because police said: he lied?
A Sydney man has been committed to stand trial on charges of lying to ASIO.
It wouldn't matter what it was about would it? Okay I'll tell you then!
Because police said Abdul Rakid Hasan lied to them 'twice' and now he has to prove that he didn't lie to them 'twice' by facing two charges one for each alleged lie?
The man was one of eight arrested in last week's counter-terrorism raids.
Abdul Rakid Hasan is charged with two offences of giving false or misleading information, while being interviewed by ASIO, about his association with 'alleged security risk' Willie Brigitte.
The French man was deported from Australia in October 2003, because authorities 'believed' he posed a terrorist risk to Australia.
So if the authorities believe someone you know poses a terrorist risk - then if they interview you in alleged connection to their belief - and if police believe that you lied about it - then you can follow old mate here and prove you didn't lie or go to jail? Or be refused bail anyway and go to jail until you prove otherwise - after being isolated in AAA maximum-security with no fresh air or sunlight 'indefinitely' and get drip-fed through the courts?
This is the hoWARd government providing the war machine with the endless scapegoats for his war on terror (which is terror) not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but at home too.
With endless scapegoats for the war on terror the supreme dictator hoWARd, the coward, calls upon its 'citizenry' to be used as fodder for the war industry.
I think we need a union?
This is how it works now! You can go to jail on the belief of a cop that you lied about what they believed was a risk when they asked you a question or two and subsequently did not believe you?
Bad luck if they ask you ten questions and you get nine wrong in their belief.
Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?
In a statement of facts tendered to court, it is alleged Hasan made misleading statements about arranging accommodation for Brigitte in Sydney's south-west, and about the number of times the pair had spoken.
Most serious was that police only believe that Brigitte was a risk?
In Sydney's central local court today, Hasan was committed to stand trial in the District Court.
The 36-year-old is already in custody, having been arrested and charged during last week's counter-terrorism raids in Sydney.
Related:
when they went fishing?
By Geesche Jacobsen posted 17 November 05
As the first allegations against one of Sydney's terrorism suspects are to be made public this morning, lawyers warn proceedings against those arrested in last week's raids must remain open to keep authorities accountable.
Justice Marcus Einfeld of the Supreme Court warned secret hearings or evidence would result in an unsavoury Guantanamo-style legal system under which there were no checks on the power of authorities.
Michael Slattery, QC, the president of the NSW Bar Association, said terrorism suspects needed to be treated "with exactly the same fairness and openness that our criminal justice system affords to all defendants".
The comments come after the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions on Friday stopped a local court giving reporters access to a court document outlining the allegations against Bosnian-born Mirsad Mulahalilovic, the first of the suspects to apply for bail.
The DPP was to seek an extension of the suppression, valid until 9.30am today, but has apparently decided not to do so. The magistrate, Allan Moore, denied the bail application.
Justice Einfeld said: "The world must not allow the Guantanamo situation to exist. It's a wholly unhealthy, unnecessary and unsavoury element being brought into the common law in the West."
He warned proposed new laws should "not extend those powers into more hands than necessary and more circumstances than necessary .... It would be wrong if that meant that the media cannot act as a mechanism for checking on administrative and executive power .... The record of security forces and police in this regard is not particularly good."
Mr Slattery said making allegations public allowed media scrutiny and strengthened the confidence of the community, and of those accused, in the court processes. "Only in very exceptional cases some non-publication might be justified on national security grounds or on grounds that publication might cause prejudice to related investigations," he said.
Cameron Murphy, the president of the NSW Council of Civil Liberties, said it was important to balance the issue of open access for the media with the need for a fair trial: "Ministers, police and other authorities have been selectively leaking details about the cases, yet there has no been the ability for the people accused to put their side of the story, or for the media to investigate appropriately and report on the proceedings."
Related:
By SMH, November 14 2005
Australia has not needed a law against sedition since at least 1949, and there is no need for one now, writes Ian Barker.
We are soon going to have a lot of laws telling us how to behave towards our government, our constitution and our country.
As the proposed legislation stands now, both treason and treachery stay, with a restatement of seditious intent with a new offence for sedition.
There is a significant difference in the proposed law of sedition when compared with the existing law. At present, we have a definition of seditious intent - for example an intention to bring the Sovereign into hatred or to excite disaffection against the government - and then we have various offences committed with that intention, for example using seditious words with the intention of creating public disorder.
So, to commit an offence, one had to do one of the things proscribed and, at the same time, have a seditious intent. That will no longer be the case.
The definition of seditious intent is now limited to the seditious intent which may be a mark of an unlawful association. The new offences of sedition do not require proof of a seditious intention. They can be committed by mere recklessness, and they carry a penalty of seven years' imprisonment. There is a good faith exception which seems to me to be a reversal of proof. In other words, the practical effect of the new legislation is that a person accused of doing any of the things in the new Criminal Code bears the onus of showing he or she did not act with a seditious intent. This is repugnant to the notions of fair process.
Sedition traditionally occupies the ground somewhere between treason, which is actually killing the Sovereign, or her heir apparent, or the Queen consort, the governor-general or prime minister, or actually levying war against the Sovereign on the one hand and lawful criticisms on the other. It started life as a common law misdemeanour, as a criminal libel.
So, while not actually killing the Queen, it is seditious to bring the Sovereign into hatred of contempt or to urge disaffection, which I think means urging people to be disloyal, to the constitution, or government or either house of Parliament. It consists in mere words.
The whole notion should have been abandoned years ago.
For example, urging disaffection against the government seems to be what many ordinary people often do, born of sheer frustration. Problems in prosecution are legion, which probably accounts for the small number of prosecutions for sedition in Australia. So far as I am aware, the last trial for sedition in Australia was in 1949.
The problem is, the crime is all about words and the construction of words. It is becoming increasingly dangerous to be honest and direct in the use of words.
And where do you draw the line? Insulting the cricket team, or the memory of Phar Lap, or the principles found in the Koran, might well have the potential to cause serious trouble in the realm. Who knows? The answer does not have to await a riot, it is to be somehow derived from the words themselves.
Treason is found in the criminal code. It gives pride of place to the death of the Sovereign, the heir apparent, the consort, the governor-general or the prime minister. Killing the leader of the opposition or the attorney-general is not treason, merely murder. The problem with the definition of seditious intent, and sedition, is that we can never be sure that any words of strong criticism of government, however well intended, will not be seen to derive from motives entirely sinister.
We have not needed a law of sedition at least since 1949, and probably never, for all it achieved. We do not need it now.
Comment:
Sedition or Sedation?
By Ritalin Valiumnumb Bracks, Beattie oppose new sedition law Monday Nov 14 09:13 AEST
Victorian Premier Steve Bracks says the Howard government's proposed changes to the law of sedition are too broad and threaten free speech.
"be alarmed about Australia's new sedition laws"
http://www.vicpeace.org/sedition/
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