Friday, September 01, 2006

Jihad Jack

A blog acquaintance of mine (philbert83) has touched on this already this week, so I feel like I'm reporting on this a little late. Cest la vie. That doesn't stop me feeling passionately about the "Jihad Jack" decision.
Jack Thomas was the first man jailed under new anti-terror laws and was set free after Victoria’s appeal court quashed his convictions. The reason: interviews conducted by the AFP in Pakistan were inadmissible as evidence.
I nearly choked on my fucking dinner during a conversation with my father over this while watching the news. I have been completely APPALLED by the coverage and by the opinions expressed, not just by the talkback chronies, but the commentators.
The shit that has been said is amazing. People who's kids were killed in the Bali bombings have been wheeled out to express their hurt, grief and outrage. Shock-Jocks lambasted the court over the decision to let Jack free.
But this was my favourite (by Chris Merritt from the Weekend Oz, as rightly attacked by Mediawatch):
Some responsibility must rest with the judges. Why could they not find a reason to protect society from this man?
For fucksake you fucking fucktard! "Find a reason"? "FIND A REASON"???
Dude, seriously. The evidence against him was not gathered voluntarily. God knows what duress he may have been under. God knows what coercion. AND the jury didn't believe he supported Al Qaeda and that was INCLUDING the AFP evidence you fuckstick.
How dare - how DARE - you even consider arbitrarily deciding a man should be incarcerated, should be kept off the streets, should be deprived of his liberty, based on rumour, opinion, heresay and unsubstantiated evidence.
Why the hell would you think that is suitable? This is Australia you c**t and we don't do things that way here. (Well we can now more than we could before, cheers Mr Howard). Our entire legal system is predicated on being innocent until proven guilty. Oh yeah, and that trial by jury thing is kinda important to. Trial by media is seldom in the interests of justice Chris Merritt, et al. You bastards are the kind of rogue operators that give journalists a bad reputation.
Do you think you are providing insightful comment by appealing to the lowest common social opinion? You have an opportunity to lead, not follow, and you blew it. You should be going after the AFP you cockspanks, not demonising a man who has been found innocent.
Consider yourself suitably chastised. Dickwads.

3 comments:

Lindsay said...

Fantastic blog Bolton. I agree completely and utterly with everything you say. The last thing any civilised country can afford to do is break its own laws to satisfy an irresonsible media-driven baying for blood. Legal process must be followed to the letter. It's there for a goddamn reason. Michel Foucault once said you judge a civilised society by the way it treats its prisoners. You also judge it by the way it carries out "justice". It is not and should not be our way to torture and abuse the "correct" answer out of those we assume to be guilty. Freedom just ain't freedom anymore.

Anonymous said...

If you're not already up on the French Dreyfus scandal of a century ago, I suggest a quick wiki of it. (To Wiki - a new verb?) The parallels astound, history repeats itself when given a chance.

Peter Debnam, NSW Opposition leader was recently quoted as saying words to the effect: "the NSW police should be finding some reason to lock up these middle eastern thugs" after the Cronulla affair last year. Hardly appropriate or helpful, but hardly surprising in this climate of reactionism either.

I'm presently in a quandry on these control orders and terror prosecutions. I work a lot with the DPP and AFP and from what I've seen these people would not chase something unless it was there. But then what causes my concern is the politicisation of the AFP for instance and the amount of power the Attorney General is given under the new acts to wield in whatever politically motivated and convenient way. There was talk of a high court challenge last week to the lack of separation of powers of parts of the new laws. I'll be interested to see what happens.

Bolton said...

No I agree absolutely. You have to expect the AFP might have suspicions, but I don't think they have the right to lock people up based on suspicion.
It's a very McCarthyist reds-under-the-beds kind of mentality that puts Australia squarely in the same judicial ball-park as Zimbabwe, et al.
I hate that Western nations can play high-and-mighty and fast-and-loose at the same time. Guantamo detainees are another example. David Hicks is, according to a second-hand account of a friend of someone who knows him, a whack-job with a life-long obsession with military and warfare.
That doesn't mean we should be able to lock him up without evidence for as long as we please (torturing and interviewing under duress at will) and without offering a fair trial.
The age of terror is a convenient excuse. It offers the kind of excuses normally offered by full-scale war.
I don't think detaining Jack Thomas or David Hicks helps make Australia one jot safer.