah one minute but when the other side retaliates suddenly they are innocent citizens again.

Having said that, I believe as I said earlier that the West should stop taking any responsibility for the racial hatred between the Jews and the Arabs which is squarely their own responsibility. Stop supporting the Jews and just pull out and let the Arabs and the Jews take their hatred which has nothing to do with the West out on each other.

David Hicks' actions were by stealth. He had many aliases. He returned to Afghanistan after 9/11. His radical Islamic beliefs advocates the "Destruction of Western - Jewish domination".

There are many allegations against Hicks who was aiding the Taliban against the coalition forces.

In essence he was collabarating with a potential enemy of the West.

Frankly I've read sufficiently to presume that the man's a traitor and I don't give a hoot about the bleeding hearts!

Oh Iluvatar, GOOD ON YOU.

I agree - I agree - I agree!

Thank You Big-time!

maybe the 3 big head honchos should concentrate on cleaning up their own backyard before condemning ONE SINGLE poor man who appeared to be confused and decided to try something different..he hasnt raped any kids or women, killed or slaughtered anyone..the 3 big head honchos will pay for keeping this poor kid in custody for so long..already its been proven that the yanks have no right to hold him..even the poms dont recognise the yanks imprisonment of these type of people..whats Howard doing to get David Hicks out ??..If you can honestly say that he should be in prison, then maybe you should search the net and look at the atrocities committed by countries like usa, uk and even australia..the yanks bombed cambodia during the vietnam war and 'conned' the world they were bombing vietnam..

get the poor kid out..the US Govt are the most dishonest and evil people in the world.

GreatDad

Nothing youve read dickie is based on fact, but supposition and hearsay and geographical 'evidence' coupled with perceived intent.That is not a crime.

Innocent until proven guilty.That much we all deserve.This is not about David Hicks it is about basic human civil liberties..

That could be you or me..different crime different place but nonetheless facing the same deprivation of basic human rights and corrupt legal processes.

Illuvator says it as he sees it and says it for a lot of people.

I applaud all those who have stated their support for David Hicks. The support is not necessarily for the man but for fundamental human rights. What has happened to the basic premise of “Guilty until proved innocent”? If we don’t protect this and other rights we are in no better position than those that we are supposedly at war with. What happens then, the U.S.A. invades us in the “defence of freedom”?

Everything that Hicks is accused of is just that accusations he deserves the right to due process as much as anyone else.

And to say that the occupation of these countries is a war is laughable. For a war you need more than one army. Of course these people fight in civilian clothes because that’s what a lot of them are. If Australia was invaded would, those who believe that what we and the U.S. are doing is right, wait in line for a uniform? I can tell you I would not I would fight for this country with every thing I have wearing whatever I had. .

We are so fortunate that we have such free and easy access to information, whether it is true or not, we can draw our own conclusions. Most people in these countries do not have what we take for granted and are further oppressed by the foreign governments. Bush and his puppet Howard are the ones to blame. They are the real terrorists.

It is truly heartening to see so many people prepared to execute somebody without ever even seeing any evidence - must be one of our 'Australian Values'.

Not only is this a case of finding someone guilty without trial it is a case of finding someone guilty without evidence - we do not even know what it is he is actually accused of - and under the current system we may never know. We do not know if he was even armed when captured, we do not know if he ever fought against allied soldiers or ever intended to - all we know is that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and that when he was surrounded by a hi-tech army firing upon him, he surrendered - sensible thing to do I would have thought.

Having served on several juries I know how easily, even with substantial evidence, things can be miscontrued. In this case without having seen any evidence, people's readiness to see him swing is truly blood chilling. Not only have we not seen the evidence but it is more than reasonable to assume that there is very little actual evidence against him because if there was there would be no reason not to bring him to trial ages ago and avert the global condemnation that Gitmo has garnered.

If the bad guys are the bad guys because of the way they behave and we behave like the bad guys what does that make us?

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign.asp?campaign_id=5

Read more on how you can help David Hicks..

I hope the link works this time.

Do we know it is only in acts of freedom, does human existence achieve authenticity.

Thank You everyone who has shared their critical thoughts and humanity on this forum so far in support of DAVID HICKS.

I WANT DAVID HICKS HOME YESTERDAY.

There is not a day goes past where I don't think of this man, and what the world is becoming in the light of it.

Please continue to be outspoken.

This is a TIME - WORP!

Walk in Peace and Strength - Human Rights

http://www.miacat.com