|
Media Release - Laws For Insecurity Report
|
Civil Rights Network
|
Sep 25, 2005 21:43 PDT
|
MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Lawyers, academics and community groups unite in opposing proposed
anti-terror laws
SYDNEY, 26 Sep 2005 – A Coalition of community lawyers, policy workers,
advocates and legal academics sent a report on the Prime Minister’s
12-point proposal to strengthen the anti-terrorism
laws to State leaders ahead of the COAG meeting on Tuesday 27 September
2005.
The 46-page report, "Laws for Insecurity? A Report on the Federal
Government’s Proposed Counter-Terrorism Measures", details various
concerns regarding the Federal Government’s proposals. It highlights the
lack of justification for the laws. Among other concerns emphasised are
the substantial departures from key principles of a liberal democracy,
the constitutional problems,and the lack of safeguards. Each of the 12
proposals is also analysed.
The Report calls for the immediate withdrawal of the proposals and urges
the Federal Government to defer adoption of any proposals until key
reviews of current anti-terrorism laws have been
completed.
“If adopted, these new counter-terrorism laws will mark serious
departures from key principles of a liberal democracy, in particular the
presumption of innocence,” said Ms Annie Pettitt, a co-author of
the Report and Co-convenor of the National Human Rights Network of the
National Association of Community Legal Centres (NACLC). “They will
lower the threshold for the use of coercive powers, which will mean that
a much wider range of individuals could be subject to detention,
restrictions on movement and compulsory questioning.”
“These laws take away the rights of all Australians, but those in the
firing line are Muslims,” said Mr Joo-Cheong Tham, Law Lecturer,
Melbourne University and Liberty Victoria Committee Member. “All of the
homes raided by ASIO have been of Muslims, and the vast majority of
those raids have not led to arrests. The removal of existing safeguards
and broad and uncontrolled powers such as stop and search open the door
for even greater discriminatory application against Muslims.”
‘The Federal Government is pressuring the State Governments to implement
a regime for preventative detention that would enable them to detain
people who have not been charged or tried of any offence, for up to 14
days,” said Vicki Sentas, Federation of Community Legal
Centres(Victoria). “The Prime Minister himself has acknowledged that
there may be constitutional problems if these powers were introduced by
the Federal Government. We say that if it’s unconstitutional, then it’s
inappropriate to circumvent the constitution.”
The Report is available online http://amcran.org For more information,
contact:
Annie Pettitt: 0416 123 077
National Association of Community Legal Centres
Joo-Cheong Tham: 03 8344 7030
Law Lecturer, Melbourne University and Liberty Victoria Committee Member
Vicki Sentas: 0414 906 830
Federation of Community Legal Centres Victoria
Waleed Kadous: 0403 440 586
Australian Muslim Civil Rights Advocacy Network
|
|
 |
|
