Joint Committee hears concerns about anti-terrorism laws

April 11, 2007

A law researcher from the University of New England has warned a Parliamentary Joint Committee about the pitfalls of new anti-terrorism laws.

Associate Professor Russell Hogg (pictured here) addressed the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security last week in Canberra, outlining grave concerns about the Criminal Code provisions for listing terrorist organisations.

The Joint Committee, which has the task of reviewing all of the Government's decisions to list organisations as "terrorist organisations", is currently conducting a special inquiry into the provisions in the Criminal Code that relate to the listing of terrorist organisations. Following a written submission, Mr Hogg was invited to convey his professional opinions and legal assessments of the controversial legislation that was introduced in Australia after the September 11 terrorist attacks in America.

"Many of the 19 organisations currently listed are involved in long-running armed conflicts on the other side of the world," he said. "They have no links with al-Qa'ida and do not threaten Australia. While violence against civilians by both sides of these conflicts deserves condemnation, defining the violence of one side only as 'terrorist' serves to implicitly justify the violence of the other. And it does nothing to resolve the conflict. This requires a political – not a legal – response."

Mr Hogg also warned the Joint Committee of the potential flow-on effect of listing such foreign organisations as "terrorist organisations". He advised the Committee that it exposed residents and citizens of Australia with a connection to a listed organisation to prosecution on serious charges. "They may be refugees from such conflicts living in Australia," he said. "They may be Australians donating to international aid organisations or working with non-government organisations in these regions. Providing support, aid, or training of any sort qualifies as a serious crime under the Criminal Code. It is not necessary to prove it was related to terrorism."

"The worst case scenario is that we could see entire ethno-religious communities in Australia – such as Kurds or Lebanese Shia – caught in a sort of dragnet," he continued. "The laws could actually increase the risk of violence in Australia, by inflaming tensions here and transposing distant conflicts to Australian soil. This is because in listing an organisation Australia is, in effect, taking sides in a conflict, often in disregard of the policies of the governments it is supporting (including their use of torture and extra-judicial killing) or the justice of the cause driving the listed organisation. To be a mere supporter of the cause then becomes a serious crime in Australia."

The problem, he argued, is that the criteria for listing terrorist organisations are too broad. "According to the Code," he said, "organisations can be listed as 'terrorist organisations' without reference to any link or actual activity in Australia; without reference to the history, context or cause of the conflict in which they are engaged; and without reference to the desirability to seek a political resolution to the conflict. This is simplistic in the extreme when it comes to entrenched conflicts like, for example, that between Israel and the Palestinians.

"The issue, then, is not simply the threat to important political and legal freedoms, but the long-term failure to seek political settlements and the possibility that listing could make matters worse. This is clear from the way the listing of the Palestinian organisation Hamas inhibited governments from responding more constructively after it won the Palestinian Authority elections in 2006. The upshot has been a serious deterioration in the economic, social and security situation in the Palestinian territories – something that is in no one's interests."

Mr Hogg also responded to the claim that the laws are not being misused because there have not been any prosecutions relating to listed organisations. "This overlooks the strong likelihood that enforcement activity may be more covert in nature," he said. "The threat of prosecution hanging over whole communities of people can be used to compel cooperation in a way that escapes legal scrutiny."

Speaking at the University of New England campus in Armidale, Mr Hogg did not go so far as to call for the abolition of the anti-terrorism powers. "Apart from anything else, this is just not politically realistic," he said. "But we do need to be vigilant that these powers are exercised with care and restraint."

Posted by Jim Scanlan at April 11, 2007 03:33 PM