When the media dutifully reported the claims of police and Victorian Premier John Brumby yesterday that an imminent terrorist attack had been avoided, did it not occur to them that they had been spun this line before?
It was when the then Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon told the media in early November 2005 that an “imminent terrorist attack” had been prevented by the arrest of a group of young men and sheikh, Abdul Nacer Benbrika in the early hours of the morning. It was a fiction.
When Justice Bernard Bongiorno, in February this year, sentenced those of the accused from those arrests who were convicted of terrorism offences, he did so on the basis that “they knew the jemaah [group] led by Benbrika encouraged and/or took some act towards the commission of a terrorist act some time in the future on an as yet undetermined target.”
I acted for an accused in that case and saw firsthand this manipulation of the climate by the authorities to undermine the presumption of innocence. Two other examples will suffice.
The Victorian government’s Department of Corrective Services got into the act by classifying, on the basis of nothing more than the public hysteria that greeted their arrest, the accused in the maximum security unit of Barwon prison.
As Justice Bongiorno noted in ruling in March 2008, in which he threatened to halt the trial if the accuseds’ appalling conditions were not radically improved, neither “Corrections Victoria nor the Crown has ever placed any evidence before this Court in any form to justify either the accuseds’ classification or their treatment which is, in terms of the fairness of this trial, intolerable.”
Corrections Victoria also sought to have the accused placed in the dock with big perspex screens in front of them and to have nearly 40 security guards in court to guard them. But Justice Bongiorno ruled “as far as the presence of the prison officers is concerned the perception created by such a large number of them is that the accused are people who warrant being guarded in such a fashion to prevent their escape or to prevent other undesirable activity.”
He also ordered the Perspex screens be removed, noting that on “no occasion have I witnessed any behaviour of any of the accused either singly or together which would give any cause for concern let alone alarm from a security point of view.”
The Melbourne terrorism trial was not an isolated case. Remember the way politicians and the authorities destroyed Dr Mohammed Haneef though media leaks and prejudicial statements?
Given this history why is there not more scepticism on the part of the media about this current spate of arrests and detentions?
If only the media shared the view of one editor of a certain overseas periodical who, when offered a story on the raids last night, said no.
According to the writer who offered the piece, the editor wasn’t interested because “police claims often turn out to be well short of the truth.” How perceptive.
400 Police and ASIO officers from several jurisdictions involved in a pre-dawn raid,allegedly as a result of months of investigation, and 5 suspects detained and apparently now charged.
When the Police make a major drug bust we see photos of police officers boasting about the size of the bust and it’s street value etc etc.
If this terrorism attack was “imminent” where are the arms and explosives required for the attack?
Surely it couldn’t be hyped up exercise that just happens to be occurring at a time that politicians are considering beefing up our anti-terrorism legislation?
Media? What is that?
You raise important considerations Greg. I agree with your caution, examples, and concerns.
The general population will be in a difficult place with such thoughts though. The logic will go something like this:
– If this is fairdinkum, then it is good the police and ASIO did the raids and arrests. (And that much is true).
– If it is not fairdinkum, but they thought it was, then it is good to see them on top of possible situations. “Better safe than sorry”. (mabye…)
– If it is fabricated like the Haneef case (and most Aussies wont remember his name), and those in authority know it is phoney, then it still sends a signal to potential terrorists that they will “get you” if you try anything. (I don’t like the logic of this line of argument. It could actually be reversed: unjust heavyhandedness can help create tensions and growing discontent with the country a person lives in: it can create future terrorists).
Sadly, real people (again, like Haneef) can be chewed up and spat out for all sorts of other agendas.
But is this real this time? Not showcasing for other agendas? I guess time will tell.
I heard a woman on Talkback(Soapbox) this afternoon, who rang about the invasion of Iraq. She stated, that as Saddam was a dictator etc, it was good that the country was invaded and got rid of him? She went on to say, that “they”(Middle Eastern ‘terrorists’) aren’t like us are they? They don’t think like us? I just groaned!
It’s an old tried and true. You demean people; make them out to be criminals at best, and then it’s so much easier to treat them in an appalling manner. Remove their rights and treat them worse than animals? I wonder how I’d feel if I was overseas, and some country had invaded Australia and was killing hundreds of thousands of my compatriots? For what? Our coal? Uranium?
I don’t condone any violence, but I could sympathize with what one of the people recently charged, said in Court today. That we are involved in killing innocents in Iraq & Afghanistan, and Israel is treating Palestinian people in a horrific manner(or words to that effect). It would appear, that people like the woman who rang the Soapbox don’t stop and think of state sponsored terrorism. It’s apparently OK to break international law, the Geneva Conventions, rules of the UN etc. Even Kofi Annan said the invasion of Iraq was illegal.
What’s the US doing in Somalia anyway? Could it be that there’s a large amount of oil in the region? No, surely not!
Thank you Greg…a lonely voice of rational comment in this modern world of Orwellian “hate sessions” and “beat ups”.
I go back to the Hilton bombing (would love to hear Greg’s commentary on the real background to that event!) which led to more powers for ASIO and weapons for the AFP, to Andew Wilkie’s lone (and forthrightly honest) reaction to the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” evidence in Iraq pre 2003, to the anti-bikie legislation in NSW (I witnessed two garishly coloured NSW police vehicles bailing up one or possibly two elderly bikers {possibly members of the Ulysses Club?} outside Lithgow three weeks ago), and to the strange media build up of this amorphous Al Qaeda grouping all over the world………..
And then I link to Eric Beecher’s Andrew Olle Memorial Lecture quite some years ago, where he pointed the correct finger at the profit motive (as against the “truth” motive) which he forecast as being the driving force behind all major media endeavours of the future…
And finally I revert to Eric Fromm’s fabulous book (1968?) “Escape From Freedom”, wherein he postulated that man has not yet evolved out of that genetic code labelled “FEAR” (Remember? Kipling referred to it as being “The Law of the Jungle”)…..
Greg, I think that you’re quite correct in your angle….I just wish I could stir up the strength of conviction to argue your case. Unfortunately, I too have almost been beaten into submission by these fear-ridden termites that now seem to inhabit ALL the remaining corridors of power!!