directory
WEATHER
RESULTS
WATCH
The Howard Government wants to give police executing preventative detention orders the power to shoot to kill. This is shoot to kill madness.
State and territory leaders are starting to back away from these powers, but the Federal Government is refusing to back down. We have an important opportunity to stop these provisions before they even get to Parliament.
State and Territory leaders need to use their bargaining power to ensure shoot to kill powers do not apply to any of the state, territory or federal preventative detention provisions.
Click the link below to demand that your state and territory leaders tell Phillip Ruddock that they will not be part of any deal on preventative detention laws that include shoot to kill provisions at a state or federal level:
The power to shoot to kill is considered the last resort for police exercising their power to arrest suspects they reasonably believe have committed a crime. The Howard Government now wants to significantly extend this power.
The Howard Government wants police to also have this power when they are detaining someone under the authority of a preventative detention order, even though these orders can be issued against persons that the police do not believe are terrorists.
This is shoot to kill madness. The president of the NSW Law Society, John McIntyre, told ABC Radio that police would be able to obtain a preventative detention order "without a person being reasonably suspected of committing of an offence". According to Mr McIntyre;
"If the [police] are armed with one of these [orders] ... and if this person attempts to flee the arrest, he can be shot and fatally shot ... The police might knock on the door and [the person] might leg it out the back door without even being told why the police are there, and under these provisions they can be called on to stop and if they don't stop, they can be shot."
Three law professors from the Australian national university recently wrote that proposed shoot to kill powers "have echoes of the shoot to kill' policy in the United Kingdom, which lead to the fatal shooting by police of innocent commuter Jean Chalres De Menezes in July 2005."
Click the link to act now and demand this madness is rejected at a state and federal level:
http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/ShootToKillMadness
There's more information about the laws including links to expert legal analysis and media interviews on our blog.
Victory on the shoot to kill provisions is in sight. Stand by for ways you can counter other extreme measures in this legislation.
Thanks,
The GetUp Team
Ed: If you contact though GetUp I suggest you add your additional complaints about the whole draconian package and not just the Shoot to Kill part when you email your respective elected leader.
Ed. E-mail - to Morris Iemma
Restrictive laws are not In the National Interest. Preventive detention orders made, on the balance of probabilities, with the onus on the defendant to prove they no nothing is repugnant to common law. The penalty of an order for a period of 12 months and until further notice with restrictions of xxx, undermines common sense and general communication. The period can be extended, after the first 12-months lapses, this should ring 'alarm bells'.
Preventive detention has already been made in NSW and defeated by the High Court under the provisions of the Community Protection Act 1994. No one can predict the future.
On that basis the laws are flawed and draconian. Some people will be prevented from fundamental principals like communication and no longer be able to use Internet, phone, fax etc.
Dragging sedition into anti-terror legislation is draconian and people being sent to prison for speaking out is cheating our democracy. Rights I believe you should oppose.
Some people will be prevented from reporting on matters of importance because of their fears, but it is everyone's right to report. Preventing people from communicating with other people about what happened or the degree in relation to the circumstances is sinister. The community must report and there ought to be no restriction on their reporting.
People in a civilised society cannot just drop off the map. They could even be prevented from answering their mail? Out of sight out of mind! These laws smell of countering dissent.
But like fire, air, and water all communication belongs to the community and cannot be bought or sold. Otherwise personal expression, safety, consideration and education are also undermined. Human beings must share ideas otherwise people could end up making ill informed decisions.
Shoot to kill without a just defense is an illegal and degrading form of authority.
Isolation in AAA Supermax can also kill you in 14 days. Similarly to being placed from a very warm climate into a chilling experience, this is so damaging to the human psych. Those people may never recover from that experience. Clean skins who've never been to a prison being held with the 'worst of the worst' for the 'first time' is disturbing and 'distorting' the communities understanding of the difference between knowing 'right' from 'wrong'.
Domestic violence and general violence can ultimately lead to war and terrorism.
'The punishment is the crime for a world without violence'. That is the root of preventing domestic violence, wars and terrorism.
Shooting to kill is one thing and going to prison in AAA conditions is another and I implore you to think again and change your mind for the sake of the whole community.
You have been so lucky to have lived in a freer democracy until it has now come to your turn to make a decision for NSW. On that basis we don't think that you could possibly let your people down.
Being locked up in solitary can lead to a person feeling alienated and confinement can lead to a human beings premature death, just as a bullet in the head would kill you, so too can solitary confinement.
Thank you for your time.
Related:
HARBOUR
MAP
NEWS
Location,
Australia's
Prison
System
OZ
SPEAKERS:
* Daryl Melham (ALP)
* Senator Kerry Nettle (Greens)
* Socialist Alliance
* Council for Civil Liberties
* Australian Muslim Civil Rights Network
* CFMEU
POLE POSTERS AND PDFs OF THE FLYER for Nov 5 are now available. Phone Jarvis on 9211 2600 or 0404 015 789 to find out moreÉ
RALLY PLANNING MEETINGS ARE HELD WEEKLY.
Next meeting:
7PM MONDAY OCTOBER 24,
Note different room location for this meeting:
Room 26 on LEVEL 27 of the UTS Tower, BROADWAY, SYDNEY
Info: 0401 900 690 or 0404 015 789
Add your name to this sign-on statement
Prime Minister John Howard is using the "war on terror" to promote widespread fear about "terrorists" and "terrorism" in Australia. This is despite the fact that the biggest act of terror being committed today is being carried out by foreign troops, including Australia's, in occupied Iraq.
We condemn the Howard government's reactionary "security" agenda, and the unanimous support of Labor state and territory governments for the draconian federal "anti-terror" laws at the COAG summit on September 27. This represents a bi-partisan attack on our democratic rights.
ALP federal opposition leader Kim Beazley wanted to go further and have all the states to adopt what already exist in NSW where the Police Commissioner has the power to order a lock-down of whole suburbs where there is a suspected "terrorist".
As civil rights lawyers and activists have pointed out, the major parties have signed onto measures to overturn the presumption of innocence and the right to privacy and which are a direct attack on our political freedoms.
The only people who have so far been charged with a "terrorism offence" are Muslims and all groups that have been proscribed as "terrorist organisations" under the Criminal Code are organisations that espouse a connection to Islam. It is clear that the new powers are already being mostly used against Muslim Australians, thereby breaching the principle of equality before the law.
But there is every reason to believe that these laws will soon be used against anyone who disagrees with the government - striking workers, anti-corporate protesters, critical journalists, and peace activists.
The arrest and deportation of US peace activist Scott Parkin, on the grounds of "national security", gives some idea of how the state is preparing to use its increased power.
The "national security" and "anti-terror" laws already adopted by state and federal governments have given ASIO and the police forces the power to harass, persecute, prosecute and imprison people with impunity. The new draconian laws are also aimed "advocacy of terrorism".
But the "anti-terror" laws have done nothing to reduce the risk of terrorist attack, here or in any other country. Their real purpose is to intimidate and silence dissent. In particular, they aim to gag opposition to the imperialists' wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and any other poor country the US and its allies decide to invade.
We, the undersigned, call on Australian government to:
Repeal all federal "anti-terror" laws;
Stop the raids on the homes of Muslims, and launch a public education campaign to stop the racist attacks on the Middle Eastern and Muslim communities;
Demand that the US government immediately return David Hicks, and any other Australians imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, to Australia;
Drop the charges against Jack Thomas, which are based on "evidence" extracted under torture;
Not ban any political or religious organisation in Australia;
Withdraw its national identity card proposal, and guarantee that the new Medicare card not be used to introduce a national ID card by the back door; and
Reduce the threat of a terrorist attack by immediately withdrawing all military personnel from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Further, we call on the federal Labor opposition and all state Labor governments to act decisively to stop the decimation of democratic rights in Australia by:
Repealing state "anti-terror" laws;
Reversing their support for the federal ASIO bill and "anti-terror" laws;
Committing to not use state police forces to deny civil liberties or silence dissent;
Ending "random" police searches of individuals at train stations and all public places;
Opposing the introduction of a national identity card in any form.
To add your name to this statement,
e-mail: [email protected]
