as was posted here ...Man terrorised by ASIO remanded in 'AA' isolation! on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
A Victorian man has been remanded in custody after being charged with terrorism offences, [scapegoat for the coalition of the Killing's resource war's in the Middle East], including having links to US demon Al Qaeda. [?]
Joseph Jack Thomas, 31, appeared briefly in the Melbourne Magistrates Court charged with receiving terrorism funds mainly from Al Qaeda. [?]
He is also charged with providing support or resources to a terrorist organisation and with a passport offence. [?]
Mr Thomas appeared in court behind protective glass, sitting with his head bowed throughout the proceedings.
He has been remanded in "AA" solitary confinement for a committal mention in February next year and will make an application for bail next week.
Mr Thomas is the last person to be charged with terrorism offences, [scapegoat for the Coalition of the Killing's resource war's in the Middle East], by ASIO a know Australian terrorist organisation but he certainly won't be the last while, war criminal HoWARd rules!
public news and things I spy ..
Monday, 7 June 2010
Sheikh Leghaei To Be Deported From Australia
as posted here ... Sheikh Leghaei To Be Deported From Australia
Government plans to defy the UN in this case should worry us all.
In Franz Kafka's novel The Trial, an ordinary man finds himself trapped inside the byzantine processes of a shadow justice system. When he asks what he has done wrong, the bureaucrats reply, ''It's not our job to tell you that.''
When he goes to court, he and his lawyers are not allowed to see any of the evidence against him. His faceless accusers always remain unknown to him. Inevitably, in a system such as this, he is found guilty. All around him, life continues as normal, as if the fair trial of one man is of no concern to the world.
Kafka's story is a terrifying glimpse into a world that, on the surface, claims to be ruled by law, but in reality is one where the modern bureaucratic state exercises total control over the individual. The individual's right to be treated decently is extinguished for an unknown greater good.
Kafka was writing about rising authoritarianism in early 20th century Europe, but he could well have been describing Australia's current migration and security laws.
Sheikh Mansour Leghaei is a long-term resident of Australia who is soon to be deported to Iran on national security grounds. All he has ever been told by the intelligence agency, ASIO, is that he is a risk to national security. He has never been shown any evidence whatsoever by ASIO, or in any of the court proceedings he brought to challenge ASIO's assertion.
Absurdly, he has even received letters from the authorities asking him to answer the allegations against him, when he has no idea what they are. A judge of the Federal Court of Australia wryly observed that his right to procedural fairness had been reduced to ''nothingness''.
Because Australia has no bill of rights, in Sheikh Leghaei's case Australian law cares nothing for the right to a fair hearing of foreigners in security cases. This places Australia in direct breach of its international law obligations under the human rights treaties that it has agreed to. Human rights law recognises the importance of a country's security concerns, but requires minimum guarantees of fairness to an affected person.
The Australian approach is also at odds with much of the liberal democratic world. In Britain and Europe, which face greater security threats than Australia, human rights law requires that a person always be told the substance of the allegations. Sources and informants and other sensitive information can still be protected, but an affected person must always receive a summary of the reasons and evidence. That delicate balancing of interests is a sign of living in a civilised society bound by the rule of law.
The denial of a fair hearing is also foreign to our ancient common law tradition. The common law depends on an adversarial process, in which people can challenge the evidence against them. Only by exposing allegations to the harsh light of day can their truth be tested. Allegations may be false, informants may bear grudges, conduct may have innocent explanations, and intelligence may be misinterpreted. Few can forget that Iraq was invaded in 2003 based on botched intelligence; no reasonable Australian can have blind faith in ASIO.
Where a person is unable to see or test the evidence, it cannot possibly be determined whether the person is actually a risk to national security or not. Deporting Sheikh Leghaei in such circumstances would be arbitrary, capricious, and internationally unlawful.
It would also deprive the Australian community of a moderate religious leader and voice of tolerance, as well as depriving his Australian citizen children of their father.
As a Federal Court judge said: ''His deportation may well cause hardship to utterly blameless Australian citizens and permanent residents.''
For that reason, the UN Human Rights Committee has ordered Australia not to deport Sheikh Leghaei until the UN has ruled on his complaint against Australia. The UN's temporary order aims to prevent the ''irreparable harm'' to the sheikh's family life that will result if he is torn apart from his wife and children - including his 14-year-old daughter - by deportation.
The UN's order is binding under international law, necessary to ensure the procedural integrity of the complaints system.
While the Rudd government talks the talk of human rights and global governance, signing up to every treaty under the sun, it is in individual cases that the rubber hits the road.
By announcing that it will deport Sheikh Leghaei in defiance of the UN's order, the government has revealed its true colours. It has contempt for international law. Its commitment to the UN system is flaky and selective.
Sheikh Leghaei's request of the government is not radical: tell him what he has supposedly done, let him explain it, and only then deport him if the allegations are true.
That is what a fair and civilised society ruled by law would do.
No Australian can have confidence in our security where it is based on faceless accusers and secret evidence - and where ordinary people are judged in the shadow of the law.
Dr Ben Saul is a barrister. He acted for Sheikh Leghaei in his UN complaint.
Government plans to defy the UN in this case should worry us all.
In Franz Kafka's novel The Trial, an ordinary man finds himself trapped inside the byzantine processes of a shadow justice system. When he asks what he has done wrong, the bureaucrats reply, ''It's not our job to tell you that.''
When he goes to court, he and his lawyers are not allowed to see any of the evidence against him. His faceless accusers always remain unknown to him. Inevitably, in a system such as this, he is found guilty. All around him, life continues as normal, as if the fair trial of one man is of no concern to the world.
Kafka's story is a terrifying glimpse into a world that, on the surface, claims to be ruled by law, but in reality is one where the modern bureaucratic state exercises total control over the individual. The individual's right to be treated decently is extinguished for an unknown greater good.
Kafka was writing about rising authoritarianism in early 20th century Europe, but he could well have been describing Australia's current migration and security laws.
Sheikh Mansour Leghaei is a long-term resident of Australia who is soon to be deported to Iran on national security grounds. All he has ever been told by the intelligence agency, ASIO, is that he is a risk to national security. He has never been shown any evidence whatsoever by ASIO, or in any of the court proceedings he brought to challenge ASIO's assertion.
Absurdly, he has even received letters from the authorities asking him to answer the allegations against him, when he has no idea what they are. A judge of the Federal Court of Australia wryly observed that his right to procedural fairness had been reduced to ''nothingness''.
Because Australia has no bill of rights, in Sheikh Leghaei's case Australian law cares nothing for the right to a fair hearing of foreigners in security cases. This places Australia in direct breach of its international law obligations under the human rights treaties that it has agreed to. Human rights law recognises the importance of a country's security concerns, but requires minimum guarantees of fairness to an affected person.
The Australian approach is also at odds with much of the liberal democratic world. In Britain and Europe, which face greater security threats than Australia, human rights law requires that a person always be told the substance of the allegations. Sources and informants and other sensitive information can still be protected, but an affected person must always receive a summary of the reasons and evidence. That delicate balancing of interests is a sign of living in a civilised society bound by the rule of law.
The denial of a fair hearing is also foreign to our ancient common law tradition. The common law depends on an adversarial process, in which people can challenge the evidence against them. Only by exposing allegations to the harsh light of day can their truth be tested. Allegations may be false, informants may bear grudges, conduct may have innocent explanations, and intelligence may be misinterpreted. Few can forget that Iraq was invaded in 2003 based on botched intelligence; no reasonable Australian can have blind faith in ASIO.
Where a person is unable to see or test the evidence, it cannot possibly be determined whether the person is actually a risk to national security or not. Deporting Sheikh Leghaei in such circumstances would be arbitrary, capricious, and internationally unlawful.
It would also deprive the Australian community of a moderate religious leader and voice of tolerance, as well as depriving his Australian citizen children of their father.
As a Federal Court judge said: ''His deportation may well cause hardship to utterly blameless Australian citizens and permanent residents.''
For that reason, the UN Human Rights Committee has ordered Australia not to deport Sheikh Leghaei until the UN has ruled on his complaint against Australia. The UN's temporary order aims to prevent the ''irreparable harm'' to the sheikh's family life that will result if he is torn apart from his wife and children - including his 14-year-old daughter - by deportation.
The UN's order is binding under international law, necessary to ensure the procedural integrity of the complaints system.
While the Rudd government talks the talk of human rights and global governance, signing up to every treaty under the sun, it is in individual cases that the rubber hits the road.
By announcing that it will deport Sheikh Leghaei in defiance of the UN's order, the government has revealed its true colours. It has contempt for international law. Its commitment to the UN system is flaky and selective.
Sheikh Leghaei's request of the government is not radical: tell him what he has supposedly done, let him explain it, and only then deport him if the allegations are true.
That is what a fair and civilised society ruled by law would do.
No Australian can have confidence in our security where it is based on faceless accusers and secret evidence - and where ordinary people are judged in the shadow of the law.
Dr Ben Saul is a barrister. He acted for Sheikh Leghaei in his UN complaint.
Terror retrial ordered for Jack Thomas � puma reptile mid shoes
as posted here ... Terror retrial ordered for Jack Thomas � puma reptile mid shoes
Former Melbourne taxi driver Jack Thomas will be retried on terror charges after an appeal by his lawyers was dismissed on Monday.
The man who once styled himself Jihad Jack will be retried on charges of accepting money from terrorist organisation al-Qaeda and possessing a false Australian passport following a ruling by the Victorian Court of Appeal.
Thomas, 35, was cleared of terror charges in 2006 but the court directed he be retried on the same two counts following statements he made during an interview aired earlier that year on the ABC’s Four Corners program.
The Court of Appeal agreed statements Thomas made in the interview could support a conviction on both counts.
Thomas’ lawyers challenged the retrial order arguing the crown would have known about the interview during the first trial and it did not therefore offer any fresh evidence.
They said ASIO knew puma shoes sale of Thomas’ contact with the ABC and should have inferred he was likely to talk about his overseas activities that were the basis for the charges.
His legal team argued ASIO should have passed that information about the interview to the Australian Federal Police so it could investigate the matter with the ABC.
His Four Corners interview was aired on February 27, 2006, the day after he was found guilty.
They also argued everything ASIO knew about Thomas should be treated as also being known by puma sneakers the AFP and Director of Public Prosecutions, given it was an agency of the Commonwealth government.
However, justices Chris Maxwell, Peter Buchanan and Frank Vincent on Monday rejected these arguments, saying ASIO was not authorised by law to communicate to police information it may have had about Thomas’ contact with the ABC journalist.
Thomas was the first man convicted puma future cat under Australia’s new terror laws when he was sentenced in March 2006 to a maximum five years, with a minimum of two, for receiving funds from terror group al-Qaeda and holding a false passport.
But Court of Appeal justices Maxwell, Buchanan and Vincent quashed the convictions in August 2006, ruling Thomas’s interview puma sale with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in Pakistan in 2003 – the key prosecution evidence – was inadmissible.
Former Melbourne taxi driver Jack Thomas will be retried on terror charges after an appeal by his lawyers was dismissed on Monday.
The man who once styled himself Jihad Jack will be retried on charges of accepting money from terrorist organisation al-Qaeda and possessing a false Australian passport following a ruling by the Victorian Court of Appeal.
Thomas, 35, was cleared of terror charges in 2006 but the court directed he be retried on the same two counts following statements he made during an interview aired earlier that year on the ABC’s Four Corners program.
The Court of Appeal agreed statements Thomas made in the interview could support a conviction on both counts.
Thomas’ lawyers challenged the retrial order arguing the crown would have known about the interview during the first trial and it did not therefore offer any fresh evidence.
They said ASIO knew puma shoes sale of Thomas’ contact with the ABC and should have inferred he was likely to talk about his overseas activities that were the basis for the charges.
His legal team argued ASIO should have passed that information about the interview to the Australian Federal Police so it could investigate the matter with the ABC.
His Four Corners interview was aired on February 27, 2006, the day after he was found guilty.
They also argued everything ASIO knew about Thomas should be treated as also being known by puma sneakers the AFP and Director of Public Prosecutions, given it was an agency of the Commonwealth government.
However, justices Chris Maxwell, Peter Buchanan and Frank Vincent on Monday rejected these arguments, saying ASIO was not authorised by law to communicate to police information it may have had about Thomas’ contact with the ABC journalist.
Thomas was the first man convicted puma future cat under Australia’s new terror laws when he was sentenced in March 2006 to a maximum five years, with a minimum of two, for receiving funds from terror group al-Qaeda and holding a false passport.
But Court of Appeal justices Maxwell, Buchanan and Vincent quashed the convictions in August 2006, ruling Thomas’s interview puma sale with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in Pakistan in 2003 – the key prosecution evidence – was inadmissible.
Beware the words of a wolf dressed in sheikh's clothing
as posted here ... Beware the words of a wolf dressed in sheikh's clothing
On the steps of Sydney Town Hall in the wet dusk of last Tuesday, the former mufti of Australia, Sheikh Taj el-Din al Hilaly, raised his arms and asked for silence as the crowd chanted anti-Israel slogans and waved the flags of Turkey, Lebanon, Palestine and the Socialist Alliance.
''Israel is a terrorist state. Yes?''
The crowd cheered. A series of chants drowned out his next sentence, which ended with the words, ''a clear message to the Israeli government.''
''Listen!'' cried Hilaly, and the crowd grew silent.
He then lifted a Turkish flag and said, ''Turkey is coming!''
More Cheers. A section of the crowd, young men, broke into a chant of ''Allahu akbar!''
Hilaly continued: ''Turkey is coming. And Iran is ready!''
This was greeted with more cheers.
Iran is ready? For what? If you were to ask Hilaly, his record suggests you would receive disingenuous piffle of the type he has been offering for years whenever questioned about his war-mongering, especially the comments he has made in Arabic when he thought he would not be scrutinised in the wider society.
For this you can thank Paul Keating and his government and the NSW Labor machine, for overriding the advice of the Australian intelligence community that Hilaly be deported. He was too useful to Labor.
Hilaly's latest message is clear. Turkey has turned against Israel. And Iran is ready, through its military and its foreign proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, to wage war against Israel. It has sent thousands of rockets to Lebanon and tried to do the same in Gaza, and is prepared to confront and destroy the Zionist entity, with Hilaly and his followers cheering them on.
Sharing the stage outside the Town Hall was Paul McAleer, the Sydney branch secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia. He chose his words carefully: ''This flotilla [confronting Israel's military blockade of Gaza] was hijacked by state-sanctioned murderers, who carry out their orders with deadly precision.''
State-sanctioned murderers who act with deadly precision. Sounds like Nazis.
The irony in McAleer's comments was elements of the union now known as the MUA functioned for decades as a criminal organisation, practising system-wide blackmail, extortion, intimidation, pilfering and featherbedding on the wharves. During World War II, the wharfies' union, controlled by the communists, undermined Australia's war effort. After the war, when dock operators began to introduce mechanisation on the wharves, union leaders pushed forklift trucks into the harbour.
When the Howard government and Chris Corrigan broke the MUA's stronghold on the ports 12 years ago, the union again used violence and intimidation. After the MUA lost the strike, the ports doubled their productivity. This is the moral authority on which the MUA stands.
Next on the Town Hall steps was a Greens NSW MP, Lee Rhiannon. She condemned Israel's ''crime against humanity''. Rhiannon is the embodiment of the common cause the hard left has made with the hard right of Islamic militancy. It is an interesting alliance. After the first modern Islamic revolution, in Iran, the new regime wiped out the communists, whose activists on university campuses had helped bring down the shah. Within its first two years, the Islamic regime had executed thousands of communists, student leaders and feminists.
Despite this warning, the hard left and Islamic militancy continue to find common cause because of a shared and defining antipathy to Western capitalism and Zionism.
Where does the Australian Human Rights Commission stand on matters such as calls to religious war made in Australia? It has nothing to say. It prefers softer targets. Earlier on the day of the Town Hall demonstration, the Race Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes, told the Herald he thought it was time for racial profiling of crimes. Not racial profiling of perpetrators, of course, just victims. ''Racial profiling perpetrators is little more than a guess which often reinforces incorrect stereotypes,'' he said.
This is typical of the patronising hypocrisy permeating the human rights industry. Since when did identifying the ethnicity of people convicted of a crime ever involve guesswork? And if racial stereotypes are unfair, then racial profiling of both crime victims and perpetrators would exculpate any stereotyped group. If, however, racial profiling confirmed an ethnic group was disproportionately involved in crime, then it would not be an ''incorrect stereotype'' but a truth.
Yet even the selective suggestion by the Race Discrimination Commissioner was too much for the president of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board, Stepan Kerkyasharian, an inveterate ideologue on matters of presumed prejudice. In a letter to the Herald, Kerkyasharian wrote having police asking victims about their ethnic origin was ''dangerous''.
Why? ''Publicity about the ethnicity of a victim,'' he wrote, ''when there is no suggestion of a racial motive, could lead to copy-cat attacks.'' This is an argument made out of thin air. It is predicated entirely on the notion Australian society is seething with prejudice and in no way should crime and ethnicity be a subject fit for public consumption or transparency.
This is the bedrock belief of the human rights industry. Society is prejudiced and needs the civilising buffer of a large human rights machinery, and a human rights charter, policed and interpreted by the human rights industry, all funded by the taxpayer.
Just don't ask too much about the most basic human right - freedom from violence. Don't ask about who is populating our prisons, our criminal justice systems and the organisations on the published watch lists of ASIO. Because we can't handle that sort of truth.
On the steps of Sydney Town Hall in the wet dusk of last Tuesday, the former mufti of Australia, Sheikh Taj el-Din al Hilaly, raised his arms and asked for silence as the crowd chanted anti-Israel slogans and waved the flags of Turkey, Lebanon, Palestine and the Socialist Alliance.
''Israel is a terrorist state. Yes?''
The crowd cheered. A series of chants drowned out his next sentence, which ended with the words, ''a clear message to the Israeli government.''
''Listen!'' cried Hilaly, and the crowd grew silent.
He then lifted a Turkish flag and said, ''Turkey is coming!''
More Cheers. A section of the crowd, young men, broke into a chant of ''Allahu akbar!''
Hilaly continued: ''Turkey is coming. And Iran is ready!''
This was greeted with more cheers.
Iran is ready? For what? If you were to ask Hilaly, his record suggests you would receive disingenuous piffle of the type he has been offering for years whenever questioned about his war-mongering, especially the comments he has made in Arabic when he thought he would not be scrutinised in the wider society.
For this you can thank Paul Keating and his government and the NSW Labor machine, for overriding the advice of the Australian intelligence community that Hilaly be deported. He was too useful to Labor.
Hilaly's latest message is clear. Turkey has turned against Israel. And Iran is ready, through its military and its foreign proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, to wage war against Israel. It has sent thousands of rockets to Lebanon and tried to do the same in Gaza, and is prepared to confront and destroy the Zionist entity, with Hilaly and his followers cheering them on.
Sharing the stage outside the Town Hall was Paul McAleer, the Sydney branch secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia. He chose his words carefully: ''This flotilla [confronting Israel's military blockade of Gaza] was hijacked by state-sanctioned murderers, who carry out their orders with deadly precision.''
State-sanctioned murderers who act with deadly precision. Sounds like Nazis.
The irony in McAleer's comments was elements of the union now known as the MUA functioned for decades as a criminal organisation, practising system-wide blackmail, extortion, intimidation, pilfering and featherbedding on the wharves. During World War II, the wharfies' union, controlled by the communists, undermined Australia's war effort. After the war, when dock operators began to introduce mechanisation on the wharves, union leaders pushed forklift trucks into the harbour.
When the Howard government and Chris Corrigan broke the MUA's stronghold on the ports 12 years ago, the union again used violence and intimidation. After the MUA lost the strike, the ports doubled their productivity. This is the moral authority on which the MUA stands.
Next on the Town Hall steps was a Greens NSW MP, Lee Rhiannon. She condemned Israel's ''crime against humanity''. Rhiannon is the embodiment of the common cause the hard left has made with the hard right of Islamic militancy. It is an interesting alliance. After the first modern Islamic revolution, in Iran, the new regime wiped out the communists, whose activists on university campuses had helped bring down the shah. Within its first two years, the Islamic regime had executed thousands of communists, student leaders and feminists.
Despite this warning, the hard left and Islamic militancy continue to find common cause because of a shared and defining antipathy to Western capitalism and Zionism.
Where does the Australian Human Rights Commission stand on matters such as calls to religious war made in Australia? It has nothing to say. It prefers softer targets. Earlier on the day of the Town Hall demonstration, the Race Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes, told the Herald he thought it was time for racial profiling of crimes. Not racial profiling of perpetrators, of course, just victims. ''Racial profiling perpetrators is little more than a guess which often reinforces incorrect stereotypes,'' he said.
This is typical of the patronising hypocrisy permeating the human rights industry. Since when did identifying the ethnicity of people convicted of a crime ever involve guesswork? And if racial stereotypes are unfair, then racial profiling of both crime victims and perpetrators would exculpate any stereotyped group. If, however, racial profiling confirmed an ethnic group was disproportionately involved in crime, then it would not be an ''incorrect stereotype'' but a truth.
Yet even the selective suggestion by the Race Discrimination Commissioner was too much for the president of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board, Stepan Kerkyasharian, an inveterate ideologue on matters of presumed prejudice. In a letter to the Herald, Kerkyasharian wrote having police asking victims about their ethnic origin was ''dangerous''.
Why? ''Publicity about the ethnicity of a victim,'' he wrote, ''when there is no suggestion of a racial motive, could lead to copy-cat attacks.'' This is an argument made out of thin air. It is predicated entirely on the notion Australian society is seething with prejudice and in no way should crime and ethnicity be a subject fit for public consumption or transparency.
This is the bedrock belief of the human rights industry. Society is prejudiced and needs the civilising buffer of a large human rights machinery, and a human rights charter, policed and interpreted by the human rights industry, all funded by the taxpayer.
Just don't ask too much about the most basic human right - freedom from violence. Don't ask about who is populating our prisons, our criminal justice systems and the organisations on the published watch lists of ASIO. Because we can't handle that sort of truth.
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