Public meetings hear about threat to civil liberties
Only days after the lifting of the national “terror alert level”, public meetings in Melbourne and Brisbane have discussed the government’s role in fostering Islamophobia to justify attacking civil liberties.
In Melbourne on 16 September, high profile civil liberties lawyer Robert Stary spoke at a Socialist Alternative meeting about the threat posed by the government’s expansion of powers under the guise of “fighting terrorism”. “What’s happening has to be seen in its political context”, he told Red Flag after the meeting. “It’s no coincidence that Gaza has gone off the front page and now it’s all about national security.”
“The bombing of hospitals and schools [by Israel] ... we had an Australian government that was virtually silent on that topic even though horrendous war crimes had been committed.
“There hasn’t been an even-handed application of these laws: the Australians who go to fight in the Israeli Defence Force have never been and will never be prosecuted.
“Although there is no demonstrated need for those laws, the fact of the matter is that under the guise of ‘national security’, they’re using the argument that they need those laws to prevent an effective jihadist attack.”
Faisal Al-Asaad, a PhD student at the University of Melbourne and Palestine solidarity activist, also spoke in Melbourne. He emphasised that the exclusionary rhetoric of “Team Australia” is designed to silence dissent and “keep people from bringing up political disputes”.
“On the right side of the debate, we talk about rights and liberties as that which must be protected against foreigners, against the terrorists, the refugees. On the left, though, we have a different version of this argument: we have rights and liberties that must be protected from the state”.
In Brisbane, Ali Kadri, a spokesperson for the Holland Park Islamic Society, gave a chilling account of the violence and harassment directed at Muslims, particularly in recent weeks.
