TERRORISM SUPPRESSION ACT PASSED
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Murray Horton
Previous issues of PR have reported on the progress of the Terrorism Suppression Bill
(which started life, in 2001, as the Terrorism [Bombings and Financing] Bill)
and on the campaign against it. Rather than go over all that again, your best
bet is to read those previous issues online at http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr26covr.html
and/or check out the excellent Webpage on the subject at www.arena.org.nz,
which includes several expert analyses. Bob Leonard and myself presented ABC’s
submission when the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Select Committee
conducted hearings in Christchurch, back in February 2002 (see PR 26). You can read ABC’s submission at
http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/abcterr.htm
The Bill was reported back in March
2002 – unchanged. The only dissension came from Green MP, Keith Locke, who
consistently opposed it all the way through. Keith is a member of that Select
Committee but his colleagues refused him permission to table a minority report
on the Bill (both it and his accompanying press statement can be found at the
NZ Terrorism Bill Webpage, on the ARENA Website).
It disappeared for the next few months
and did not feature at all in the July general election. Then, voila, it
reappeared in October 2002, with the Government taking Urgency to get it rammed
through its final stages in the House. It was duly passed by 106-9, i.e with
only the Greens voting against it. Keith Locke continued to argue that it
undermined individual liberties and threatened lawful protests. For his
trouble, he was roundly abused by both Labour and National, who disputed that
the existing Crimes Act was sufficient for the purpose.
However, compared to the openly fascist
type of anti-terrorist laws enacted in both the US and Australia, New Zealand’s
piece of post-September 11 legislative hysteria is not so bad (speaking
comparatively). It criminalises terrorist acts using explosives and the
financing of terrorist acts (National has complained that membership per se in
designated terrorist organisations is not illegal; Helen Clark says that it
criminalises “participation”, which is the same thing). It defines a “terrorist
act” as conduct intended to induce terror; it must constitute serious
disruption which threatens human life.
One major concern had been that New
Zealanders supporting liberation movements overseas (which more often than not
have to resort to armed struggle - East Timor is the most recent example) would
be swept up in the scope of this anti-terrorist law. The law as passed allows
Kiwis to make donations to such foreign groups if they intend them to be used
for humanitarian aid. The Act has no powers of arrest or detention (unlike the
vicious Patriot Act in the US, which has swept thousands up in a dragnet of
secret imprisonment without charge), nor does it give powers to NZ Intelligence
agencies to behave in the Gestapo fashion
demonstrated by their Australian counterparts (who terrorised
Australia’s Indonesian community after the October 2002 Bali bombings). Kicking
in doors, smashing windows, and arresting people remains the province of the
Police. The new Australian laws are a major step towards transforming the likes
of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) from spies into a
fully-fledged secret police (see the article on the ASIO powers, elsewhere in
this issue). Under the New Zealand Act, alleged terrorists must be tried in the
normal way (no holding people without charge, no secret trials or military
tribunals); the Prime Minister has the power to designate people or
organisations as terrorists, but is obliged to consult with both the Attorney
General and Minister of Foreign Affairs before doing so.
So, the Terrorism Suppression Act is a
bad law, but not as bad as it could have been (thanks to a concerted campaign
against it) and definitely not as bad as the comparable laws in other countries.
Of course, the murderous Bali bombings, which killed three New Zealanders,
happened only a couple of days after the Act was passed and immediately the
Opposition parties started complaining that the new Act does not go far enough
to protect New Zealand from terrorism (and the consensus is that it wouldn’t
make any difference to such an attack – expect further repressive laws to give
us more “protection”. The more excitable correspondents to the newspapers
blamed it all on the Government’s decision to scrap the RNZAF Skyhawks!).
The Act was first invoked in November
2002, when the Government designated the Indonesian-based Jammah Islamiah (JI)
as a terrorist organisation (this is the group held responsible for the Bali
bombings). What this means is that it is now an offence to be involved with JI,
to collect funds, recruit members or make property or financial services
available to it. Assets and funds can be seized and members imprisoned for up
to 14 years. In February 2003, six more individuals and organisations were
added to the Government’s list of terrorists, under the Act. They were all
linked to either JI or Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda, the group held responsible
for the September 11, 2001, atrocities in the US.
Of course, this Act did not arise from
a vacuum. PR readers need no
reminding that there has been a whole
swag of repressive new laws in the past few years, giving greater spying powers
to Intelligence agencies and the Police. There have been a couple of amendments
to the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) Act; the Government Communications
Security Bureau (GCSB - which runs the Waihopai spybase) has been given legal
status (it has existed since 1977!) and expanded electronic spying powers; the
Crimes Amendment Number 6 Act has given increased electronic spying powers to
the Police and the SIS and GCSB. All of these have been detailed in PR over the past few years. Since the
September 11, 2001, attacks the Government has given an extra $30 million over
three years to the Intelligence agencies, the Police and others, such as
Customs and airport security agencies. Police liaison officers have been posted
to London and Washington and a counter-terrorism intelligence unit has been
established within the Police; new procedures are proposed for Customs and
Immigration to “screen” incoming passengers before they leave their country of
departure; new terrorist offences have been created of attacking the food chain
and New Zealand’s biosecurity. And on and on it goes.
To put it in fashionspeak, terrorism
has become the new black. Simply invoking its name is sufficient excuse to
abrogate all sorts of individual and community rights. It follows in the long
dreary tradition of other great bogeymen down the ages – Communism, Satanic
ritual child abuse, witchcraft, etc., etc. Dreadful crimes have been committed
and those responsible need to be caught and punished. There is no evidence
whatsoever that laws such as these play any role in either prevention or cure.
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