NGUYEN. - Tuong Van. You are at peace. We tried our best to save you. Condolencesto Kim and Khoa.
-From The AustralianCoalition Against Death Penalty, Singaporean Human Rights Lawyer M. Ravi.
Justice Action, NSW Community News Network.
Australian Government did not anticipate the reaction against Singapore hanging - a problem for Howard he had to impugne the rise of a moral movement.
Howard government had no intention to save the life of hapless Australian held in Singapore Nguyen Van for stupidly acting as drug mule. It appears the situation caused a public relations problem for Howard and his cabinet and behind the scene string pullers, it shifted out of control with increasing public interest in commendable moral basis to save this man. It is very clear the Australian government does not value life. Anyone that was taken in by public relations attempts by Howard and Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer was duped.
The legislation past few years of Howard and so called main opposition party both push anti liberty pathway - shows their real character is abuse of Australians, evidence the in your face detention camps, ignoring voice of protests for military in Iraq, affairs of refugee vessels the Tampa affair show us the value for life is minimal. The present course is to remove your rights with Hitler like power of anti-terrorism laws that trample civil rights should be sufficient to show you Howard's and complicit Beazley's hand in the dangerous direction Australia is going. The Howard government attacks ordinary Australian in the workplace with IR laws aimed to destroy your wages and conditions.
The disclosure of Singapore lawyer M. Ravi, a brave lawyer leads a campaign in ordered Singapore against the death penalty. A country that it seems almost leads the world in the per capita executions - heard on ABC radio Late Night Live. Ravi voiced amazement at the Australian government seeking legal opinion of Cambridge lawyer that any appeal by Australia with the International Criminal Court of Justice is pointless to attempt to help to save the life of Nguyen Van. Ravi's disclosure confirms Australian government deliberately had worked with the Singapore government to frame a lost position so interpretion such path would be fruitless effort to save Nguyen Van's life.
The sorry evidence is Howard government and the similar Labor party shares an agenda of wrongdoing. If death sentence seen weakened by public opinion to overturn or prevent the death mandated by government would set back the radical plan of both compromised political parties to change this country. Howard wants to be seen as caring leader whilst compromising life of his own people. Make no mistake the Australian government seeks to ignore the voice of the electorate whilst appearing to do its best for you.
This action equates to the worst of crime where representative government misleads what harm it actually lies about to wound and risk the life of its own citizens. David Hicks languishing under US control for unproven crimes is another fearful example of the real offensive face of Australian politics. The deliberate compromise to reveal the Bali drug nine to the brunt of unjust Indonesian justice system shows you malice and contempt the Australian government has toward the population. Being aware of campaign and insanity in Canberra allows you to interpret assertions by Howard et al for what lies and danger they are to this nation.
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By The Australian Editorial posted 2 December 05
There is no case that can justify capital punishment
THE Government of Singapore was due to murder a man this morning. Certainly, it is acting according to the laws of that country. Certainly, the means of his death is known from long experience to be quick and painless. Certainly, no one in Singapore took any apparent pleasure in the decision that a man should die. But no qualification can disguise that they have planned an act of murder. And there is no explanation, no justification, that can excuse any nation from killing an individual who has broken the law. There never has been and there never will be. For any state to kill a convicted criminal already imprisoned and incapable of doing further harm, is desperately cruel. It is not an act committed in rage or madness. It is not the act of an evil individual killing for gain or to assuage some appalling passion or prejudice. It is not needed to defend the state against enemies within, or to protect the community against imminent harm. The death penalty is an ineffable act of violence against individuals who are defenceless and, at the end of their lives, utterly alone. And the leaders of countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, from China to Singapore, that allow executions, are deficient in humanity and reason. The death penalty is wrong - no ifs, no buts.
Advocates of capital punishment advance abstract and emotive arguments in its defence, arguments that are all unconvincing. The death penalty is a necessary deterrent, they say. The certainty of death if convicted of a capital crime discourages people from committing crimes in the first place, and it ends their opportunity to harm more innocent people, they argue. Perhaps it does in some cases, although the American experience does not seem to support this. The US has not become a country free of capital crimes since the Supreme Court decided the death penalty was not unconstitutional in 1976. And in all sorts of countries with capital punishment, greed, stupidity and outright evil will drive men and women to commit heinous crimes. Just ask the Government of Singapore. Additionally, to take a life for the pragmatic reason that it may discourage future crimes sends a clear signal that killing is acceptable when it is done by the state in the national interest. Some supporters of capital punishment also argue that the death penalty provides closure to the victims of crime; that people who have been harmed or have lost a loved one will feel the hurt less if their assailant is executed. Once again, perhaps some do. But however this argument is expressed, it is nothing more than a recipe for revenge, an assertion that the state has the right to take an eye for an eye, a life for a life. And, ultimately, revenge is always an act applied by the powerful against the helpless. It is victor's justice - and more often than not it is no justice at all. From the earliest legal codes, murder has always been forbidden. And if killing is wrong, it is more so when done by the state.
The case for capital punishment fails for many reasons, but above all because it is inhumane and unnatural. It is in human nature to preserve, not take, life. Certainly, wholesale slaughter in war and civil strife is an indisputable fact of history. The genocides and mass murders ordered by Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and all their evil ilk demonstrate that when states order their citizens to kill, many willingly obey. The record of lynchings in Mississippi during the 1920s, of murderous mobs in Soweto in the 1980s, demonstrates what happens when the protection of the law is not applied to all. But such enormities do not obscure the fact that people have always been appalled by close-quarter killing. In every century, soldiers have had to be conditioned for close-quarter combat. And for all the images from centuries past of crowds delighting in torture and public executions, stable communities have never enjoyed watching the routine mutilation and murder of helpless individuals. Execution is repugnant to us all.
From the 18th century on, as the idea that ordinary people had inviolable rights took hold, nations began to reject state-sanctioned murder. One reason for British settlement of Australia was public discomfort with the prospect of wholesale execution of the enormous number of men and women convicted of capital crimes. Today, with the outrageous exception of the US, nations where political power depends on the electoral assent of the governed are likely to have abandoned capital punishment. And as more and more nations embrace democracy, they will abandon the contradiction of forbidding individuals to kill but allowing the state to commit murder. To assert that states that murder criminals are backward and brutal may offend many nations with which Australia enjoys excellent relations. Tough. It is true.
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By Inspector Rex posted 2 December 05
A MAN will appear in court today over the attack on Lauren Huxley, 18, who was left for dead, doused in petrol, bound and gagged and suffering severe head injuries, three weeks ago.
But it will be interesting to note what evidence the police say they have in relation to this crime and this man? What we have reported so far is a lightning raid and a hint of DNA evidence, possibly at the crime scene.
He was arrested in the southern highlands town of Bargo during a covert operation by police investigating the November 9 attack on Miss Huxley at her family home at Northmead.
Police said the man, aged 36 and from Northmead, was arrested in a raid involving officers from the State Protection Group on a house at 7.30 pm.
He was taken to Campbelltown police station, where he was being interviewed last night by detectives from the Serious Sex Crime Squad attached to strike force Borang, which has been investigating the attack.
Police would not comment on whether the man had burn injuries, which they believed the attacker suffered when trying to conceal his tracks by setting fire to the Huxleys' Moxhams Road home.
DNA collected from the scene is understood to have been 'crucial in identifying a suspect' in the attack. Police had conducted a state-wide search of hospital emergency admission rooms and private medical centres for anyone seeking treatment for burns.
Detective Superintendent Helen Begg of the Child Protection and Sex Crimes Squad said last night that the teenager's family were "very relieved" an arrest has been made.
"I have a fantastic team that have been working around the clock," she said. "They have been deeply affected by what has happened to Lauren."
Yes you have a fantastic team that have been working around the clock who have been deeply affected by what has happened to Lauren.
However, that does not mean the police can just pluck out any scapegoat for the crime and line them up either? This is not CSI! Or Hollywood!
Deeply affected people do deeply affected things and can deeply affect the wrong person in their haste to solve a crime.
The NSW Police Commissioner, Ken Moroney, praised the efforts as well, of the officers.
But in doing so his political posturing has also undermined the accused's standing and of course it is helpful in this case to be looking like you're solving a very emotive crime if you're the Commissioner of police and there is leverage to be gained from it?
But why not praise real evidence? Did they have any? The community cannot be expected to praise the efforts of officers who are simply relying on just DNA evidence alleged to have been found at a crime scene, a persons possible history, lightning raids and a 'massive PR campaign' alone. Because if that's all they've got on this person then one should hope that the DNA evidence has not been planted at the crime scene and the media hype was not a put on?
In short there does seem to be a need for more scrutiny of the police investigation here and less praising from the Commissioner of police.
People must be aware that even police can commit crime and the community must not rush into false conclusions based on flimsy police evidence and lightning raids.
It's a sad case so let's make sure we have the right person.
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By The Wizard of OZ 2 December 05
Joseph Thomas used as a scapegoat for stated sanctioned terror!
The Supreme Court has agreed to continue bail for a Victorian Man used as a scapegoat-for state sanctioned terror and accused of terrorism offences.
Another of john hoWARd (the coward's) 'demons' used as 'fodder' to introduce Anti-Terrorism legislation - based on some notion that this man is a threat. Yet his case and others has been endless and has not been heard since the introduction of the last Anti-terror laws!
Joseph Terrence Thomas, 32, of Werribee is charged with receiving funds from and providing support to the Al Qaeda terrorist organisation, as well as a passport offence.
His trial was due to start last month.
However, it was delayed until January amid concerns that he would not receive a fair trial because of publicity surrounding recent state's 'fishing expeditions' and arrests in Melbourne and Sydney used to raise fear pending the introduction of the new Anti-Terrorism Bill.
And neither would those who were arrested on the fishing expedition get a fair trial either, no doubt!
The prosecution applied to revoke his bail, but after hearing submissions the court rejected their application.
Now why would the DPP do that? Based on some notion I suppose, that john hoWARd (the hangman) wants to use Thomas's butt again, to raise the fear stakes in the introduction of the new Anti-Liberty-Dissent Directives!
Justice Philip Cummins said Thomas had been on bail since the start of the year and had consistently and loyally met all his obligations.
In other words don't use him as a scapegoat for state sanctioned terror!
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By Draconian posted 2 December 05
One of Australia's biggest media organisations says amendments to the Federal Government's anti-terrorism bill do not go far enough.
Federal Coalition MPs approved the anti-terrorism measures yesterday, allowing the sedition provisions to remain in the bill.
A new amendment has been inserted into the legislation, giving journalists protection when they publish or discuss a matter of public interest.
Bruce Wolpe from John Fairfax Holdings Limited, which publishes The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald newspapers, has welcomed the change.
But he remains concerned that other parts of the new laws will impede journalists work.
"We're very concerned about what's called 'notice to produce', where AFP agents - without a magistrate, without a warrant - can go to journalists and demand documents, sources, notes, information about terrorist activities," he said.
"We want to see how that's going to be applied.
"We're going to be vigilant, we're going to be active, and we're going to continue the robust reporting that we do.
"And we're not going to break faith with our sources."
Balance
A government-dominated Senate committee earlier this week recommended that the sedition offences be scrapped.
Liberal Senator George Brandis was among some Coalition MPs calling for the sedition provisions to be scrapped altogether.
He has told AM he has not changed his view that the laws are a blunt instrument to deal with terrorism.
But says they will be reviewed and in the meantime he is happy with the protections for free speech.
"The trick is to make sure that that conduct which should be criminal, whatever you call it, doesn't catch the sort of criticism, including trenchant criticism of governments that in a liberal democracy we regard as a birthright," he said.
"And that balance has now been achieved."
But Greens leader Bob Brown says the sedition provisions undermine basic rights.
"It's amazing that a soulless Liberal Government could be the author of the biggest attack on liberal values in Australia, including freedom of speech, since the second World War," he said.
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when they went fishing?
