Australia: Cop Watch - Secrecy, Brawling

A weekly round up of the boys in blue.

KEEPING TO ITS POLICY OF SECRECY AT ALL COSTS, police forces around the country disclose little information about their activities unless enquirers force them to do so under freedom of information laws.

So it was that the Sun Herald newspaper had to make the application under freedom of information laws to find out what the Australian Federal Police spent at their Scotch College, according to the 24 October edition.

Their expenditure included

$7,400 on a home theatre system $6600 on street theatre $23,000 for beanies a yacht (price unknown) $72,000 paid to luxury car manufacturer BMW.

An AFP spokesperson, Kai Ianssen, refused to give any further details, including how the items bought with public money were related to police business.

STREET BRAWLING QUEENSLAND COPPERS have come under attack for using excessive force outside a Brisbane nightclub on the evening of October 23.

Twenty-seven men and women were arrested outside the Underground Nightclub, Edward St.

As often happens in these situations, the boys and girls in blue got carried away and sprayed everyone in sight with pepper spray.

'Some people were just trying to run past and just got caught up in it and just got dragged in and sprayed and thrown into the watch tower,' said one witness.

'They were bashing anyone with the bats, they even grabbed this other guy that was waiting for a taxi they sprayed him and then they started bashing him and then they arrested him.'

Police Superintendent Tonya Carew says her officers acted appropriately.

'I tell my staff to use capsicum spray,' she said.

YOUSE ARE FUCKED said a man to police officers through the window of a police car, according to media reports on 22 October 2005.

Rather than the police officers responding with professionalism and ignoring the man, they arrested him - like the big kids that they are. After being acquitted of 'offensive language' by the Magistrate who said that the word fuck is expected to be heard late at night in Sydney, the police are now using taxpayers money to appeal the matter to a higher court.

Rufus Richardson, a 27-year-old Canberra student, was awarded $2,600 for legal costs.

The Magistrate said it was difficult to find swearing an offence in relation to community standards, because she was 'not sure there is such a thing as community standards anymore.'

NO DOUBT THE TIP OF THE ICEBURG, Northern Territory Police has spent more than 80,000 hours secretly spying on people last financial year.

The figure is quoted in the October 27 Northern Territory News, after figures were tabled in the NT Parliament saying that they spent 3,895 days conducting surveillance.

The breakdown included

35 applications for a tracking device 26 for listening bugs 16 for filming.

No warrant applications were refused.

Acting Assistant Commissioner Crime Command George Owen refused to comment about the upsurge in the use of electronic surveillance when contacted by the Northern Territory News.

By Cop Watcher posted 31 October 05

Surveillance

It is up to ordinary people to raise the level of debate about the undemocratic surveillance practices of the many faceless and unaccountable agents who make daily intrusions on individual privacy, and about the apologists and propagandists for the War nn Terror who applaud every new attack on human rights and freedoms as "prudent" or "necessary". If there is no discussion of reverse surveillance in the national media, create it on the streets on a citizen to citizen basis. If nobody is talking about the outrageous assaults on privacy and human rights embodied in the new antiterrorist acts forced through US, UK and Australian legislatures, start talking about it to your neighbours and friends.

Related:

Corrupt police planting DNA evidence at crime scenes
Others have raised concerns about corrupt police planting DNA evidence at crime scenes.

Australia: Cop Watch - drugs in the force
Taking the illegal drugs leads to the officers associating with drug suppliers, stealing drugs, stealing money and supplying friends, and providing confidential information to the drug suppliers.

The reckoning of a police whistleblower
A decade after crooked cop Trevor Haken rolled over at the Wood Royal Commission into police corruption, he remains in fear of his life and says he has been left out in the cold by authorities, having reached his used-by date.

Australia: Copwatch - pornographic emails
Copwatch -sexually explicit emails in Western Australia - Victoria cops ask for freedom to target Muslims - Former ASIO head says Victorian corruption now worse than ever - Coppers out of control in driving pursuits in NSW - Drink-driving copper 5 times over the limit in Tasmania - Fans of Ned Kelly fire 40 shots into a memorial plaque at Stringybark Creek.

Police drivers sneer at the rules
NSW police involved in high-speed car pursuits have lied, ignored commands to stop and switched radio frequencies to dodge official supervision while taking part in chases, internal service documents reveal.

Australia: Cops on Drugs
An illicit drug culture exists within the ranks of the NSW Police Service with young cops found to be taking speed, cocaine and ecstasy.

Victorian cops the most corrupt in Australia
A weekly round up of news on the cops. Former Australian Crime Commission Chair says Victorian cops are the most corrupt in Australia -- so they are given extra powers -- and so Melburnians can be patrolled by the army -- and have business deals with McDonalds. Top cops in NSW cleared after investigation -- but another one charged with child slavery. Western Australian police officer leaves the force under secrecy -- and Canberra hospital nurse tells the Federal Police to bugger off.

Cop Watch - The threat of privatised state power
Cop Watch will stay silent on proposed anti-terrorist laws and the arrest of peace activist Scott Parkin as so many others are writing about it, but a moment needs to be spent on private security guards - the private army of the state.

Cop Watch - Tweed Heads Terrorism brings town to standstill
Another terror attack in Australia brings Tweeds Heads (NSW) to a standstill - police brake speed limit to get footy player to footy match - woman ends up dead because of police failure, according to coroner - corrupt corruption commissioner might end up in prison - 14 year old girl gets locked up by police unlawfully - ex-copper gets massive $650,000 pay-out.

A copper's lot may not be happy, but it is certainly well paid
NSW Police to set up full time riot squad following Forbes protests - no one wants to be Commissioner of Police in NSW - no one wants to be a copper in SA - another copper rapes a juvenile - more secrecy bungles in Victoria - more drugs for the cops on duty - Justice Wood (former Commissioner into Police Corruption) says little has changed in 10 years - cops on corruption charges get stressed out and get compo.

Cop Watch: When permanent head injuries ruled to be reasonable force Former copper kidnaps and rapes 10 year old (allegedly) - Commission rules that police violence that leads to serious and permanent head injuries is 'reasonable' - more police lies on the de Menezes killing in London by terrorist police officers - NSW Police Association criticise A30 Opera House cost of policing - Victorian Police stuff up traffic tickets (again).

Cop Watch: No. 4 Terrorism in Ballarat
Terrorism in Ballarat - former Sydney copper sues the police after becoming drug addict - Victorian Police unlawfully releases 'up to 20,000 pages' of confidential files.

Australia: Cop Watch No. 3
This round-up includes: disgraced officers may get reinstated with back pay - more confidential information gets released into the public domain by police - body searching at the Sydney Opera House - and Irish police pissed off over WA police poaching campaign in Ireland.

Australia: Copwatch No.2
A review of what the boys and girls in blue have been up to shows that their respective juices have been stimulated by their ability to demand greater and greater police powers.

Australia: Cop Watch
The roundup this week - dodgy riot gear, shooting French photographers, senior coppers being 4 times over the legal limit, dodgy promotions in NSW, more terrorism powers in WA and drug-dealing coppers in Melbourne (it is alleged).

Assaulted, intimidated or harassed in custody?
"Then make an Apprehended Violence Order application against the police, says assault victim Ms Teresa Kiernan.

NSW Police Force: 2 dead, $1 million dollars to catch a thief?
NSW police have expressed concern about their response to the Macquarie Fields riots in south-western Sydney after a police pursuit that killed two young youths Dylan Rayward 17, and Mathew Robertson, 19 that went horribly wrong.

OUR STORIES MUST BE TOLD. THEY HAVE TO BE
On Sunday 13th February, a Community gathering will be held to enable all people to remember the death of one of our young Community members, 'TJ' Hickey.

Vic police chief moves to sack officers
The Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police, Christine Nixon, has moved to dismiss two police officers as part of a crackdown on corruption and says up to 20 more dismissals could follow.

Vic flop cop warns there's more corruption
Victorian Police Chief Commissioner, Christine Nixon, says Victorians should brace themselves for more evidence of police corruption.

Vic police corruption report tabled in Parliament
The Victorian Ombudsman's report on the Ceja Taskforce and drug related corruption in Victoria police has been tabled in State Parliament.

Bent police compromise Bulldogs gang-rape case
Deputy Commissioner Dave Madden could have compromised gang-rape investigation? Steve Mortimer resigned!

More NSW Police Corruption?
Line of fire? [Bullshit! Line of Lick Arse Noble Cause NSW Corrupt Cops] (clockwise from top left) Deputy Commissioner Dave Madden, Assistant Commissioner Peter Parsons, Superintendent Dave Swilkes, Assistant Commissioner Bob Waites and Superintendent Dave Owens.

NSW Cop suspect in murder?
A sacked Sydney police officer has finished giving testimony at a hearing into his corrupt activities over the past eight years. Christopher John Laycock was yesterday recalled to the witness stand at the Police Integrity Commission (PIC).

Corrupt NSW police officer sacked
New South Wales Police Commissioner Ken Moroney has sacked an officer who confessed to being involved in corrupt activities over the past eight years.

Policeman draws blank on fake raids
A suspended Sydney policeman has told an inquiry that he has "little recollection" of the details of fake police raids he set up.

Officer planned to kidnap criminals
A senior Sydney police officer who has admitted taking money for tipping off a child porn suspect had also been planning to kidnap criminals and extort money from them, the Police Integrity Commission heard yesterday.

Police offer protection to family following gang rape allegations
The parents of a 14-year-old girl claim their daughter was gang-raped in Sydney earlier this year, and have raised concerns about corrupt policeman Detective Sergeant Christopher Laycock's review of the case.

NSW police prosecutor charged with child porn possession
A New South Wales police prosecutor has been charged with the possession of child pornography.

Police, teachers charged in child porn bust
One-hundred-and-fifty people, including police officers and teachers, have been arrested in what the Federal Police (AFP) describe as Australia's biggest Internet child pornography bust.

A corrupt way to treat the community?
I seen the police bleeding on Nine's Sunday program arguing that promotion should depend on how many crimes police have solved and not how many brains they have and that was coming from police commissioner Ken Moroney and Police Minister John Watkins?

Judges Blood Sample: After the fact of the fact of a hangover?
Lawyers say New South Wales Supreme Court judge Jeff Shaw should not give police his own sample of blood taken after he crashed his car near his Sydney home last month.

NSW police drug amnesty under review
A drug amnesty for the New South Wales police force is under review, Police Commissioner Ken Moroney has said.

Police to uphold law not decide mental health
A diagnosis of mental illness could be made over the phone instead of in person, and involuntary psychiatric patients could lose the right to have their case reviewed by a magistrate, under proposed changes to NSW mental health laws.

Redfern police need education not weapons
According to the description of one senior police officer, the ACLO called out on the afternoon before the Redfern violence escalated was "hopeless, intoxicated and had no driver's licence."

Bulldogs simply not the best!
SIMPLY NOT THE BEST AND DEFINITELY NOT BETTER THAN ANYONE, ANYONE I'VE MET.

Court accuses police of planting evidence
A magistrate in the south-western New South Wales city of Wagga Wagga says police there nearly beat a man to death, fabricated evidence about him, and later lied in court about the incident.

Gang-rape, police, disparity and the law..
The young woman and her friend have told police they met the players in Coffs Harbour on the evening after the Bulldogs played a trial match there and went back to the team's hotel with them.

Clive Small, NSW Inspector Gadget
NSW Police has revived controversial plans for a specialist discriminative squad to tackle the wave of violent crime that has plagued Sydney's south-west for more than a decade.

Drive-by shootings: test your political IQ?
What if since the Wood Royal Commission into police corruption the drugs moved from Kings Cross to Cabramatta. Then since the the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Cabramatta the drugs moved to Bankstown/Greenacre. Giving police more power might just be more fuel on the fire.

NSW drug wars: family feud not responsible for shootings
Do New South Wales citizens have to be diverted from the truth about a drug infested gangland killing? Why did the police lie? Why did the Premier lie? What is wrong with our government and police, are they on the take? Are they on drugs? Are these people being drug tested?

2,500, crooked detectives? Or a corrupt Government?
The Wood Royal Commission into police corruption. Where did the police learn their trade skills? Led by example perhaps?

Australia's Political Underworld...And their enforcers
The promotion of law and order means money to big business. Profits from insurance, security fixtures, patrol services and the like can only continue to grow if the perceived threat of uncontrollable crime wave escalates. In the past few months there have been many examples of the true nature of our blood thirsty politicians and their sinister attempts to spoon-feed a not so gullible public with their repetitious rhetoric.

Lord Denning
Interesting how a member of the Police Board Mr. Tim Priest would hold grave fears for his safety from dangerouse senior police but fails to name them or have them sacked. Rather Priest resigns as if he had no powers. Could that mean what he was saying is that the Governments are also corrupt?

Black Nexus
The Separation of Powers Doctrine is nowcontaminated witharangeofcolours, now leaving us with a black shirt on a once blue bridge that crossed that thin blue line. The 'Amery and Woodham show'.

Partners in crime - history!
Roger Rogerson, the old hero, who never faced a result in the Lanfranchy, or Huckstepp murders, was let off in my opinion when the New South Wales Government rolled the legal system (deciding what evidence to give the police prosecutor) to have the jury believe the illusion they (the Government wanted to create).Similarly, Peter Ryan facing the Police Integrity Commission for questions about his involvement in the demise of the dysfunctional reform unit. Chess in the court (rolling the legal system).

Police Chronology 1994-2001
View events in the NSW Police Force since the Wood Royal Commission began in 1994. 1994 May Justice James Wood is appointed Commissioner of the Royal Commission into the NSW Police Service ('WRC').

Federal Police

AFP: The unlikely CRIMINAL
It was born of a bombing and it made its name after a far more devastating act of terrorism. But for most of the 25 years in between, little was known about the Australian Federal Police force or the work it did.

Indonesian Police Set Free After Torturing West Papuan Students to Death

If you thought Schapelle Corby got a raw deal from the Indonesian justice system, spare a thought for the West Papuan students who survived a vicious attack by police as they slept in their dormitories in Abepura, West Papua, in the early hours of 7 December 2000.

After nearly five years of waiting for the case to conclude, the students were in a Makassar court last week to hear judges hand down a "not guilty" verdict to two police officers accused of perpetrating the violence.

One West Papuan student was killed in the raid, two others later died as a result of beatings while in police custody, and over a hundred others were harassed or tortured in the attack. The case is the first to come before the Human Rights Court newly established under Law 26/2000, which, as an initiative was widely viewed as a positive step toward addressing Indonesia's appalling record on human rights.

However, the verdict sends an ominous message not only to West Papuans, but to all Indonesians, that Indonesia's legal system cannot be depended on to deliver justice, and is a reminder of the ongoing impunity of Indonesia's security forces.

Shortly after 1am on 7 December 2000 a group of unidentified persons attacked the Abepura police station. A policeman, Petrus Eppa, was killed in the melee. In a separate attack on the Autonomy Office in Abepura, a security officer, Markus Padama, was killed. Around 2:30am then police chief Daud Sihombing and then police superintendent Johny Wailan Usman ordered that the attackers be "hunted down".

The police launched a retaliatory attack against a group of mainly highland students who, according to subsequent investigations by a number of high profile legal aid and human rights associations, had nothing to do with either the attack on the police station or the attack on the Autonomy Office.

Over the following twenty-four hours, Brimob (Indonesia's mobile paramilitary police brigade) raided a series of nearby West Papuan student dormitories. Ninmin Hostel was the immediate target. The BTN Puskopad Abepura housing complex home to residents from Kotalima, Mamberano and West Wamena the Yapen Waropen hostel, and the Illaga University Students hostel, were also targeted by police.

One student, Elkius Suhuniap (male, 23-years-old) was fatally shot by police during the raids. Over a hundred others, including pregnant women and children, were rounded up by police and taken into police custody where they were systematically beaten, tortured and taunted with racist remarks.

One West Papuan student recalled the police beating him and spitting on him, saying "your mother eats pig and you have the brain of a pig " even with your college degree you won't get a job " You Papuans are stupid; stupid and yet you think you can be independent."

Two students, Ori Ndoronggi (male, 19-years-old) and Johny Karunggu (male, 20), died in police custody as a result of injuries sustained during torture. Another student, Agus Kabak (male, 19) was permanently incapacitated while a fourth student, Arnold Mundo Soklayo (male, 32), was crippled and later died in Jayapura as result of his injuries.

The students were tortured and beaten to death in the presence of Swiss journalist, Oswald Iten who had been arrested and detained previously for photographing an independence demonstration. The police told Iten that such violence was "normal" when a policeman had been killed.

Iten later wrote: "What I saw was unspeakably shocking. About half a dozen policemen were swinging their clubs at bodies lying on the floor and, oddly enough, they did not cry out; at most soft groans issued from them. After a few long seconds a guard saw me looking and struck his club against the bars of the cell block door.

I quickly went back to my usual spot, from where I could still see the clubs, staff and split bamboo whips at their work. Their ends were smeared with blood and blood sprayed the walls all the way up to the ceilings. Sometimes I saw the policemen hopping on the benches, continuing to strike blows from there or jumping back down on the bodies below."

Indonesia's national human rights commission, Komnas HAM, conducted an independent investigation into the attack. Twenty-five suspects were identified by the commission but only two were ultimately ordered to face trial by the Attorney General's Office. The Office gave no explanation why the remainder of suspects escaped prosecution. The two accused, however, were not arrested, and not only were they allowed to remain in their jobs, they were actually promoted. The Attorney General's Office obstructed investigations by the survivors legal team, and delayed the case well beyond the time limit stipulated by Law 26/2000 on Human Rights Courts.

When the court handed down their verdict last week, the survivors and their families broke into hysterics. One woman climbed onto a chair and yelled in disbelief that the judges had been unfair. In contrast, the group of Brimob soldiers who packed the courtroom cheered and started singing the Brimob anthem. Prominent Human rights defender, Todung Mulya Lubis, who is based in Jakarta, says the verdict will only add to Papuans feelings of alienation from the Unitary Republic of Indonesia.

Inside the court, representatives of Peace Brigades International accompanied the survivors, their families and friends, many of whom had received threatening phone calls and text messages or had been intimidated 'by persons unknown' in the lead up to the trial. Indonesian human rights advocates say they have been told by insiders that the judges involved in the case had been pressured by the authorities to deliver a not guilty verdict, and to refuse compensation to the survivors and their families. Also witnessing the proceedings were representatives of the European Union and the New Zealand and Canadian governments. No one from the Australian embassy was present.

Br. Budi Hernawan from the Catholic Office of Justice and Peace in Jaypura says "the Abepura verdict shows that human rights violations in West Papua are not taken seriously by the central government. The verdict demonstrates that there is no political will to deliver justice to the West Papuan people. The state is not even willing to protect the right to life for West Papuans."

The verdict was handed down just weeks after the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Sydney University released a report on the human rights situation in West Papua entitled Genocide in West Papua? The role of the Indonesian Security Services Apparatus.

The report, which took four years to compile, details a systemic policy of human rights violations of West Papuans, including the burning of entire villages, extrajudicial killings, rape, and torture at the hand of the Indonesian security forces. Both the Indonesian and Howard government questioned the veracity of the findings.

Democrats Senator Natasha Stott Despoja spoke to the Genocide in West Papua? Report in parliament, urging the Australian government to pursue a relationship with Indonesia that is based on being honest and open, on having a mutual respect for human rights and on recognising dignity and the importance of human life. Senator Stott Despoja also called on the Australian government to revisit our role in the internationally discredited 1969 Act of Free Choice under which Indonesia seized control of West Papua. Greens Senator Bob Brown then put forward a motion that notes the release of the report and calls on the Australian Government to investigate the claims in the report and report back to the Senate. Senator Brown's motion was opposed by Labor.

In recent years human rights violations in West Papua have steadily worsened. Jakarta's inconsistent policies, military operations,unwillingness to fully implement Special Autonomy legislations for the province, moves to partition the province into two, and lack of political will to address the core causes of the conflict, have all made matters worse. Jakarta now plans to send military forces withdrawn from Aceh to West Papua, where a new military command will be established.

The increase in troop numbers shows the central government's fear of the nonviolent movement that is challenging Jakarta's legitimacy and whose grievances are beginning to capture the attention of a growing transnational moral community.

The brutality of the Abepura case illustrates the gravity of the dire human rights situation in West Papua. Last week's verdict will only fuel West Papuan nationalism and strengthen West Papuans determination to be free from what is widely considered by West Papuans to be an illegal and illegitimate colonial occupation by Indonesia.

It's not hard to understand why. And Jakarta only has itself to blame.

Alex Rayfield is a researcher and activist working with the Australian West Papua Association.

WWW.FREEWESTPAPUA.COM

Indonesia: Do you even think of us Papuans as human beings?
By West Papua posted 16 September 05

As Indonesian police get acquitted for murder and brutality again, what are you going to do in Australia to stop the Genocide on our next door neighbour?

Dear all friends around the world,

Please distribute my statement all over world and to the Indonesian embassy nearest you.

Let the world know what the Indonesian government is doing to my people today.

BW

Indonesia: Do you even think of us Papuans as human beings?
Statement by Benny Wenda, Oxford, England. 12 September 2005

Have you seen photos of the bruised and battered faces of my people, kicked and beaten by Indonesian Police in their student hostel in Abepura in December 2000? I didn't just see photos.

I saw some of my brothers and sisters with my own eyes. Their faces were so mangled I could hardly recognise them. I saw their blood mixed with their tears. I also spent time with the families crying for their loved ones murdered by the Police on that horrible day.

Now Indonesia has added yet another injustice and insult to my people. Over the past few days we Papuans have heard that Indonesia's so-called justice system has acquitted the two senior Indonesian police officers responsible for the Abepura massacre because the brutal killing of three unarmed Papuans (two while already in police custody) and the cruel beating of at least 99 other innocent Papuan students do not meet the necessary criteria for "gross human rights violations".

Amnesty International has issued this strong condemnation, which the world's democracies must listen to:

"Today's verdict means that not a single member of Indonesia's security forces has been convicted of these horrific crimes after nearly five years of investigations and legal proceedings. The verdict also denied victims any compensation.

Despite the Indonesian government's overtures of reform and the establishment of Human Rights Courts, this verdict sends an alarming message to the victims of grave human rights abuses.

These failures to deliver justice and combat impunity illustrate both a flawed system and a lack of political will, which sets an extremely worrying precedent for other cases of grave human rights violations currently under investigation.

Today's verdict also risks giving a green light to future human rights violations by the Indonesian security forces."

When the judge announced the verdicts, my people cried with anger. At the same time, Indonesian police in the court room cheered the two criminal policemen and sang marching songs with contempt for the suffering of the Papuan people.

Surely Indonesia can never think that we Papuans will ever want to be part of Indonesia? Indonesia: Do you even think of us Papuans as human beings? We have seen during 42 years of illegal occupation that Papuan lives mean nothing to Indonesia. We know that Indonesia just wants our land, our trees, our gold and our oil but not us human beings.

We Papuans know that full independence is the only sure way to save us from Indonesian colonial greed and the annihilation of the Papuans as a people.

The name 'Abepura' should be known as the site of one of our Papuan universities, training my people for their futures in a Free West Papua, but Indonesia has made Abepura infamous around the world as a place of Indonesian state violence and contempt for the Papuan people. But Indonesia has made another big mistake. By letting these two police criminals go free, Indonesia has put into all our Papuan hearts an even greater yearning for FREEDOM.

God Bless our struggle. Papua Merdeka!

Benny Wenda
Chair of DeMMaK (The Koteka Tribal Assembly)
International Lobbyist in the UK for a Free West Papua
PO Box 1409 Oxford OX4 1UN England UK
Mobile: +44 (0) 7791629782
Email: bwe-@infopapua.org
Web: Web:
Richard Samuelson
Free West Papua Campaign
Oxford, U.K.
E-Mail: samo-@aol.com
Tel: +44 (0)1865 241200

By Alex Rayfield posted 15 September 05

Related:

Say no to Indonesia as a tourist destination
Australian tourists visiting Bali's nightspots will face random urine tests under an escalating anti-drugs crackdown on the Indonesian holiday island.

WHY IS THE HOWARD GOVERNMENT PLAYING 'DEATH' WITH AUSTRALIANS: There has been much controversy recently on whether the Australian Federal Police should have tipped-off the Indonesians over the arrest of the Bali Nine. Due to the fact that Indonesia executes convicted drug-traffickers, ACADP believes that any evidence collected by AFP should have been withheld from Indonesian authorities until they have a written guarantee not to pursue the death penalty for the Bali Nine.

'CORBY VIDEO HELP REBUFFED'?
On page19 of the BRISBANE "SUNDAY MAIL" there was an article entitled "CORBY VIDEO HELP REBUFFED". IF it is true, (the article which follows) it PROVES (IN LAW) the claim that OUR GOVERNMENT HAVE WITH-HELD EVIDENCE FROM THE LEGAL DEFENCE OF A CITIZEN.

It was me! 'New Corby trial'
SCHAPELLE Corby has been handed a second chance to fight for her freedom. But she got no second chances with the Daily Telegraph.

Australian man denies owning drug stash
AN Adelaide man facing up to 10 years in a Bali prison for drug possession has denied owning a stash of hashish allegedly found at his rented bungalow.

AUSTRALIANS PAY BRIBE TO VISIT CORBY IN BALI PRISON:
The Corby drug trial has become Bali's latest tourist attraction. Australians are taking time off to lend moral support to Schapelle Corby.

Corby lawyer pleads for Australian help
The lawyer for a Queensland woman facing drugs charges in Indonesia says it is not too late for Australian authorities to assist her defence.

THE DRUG-RIDDEN STREETS OF BALI:
Chris Allen, took to the streets of Bali and found it possible to buy a smorgasbord of illegal narcotics from dealers.

People: 'Prisoners' of Drugs'
People who are addicted to heroin usually take the drug because it relieves them of problems such as low self-esteem, distrust and fear of abandonment. They may have poor communication skills & poor relationship skills.

POSSESSION? OR INVASION?
UK: This absolutely preposterous idea/theory of allowing a person/s to be possibly charged with 'possession', if found to have a drug substance within their bloodstream, just goes to prove such hypocrisies which certain hierarchies feel justifies passing legislation, is another blow for democracy!

PLANNING TO TRAVEL OVERSEAS? BEFORE YOU GO, READ THIS!
Currently, 214 Australian citizens are languishing in prisons around the world. The majority of these having been convicted of drug-related crimes.

Swiftly investigate misconduct and assault, review urges?

Prison Officers at state juvenile detention [prison] centres should swiftly investigate allegations of misconduct and assault at detention [prison] centres the report urges.

It says about 70 accusations against staff were pending in December, and some are taking more than a year to complete.

Government consultant, John Newbery, also recommended that prison officers at state juvenile detention centres should also wear uniforms and be subject to compulsory drug and alcohol testing, a review of work practices at the centres recommends.

The review was ordered last year after revelations that staff at the Kariong centre had lost control of it and its inmates. A lack of discipline had led to reports of riots, industrial action, drug use and an incident in which a convicted juvenile was fondled by his girlfriend in the only place they could,in the visiting section of the centre in view of other visitors, but not particularly.

In other words they didn't do it on purpose they were driven senseless by passion, no doubt!

In November the Minister for Juvenile injustice, diane beamer, handed control of Kariong to the Department of Corruptive Services and ordered a review of her department's work practices.

The review, submitted by beamer to a parliamentary inquiry on juvenile offenders, says staff at the centres would support legislation to allow the department to enforce drug and alcohol testing.

"No Juvenile Justice staff or stockholders' representatives interviewed during this review opposed drug and alcohol testing of staff," it says.

"Virtually all agreed that reasonable suspicion-based testing should be the minimum, and many supported random testing as well... A number supported the use of sniffer dogs."

The review also says the department should consider introducing a uniform or dress code. Unlike prison officers, staff at juvenile centres wear casual clothes to encourage less formal relationships with inmates, although staff at two centres have voluntarily begun wearing black collared T-shirts with their centre's logo on them.

What about pink uniforms?

The review also recommends changes to reduce the time taken by the department's complaint handling unit to investigate accusations of misconduct. Juvenile centres deal with a large number of complaints because staff have wide powers to use physical force against violent inmates even though that lesson only gets short term results and in the long term opposed to dialogue only teaches them a very bad lesson, 'that violence wins'.

Then they want to send them back to the community to teach you that violence wins?

"This issue causing most concern for staff and key stakeholders is the amount of time taken to undertake investigations," the report says.

"The professional conduct unit is overworked... Improving disciplinary processes would need to go beyond re-assessing the [unit's] role."

The department's director-general, David Sherlock, said yesterday that he supported many of the review's recommendations, including drug testing.

"Sometimes staff are put under pressure by kids to bring in drugs, and we have to ensure that that is minimised," Mr Sherlock said.

The Government is expected to introduce drug testing within 12 months, including searches of staff and visitors on entry and random and targeted testing.

Mr Sherlock said he supported standardised dress codes for staff, but not strict uniforms.

"Working with juveniles we try to create an environment that doesn't set up a very cold, conflictual situation between staff and kids who are in the centre."

Mr Sherlock said the department was consulting with the union to speed up the complaints-handling process.

By Jonathan Pearlman and Just Us 29 June 05

REPORT: NSW Department of Corrective Services 2004

The Hon Charlie Lynn: How many complaints were there by inmates or staff assaulting or abusing inmates?

The Hon John Hatzistergos: I do not know. Do you want me to ask every inmate who was in every correctional centre how many people?

The Hon Charlie Lynn: No how many complaints were there. Do you have a complaints system or registration of complaints system?

Related:

The transition from juvenile to adult criminal careers
NSW: More than 68 per cent of the juvenile offenders who appeared for the first time in the NSW Children's Court in 1995 reappeared in a NSW criminal court within the next eight years. More than one in 10 (i.e. 13 per cent) ended up in an adult prison within this period.

MISTREATED IN CUSTODY - NO ACCOUNTABILTY
NSW: Frank Crook's article (Violence an desperate outlet for caged fury: Daily Telegraph Tuesday May 10, 2005) draws attention to abuse and degrading treatment of inmates in NSW reported twenty and thirty years ago, and a lack of accountability of management practices within the NSW Department of Corrective Services.

PRISON ACTION & REFORM INC: Tas Prison Complaints
TASMANIA: Prison Action & Reform was formed in response to the five deaths in custody that occurred between August 1999 and January 2000. Chris Wever, Vickie Douglas, Rose Macaulay, Judith Santos and others came to together to fight for reform in an outdated, increasingly cash-strapped and uncaring system. Of the original members, three lost loved ones to the Tasmanian prison system.

Department of Corrective Services fails to rehabilitate offenders NSW: Unpopular people will be forced to wear tracking devices at a cost of $5,000 dollars per unit because the NSW Department of Corrective Services failed to rehabilitate those offenders at a cost of $65,000 a year while they were held in custody for many years.

Corrected or Corrupted
A psychiatrist from the prison Mental Health Team attached to Queensland Health made the comment that 25 per cent of inmates suffer from a diagnosed mental illness.

ICOPA XI International Conference on Penal Abolition
We are excited to announce that ICOPA X1, the eleventh International Conference on Penal Abolition will happen in Tasmania, Australia from February 9 - 11,2006. Please pass this onto all networks.

Ex-Prisoner Locked Out of Prison
The NSW Department of Corrective Services (DCS) has revealed a policy which bans ex-prisoners from entering prisons.

Justice Action: Access to our community
NSW: Justice Action went to the NSW Supreme Court before the last Federal election on the constitutional right for prisoners to receive information for their vote. The government avoided the hearing by bringing prisoners' mobile polling booths forward. We pursued it after the election. This is the report.

Why We Oppose Home Detention
NSW: Justice Action opposes the use of Home Detention (HD). It damages the family and the home for others without any consideration of the effects, or acknowledgement of the costs. It discriminates by disproportionately effecting women. Families become prison guards to their loved ones, and the home becomes an extension of the State.

MORE PRISONERS LOCKDOWNS HAVE OFFICERS ON EDGE
NSW POLICE Commissioner Ken Moroney has issued an ultimatum as well, to the lawless youths holding Sydney's streets to ransom?: Learn some respect or face jail?

Tough line on crime fills jails
The tough law-and-order policies of governments around the nation are behind an explosion in the prison population by almost 80 per cent in the past two decades.

LEGAL VISITS AT PARKLEA PRISON
I am a prisoner in NSW and I am currently held in Parklea Prison. I am concerned about what is going on in NSW prisons and this is my story.

Parklea Prison: No calls for six days
The last calls that were made out of Parklea Correctional Complex by my partner, an inmate in remand at Parklea, was on Wednesday 2 February. The phone lines for the inmates have been out of service to this date.

Prison visits in crisis in NSW
The reason I am writing today is to address a difficult situation that my husband and my family are going through. My husband is currently serving a sentence at Lithgow Correctional Centre in NSW.

Prison boom will prove a social bust
Hardened criminals are not filling NSW's prisons - the mentally ill and socially disadvantaged are, writes Eileen Baldry.

The prison system requires assiduous oversight
As NSW Attorney General Bob Debus noted in 1996: "The kinds of complaints which occur in the system may seem trivial to outsiders but in the superheated world of the prison, such issues can produce explosive results."

Crime and Punishment
Mark Findlay argues that the present psychological approach to prison programs is increasing the likelihood of re-offending and the threat to community safety.

Justice Denied In NSW Corrective Services
There used to be a (VJ) or Visiting Justice who would go into the prison and judge any claim or accusation that was made by any prisoner or prison guard. If it were found that a prisoner had offended then punishment was metered out.

Prison guards test positive for drugs
NSW prison visitors banned from using the toilet The visit is only for about one hour and any thing less than that is an insult. If it's proved that a visitor has broken the rules the punishment should apply to them. But collective punishment on all visitors should not be made general when others haven't broken the rules especially if it restricts all visitors from normal human needs like using a toilet.

NSW prison visitors banned from using the toilet
The New South Wales Government has introduced several initiatives to stop contraband getting into prisons they said last Friday. But under the guise of "stricter rules" the department had also introduced banning all visitors including children from using the toilet unless they terminate their visit at any NSW prison after using the toilet.

NSW Legislative Council's Inquiry on Home Detention
Justice Action's submissions Justice Action opposes the use of home detention, whether front-end or back-end, as a sentencing option in our criminal justice system.

Watchdogs slaughtered in NSW
On Tuesday the Carr Government reduced transparency and accountability yet again and New South Wales is in danger of becoming entrenched with cronyism and intimidations with the Carr Labor Government that continues to slaughter the watchdogs.

FREE CHINA: NATIONAL RALLY

Farewell the Chinese Communist Party & Welcome freedom and democracy in China

On the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre we invite you to, 16 years after the tragic events of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to carry out campaign after campaign of brutal suppression of innocent people. From the persecution of Falun Gong, to Christians, to political dissidents, the Tiananmen Square Massacre was just one incident in a continuum of violence and suppression that is characteristic of the CCP's history. Since 1949, more than 80 million people have died as a direct result of the CCP's tyranny.

We invite peace loving people around the world to mourn the young lives that died for daring to seek liberty and freedom from the CCP. At the same time, the event is a celebration in anticipation of the collapse of the world's most deadly regime, an event that will be even more significant than the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.

Currently, an average of 20,000 people every day are publicly declaring their resignation from the Party or its affiliate organisations. Come June 4, it is estimated that over

Two million Chinese people will have quit the Chinese Communist Party

The recent flood of departures has been attributed to an exclusive report by The Epoch Times called the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, Published in over 30 countries, the extraordinary report reveals the mass public deception that accompanied the formation and development of the CCP, the untold killings and CCP's pursuit to destroy traditional culture.

Events and parades are to be held in many cities around the world simultaneously. Please join us in supporting the millions of people who are still denied fundamental human rights and liberty.

NATIONAL RALLY - SYDNEY
12 noon, Saturday 4 June, 2005
George Street Parade -- Assembly & Speeches at Martin Place

Thank you
Rally Organising Committee
Sydney Contacts: Kelly Zhan 0410 167 158,
David Rubacek 0425 867 585
Farewell to the CCP. FREE CHINA Free China (Farewell to the CCP)
Fax: (02) 8568 6166
Email: freechina@iinet.net.au

By Free China and Justice Action 2 June 2005

JUSTICE ACTION MEDIA RELEASE:
BY JUSTICE ACTION 2 JUNE 2005

Justice Action supports the right of people everywhere to assemble publicly and peacefully express their protests against repressive authorities.

Freedom the world over is intimately interconnected and repression too is now a globalised phenomena.

Australians have had this demonstrated to us recently in the suppression of free speech that accompanied the 2003 visits of George Bush and Hu Jintao - a suppression that even included the Australian parliament itself.

Justice Action particularly shares the struggle of those fighting for the rights and freedom of prisoners everywhere - whether held in NSW prisons, Chinese re-education camps or Guantanamo Bay. Prison systems, too, are a globalised crime against the freedoms and aspirations of all of humanity.

Justice Action calls on the Chinese government to immediately release all those it has imprisoned for speaking against the government or simply for following a personal or spiritual path.

We also call for justice, humane treatment and quick release for the millions of people currently detained and abused by Chinese authorities.

BRETT COLLINS
For Co-ordinator
Justice Action

Row brews over community store's credit system

There are claims an Aboriginal community in Darwin is on the brink of violence over a system which lets residents take goods on credit by signing over their finances to the local shop.

A former worker within the Bagot community says residents are turning against each other over the practice.

Natalie Hunter quit her job as financial counsellor inside the Bagot community in fear, she says, for her safety.

Ms Hunter says she questioned why residents' pensions were sent directly to the community shop.

She says the Bagot Community Council, the CDEP Indigenous employment scheme and Centrelink let the arrangement go on, locking people into a cycle of debt.

She says it is not clear who takes the shop profits but some locals have lashed out against those who want the practice stopped.

"One of the ladies has got a broken arm out of it and if nothing gets done there'll be family feuds going on in there," she said.

By Sorry 11 May 05

Related:

Vanstone brushes off Games threat
About 50 campaigners gathered outside the High Court in Melbourne, accusing the Commonwealth of racial discrimination.

Minister Vanstone should apologise: FAIRA, 'lazy and inept', remark The Minister has a responsibility, as a Minister of the Crown, to show respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people including the elected representatives.

Vanitystone rejects nationally-elected Aboriginal group?
Fascist Indigenous Affairs Minister Senator Amanda Vanstone has rejected the findings of a Senate report that wants a new nationally-elected Indigenous body set up to replace the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).

Report seeks nationally elected body to replace ATSIC
A report expected to be tabled in Federal Parliament today is set to call for the establishment of a nationally elected Indigenous body in Australia.

Govt accused of isolating Indigenous public servants
A national reconciliation group says the federal Government's main-streaming of Indigenous services into government departments will continue to isolate Aboriginal public servants.

NSW pledges to repay Indigenous wages
The New South Wales Government says it will set up a fund to repay wages and other money paid into trusts for Aboriginal people that was not passed on to them.

Vanstone defends asking Aborigines to wash for fuel
The Federal Government has defended its offer to provide a remote Indigenous community with petrol bowsers and new health programs, if it meets conditions including ensuring children shower every day.

Clark crashes Indigenous affairs ministers' meeting
Aboriginal leader Geoff Clark says he gatecrashed a meeting of federal and state Aboriginal affairs ministers today to highlight the plight of Aboriginal people.

Long says journey far from over
Michael Long has emerged from a meeting with the Prime Minister in Canberra saying it is still the beginning of his journey.

Indigenous welfare plan breach race act!!!!
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) has issued a warning about the Federal Government's plan to link Aboriginal welfare to behavioural change.

HoWARd's 'attitude' to Aboriginal welfare racist
The Federal Government says it is still considering a radical plan to rebuild the Aboriginal welfare system, which could make financial assistance dependent on behavioural change?

UN rates Indigenous health poorly
The Australian Nursing Federation says the United Nations has rated Indigenous Australians as having the second worst quality of life in the world after China.

Poverty cycle must be addressed: Ridgeway
The Democrats' Aden Ridgeway says Prime Minister John Howard should stop beating up on people who are on welfare, and focus on solving the national Indigenous unemployment rate.

"MESSAGE STICK" NEWSLETTER:
1. ATSIC abolition: the story so far. The last few months have seen both major parties buying into Indigenous Affairs in destructive and politically opportunistic ways. First the ALP and then the Government announced they would abolish ATSIC, but now the decision has been referred to a Senate Committee so the full implications of the Government's proposal can be examined. For more information on the Senate Inquiry into Indigenous Administration call 02 6277 3419 or go to:

AMA calls for extra health funding for Aborigines
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) is asking for an extra $450 million a year to be spent on the health needs of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders.

Labor to request Senate inquiry into ATSIC's future
The Federal Opposition has announced it will call for a Senate inquiry into the Government's plan to abolish the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).

Reconciliation dreaming
Djerrkura had witnessed the collapse of ATSIC, which he led from 1996 to 1999, with sadness. Despite the peak indigenous organisation's flaws, which he did not deny, its abolition, he said, had been done in "the classic imperial fashion, without negotiation, without understanding and with little empathy".

Amnesty sees lack of progress on reconciliation
Amnesty International says the Federal Government must be held accountable for its commitments to Indigenous services.

The bone has been pointed at Howard
A Queensland Indigenous leader says an ancient Aboriginal curse placed on Prime Minister John Howard is no laughing matter and could even have deadly consequences.

Indigenous Social Justice Association Djadi Dugarang
INDIGENOUS EMPLOYMENT. Part 1

Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research: Aboriginal Crime
In 2001 more than forty percent of the Aboriginal male population aged 20-24 in NSW appeared before a NSW court charged with a criminal offence. One in ten Aboriginal males in NSW aged 20-24 received a prison sentence.

Inquiry told reforms will decimate Indigenous education
A Senate inquiry has been told the Federal Government's proposed higher education reforms will decimate education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. The National Indigenous Postgraduate Association Aboriginal Corporation says Indigenous students will be the hardest hit by increases in student fees, interest on postgraduate loans and attacks on student representation.

Family Wonders if Prozac Prompted School Shootings

US: RED LAKE, Minn., March 25 - In their sleepless search for answers, the family of Jeff Weise, the teenager who killed nine people and then himself, says it is left wondering about the drugs he was prescribed for his waves of depression.

On Friday, as Tammy Lussier prepared to bury Mr. Weise, who was her nephew, and her father, who was among those he killed, she found herself looking back over the last year, she said, when Mr. Weise began taking the antidepressant Prozac after a suicide attempt that Ms. Lussier described as a "cry for help."

"They kept upping the dose for him," she said, "and by the end, he was taking three of the 20 milligram pills a day. I can't help but think it was too much, that it must have set him off."

Lee Cook, another relative of Mr. Weise, said his medication had increased a few weeks before the shootings on Monday.

"I do wonder," Mr. Cook said, "whether on top of everything else he had going on in his life, on top of all the other problems, whether the drugs could have been the final straw."

The effects of antidepressants on young people remain a topic of fierce debate among scientists and doctors.

Last year, a federal panel of drug experts said antidepressants could cause children and teenagers to become suicidal. The Food and Drug Administration has since required the makers of antidepressants to warn of that danger on their labels for the medications.

The suicide risk is particularly acute when therapy starts or a dosage changes, the drug agency has warned.

Although some studies link the drugs to an increased suicide risk, the research does not suggest such a connection to violence like Mr. Weise's rampage through Red Lake High School.

Without knowing Mr. Weise's medical history or precise diagnosis, it is virtually impossible to speculate on what factors may have affected him - the drugs, his underlying depression, a gloomy childhood wrapped in tragedy or something else entirely.

"What I can say is that his physician, I'm sure, made the appropriate recommendations based on whatever the dosages were," said Morry Smulevitz, a spokesman for Eli Lilly, which makes Prozac.

The dosage range, Mr. Smulevitz said, runs from 20 milligrams to 80 milligrams a day, so Mr. Weise's 60 milligram dose fell in that bracket. Mr. Weise, though just 16, was taller than 6 feet and weighed 250 pounds.

Ms. Lussier, who lived with Mr. Weise in her mother's house on the Red Lake Indian reservation in far northern Minnesota, said she could not understand what else, aside from drugs, had changed to explain his sudden violence.

Since his suicide attempt and 72-hour hospitalization a year ago, Mr. Weise had seemed to be improving, she said, and he was receiving mental health counseling and a doctor's care at the medical center on the reservation.

Others in Red Lake said, however, that they had seen few signs of improvement in the dour, solitary boy.

The driver of a school bus, Lorene Gurneau, said she often saw Mr. Weise standing outside the middle school, wearing his long black clothes and strange hairdos, staring off into nothing, in a daze, even as children raced by or teachers passed him.

Still, in at least one Internet posting last fall, Mr. Weise sounded determined to improve his life after his suicide attempt, and he noted that he was taking antidepressants.

"I had went through a lot of things in my life that had driven me to a darker path than most choose to take," the posting said. "I split the flesh on my wrist with a box opener, painting the floor of my bedroom with blood I shouldn't have spilt. After sitting there for what seemed like hours (which apparently was only minutes), I had the revelation that this was not the path."

"It was my decision," he went on, "to seek medical treatment, as on the other hand I could've chose to sit there until enough blood drained from my downward lacerations on my wrists to die."

On Monday, in the hours before the shooting, Mr. Weise had seemed cheerful and normal, Ms. Lussier said. His teacher, who was spending an hour a day at his house as part of a "homebound" study program that the school system had created because of his troubles, arrived to give him his homework assignments, as usual. At 12:30 p.m., less than three hours before the shootings, another aunt, Shauna, stopped in.

"He was watching a movie on TV," Ms. Lussier said. "There was nothing out of the ordinary. People keep saying he was depressed, but if you saw him, he was getting better. All we can think of is, what about the drugs?"

Though research has not linked antidepressants to acts of violence on others, several incidents have gained wide publicity.

In 1989, Joseph Wesbecker walked into a printing plant in Louisville, Ky., with a bag of guns and killed eight co-workers and himself. He was taking Prozac, which had recently been approved.

In 1999, a student involved in the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado had reportedly taken Luvox, an antidepressant similar to Prozac.

In 2001, Christopher Pittman killed his grandparents while taking Zoloft, another antidepressant similar to Prozac. His lawyers faulted the drug, but a jury in Charleston, S.C., convicted him of murder in February.

Still, Katherine S. Newman, a professor at Princeton University who has studied school killings, said just a small percentage appeared to have possibly involved psychiatric drugs. Of 27 such killings from 1974 to 2001, fewer than one-fifth of the suspects had been diagnosed with a mental health disorder before the shootings,

Professor Newman said. Dr. Frank Ochberg, a former associate director of the National Institute of Mental Health, said he once dismissed any links between antidepressants and suicides or homicidal acts. The recent research, however, has changed his mind, Dr. Ochberg said.

"If your intention is shooting the place up and dying as you do it, you can put the fantasy together," he said. "Suicidal and homicidal intentions together could theoretically follow the same path."

Monica Davey reported from Red Lake for this article, and Gardiner
Harris from Washington. Jodi Wilgoren contributed reporting from New York.

By MONICA DAVEY posted 29 March 05

Illustration:

Mother's Little Helpers
Approved for adults only, Prozac is being used to medicate children as young as 8 years old. Why are we using powerful drugs to raise our daughters?

N.R.A. Aide Urges Armed Teachers

PHOENIX, March 25 (AP) - All options should be considered to prevent rampages like the Minnesota shooting, including making guns available to teachers, Sandra S. Froman, first vice president of the National Rifle Association, said.

Related:

Big Pharma snared by net
UK The web has helped consumers turn tables on the drug giants, says Cheryll Barron.

Prozac must have suicide warning
All antidepressant drugs must carry the strongest possible public warning that they could cause children to harm themselves or commit suicide, US authorities said yesterday in a landmark ruling which has repercussions for the whole class of drugs.

John Pilger: 'They are afraid of you'

The following remarks were made by John Pilger (03/20/05) at an anti-war rally in Sydney, Australia.

03/22/05 - - The other day, the Aboriginal filmmaker Richard Frankland said this: "When you've got a voice, you've got freedom, and when you've got freedom, you've got responsibility. Negotiating with politicians doesn't work. You've got to change attitudes." That's the task for all of us here today. It's not an easy one. In fact, many good people in Australia and other countries believe their voice cannot possibly be heard: that the forces of bigotry and violence are far too powerful.

And yes, they are powerful. John Howard can lie repeatedly to the Australian people and get away with it " it seems. There is no Labor opposition in federal parliament. They've become a bad joke, to the point where Kevin Rudd, the opposition spokesman on foreign affairs, refuses to say anything critical of the government that is not immersed in crude sophistry.

We also know that those who are paid to keep the record straight, who are meant to challenge Howard's lies and uphold our right to freedom of speech, a freedom that is a cornerstone of any true democracy " I refer of course to the media: journalists, broadcasters " we know where they stand. We know that, apart from a few honorable exceptions, they are not merely craven and silent, but occupy a place in this society not dissimilar to the media in the Stalinist regimes of Eastern Europe.

Throughout my career I have reported, often undercover, from countries ruled by repressive regimes where dissidents would read me reports in the press that were no more servile and false than the reporting you read every day in the Murdoch papers in this country. In Eastern European states, for example, the papers had tame correspondents in Moscow who would parrot the Kremlin line. Now read the Washington correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald, Michael Gawenda, and there is no difference. The same parroting of Bush's dangerous absurdities, such as his claims of bringing democracy to the Middle East " when the very opposite is true.

Considering this, we might ask: Is there no shame?

Is there no shame that, in its annual review of press freedom three years ago, the international media monitoring organization, Reporters Without Borders, placed Australia 41st in the world. Countries with greater press freedom were the following: Lithuania, Bosnia, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Bulgaria, Hong Kong. All these countries have either been run by dictatorships, or racked by war or by civil upheaval; yet in 2002 they had greater press freedom than Australia, which was just ahead of autocracies. None of this, or the reasons why, are ever mentioned at the numerous back-scratching awards ceremonies so beloved by the Australian media.

Honorable exceptions aside, supine journalists, like cynical opposition politicians, like corporate academics, represent unaccountable, violent power and a corrupt democracy that today offers us no more choice that between a McDonald's and a Hungry Jack's. But they do not represent us. And they don't speak for us. And they don't speak for humanity. And they don't speak for democracy. And they don't speak for all the moral decencies by which most people live their lives. In fact, they speak for the very opposite.

I may have first understood this when I reported from repressive Czechoslovakia, with its Stalinist regime, in the 1970s. The dissenters who spoke out in that country seemed so few, yet I wondered why the regime went to such lengths to silence them and attack them and sneer at them, usually via the state press. I put this question to the great protest singer Marta Kubisova, whose thrilling voice sang the anthems of the Prague Spring in 1968. Meeting me in secret, she replied by reading to me the words of one of her most defiant songs, written by a banned Czech group called the Plastic People of the Universe. I have abridged it slightly.

"They are afraid of the old for their memory, They are afraid of the young for their innocence They afraid of the graves of their victims in faraway places They are afraid of history. They are afraid of freedom. They are afraid of truth. They are afraid of democracy. So why the hell are we afraid of them?É. For they are afraid of us."

What all of you should remember on this second anniversary of the brutal assault on Iraq is that you are not alone: that you are part of a great worldwide movement that refuses to accept the dangers and moral indecencies of Bush and Blair and Howard. Yesterday, all over the world, people like you expressed their defiance and anger at the unprovoked attack on Iraq, a defenseless country, and the killing of more than 100,000 people and the theft of their resources and the poisoning of their land: all of it justified by demonstrable lies. Go back to a speech John Howard made early in February 2003. He spoke for 53 minutes and lied about weapons of mass destruction at least 20 times: 20 lies in less than an hour. Even Bush and Blair would have trouble topping that.

Then he sent Australian troops off to take part in an invasion, which, under the universally acknowledged and respected terms of the Nuremberg judgment in 1946, the cornerstone of international law, was "a paramount war crime."

That's not my rhetoric, nor is it agit-prop. It's the law of civilized people. And it's our job to help people understand the great crime committed in their name, and how those who claim to speak for us, such as the media, have normalized the unthinkable: as if no crime has been committed, as if thousands of people have not been murdered, as if it was all merely a respectable adjustment of the "world order." My point is, they are not respectable; they may wear the suits of respectability and travel with their fawning courts, but they are prima facie criminals, be assured.

The other day, an ABC [Australian Broadcasting Corporation] foreign correspondent was promoting his book of professional adventures in a Sydney bookshop. He told his audience that it was good to be back in a country where politicians at least didn't kill each other. That's true, but what he didn't say was that the same politicians collude in the killing of men, women, and children in other countries: in Fallujah, where the truth remains unreported in the so-called mainstream media in this country " including the ABC, which has allowed itself to be intimidated by the Howard government for giving us, now and then, a glimpse of the truth about Bush's criminal assault on Iraq.

The time is long overdue. That time is for journalists to break ranks and speak up. It's time for teachers to write on their blackboards that great truism of Milan Kundera: "The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." It's time for those who know the dangers, but who say nothing " academics, lawyers, union leaders, even members of Parliament " to break their silence before their own privileges are undermined by the steady assault on centuries-old, hard-won civil rights, vividly expressed in the abandonment of Australians tortured in other countries by their government and the locking up of people in this country indefinitely: indeed, the erosion of the bedrock of our justice system: innocent until proven guilty.

Above all, never forget how important and right you are. It is you, in company with millions all over the world, who have taught again the great lesson of democracy. You didn't stop the invasion of Iraq, but you and the millions like you, in Spain and Britain and France and Italy and Brazil and the United States, have alerted the world to the true darkness of the regime in Washington and its collaborators.

Never in my lifetime as a journalist have I known ordinary people all over the world to be more aware of the dangers and the issues that face us. Many can't be with us today; but their support is, I believe, a presence. Think back to the popular movement, much of it led by women, that prevented conscription being introduced in Australia during the First World War. Those campaigners also felt rather isolated at times; but they weren't: they were the voice of what was right.

Had it not been for you and your movement, I believe Iran and North Korea would have been attacked by now, and in the case of North Korea, nuclear weapons might have been used.

Be proud of these achievements: be proud that the seedy, violent power of Bush and Blair and Howard has been exposed by you and that behind their bravado, they are afraid of you, and of the millions like you, so, in the words of the song, why the hell should we be afraid of them?

By John Pilger 20 March 05

John Pilger Home Page

Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

Related:

Dump Howard, old news.....
Fascist Prime Minister John HoWARd says he always reads and follows opinion polls and the latest survey shows the Government has a fight ahead of it.

CIA defends terror suspect transfers?
Suspected terrorists [scapegoats for the Coalition of the Killings's resource wars in the Middle East] in US custody have been transferred to third countries for the past 20 years, CIA director Porter Goss told the US Senate armed services committee.

USA - FEELING THE HEAT FROM INTERNATIONAL FIRE:
It seems the United States of America (The World Watchdog) is dictating and practising double-standards --- a unique law for America and another set of laws for all other countries.

CALL TO ACTION of the ANTI-WAR ASSEMBLY
Two years after the invasion of Iraq, there is more opposition to the war in the US, in the coalition countries, and all over the world than ever before.

Iraqi civilian deaths put at 100,000
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in violence since the US-led invasion last year, according to public health experts who estimate there were 100,000 "excess deaths" in 18 months.

UN relief boss warns Sudanese rebels

The United Nations' emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, has called on rebel groups in the Darfur region of Sudan to stop kidnapping aid workers and looting aid convoys.

The rebels began their uprising in 2003, claiming that the west of Sudan had been neglected by the central government.

Darfur has since descended into one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, with tens of thousands killed by ethnic violence and starvation.

After his talks with rebel commanders, Mr Egeland issued them a stern warning.

"If you continue attacking trucks and police stations, if you do not release other colleagues, and the vehicles that are humanitarians', you will lose all international sympathy and all international trust," he said.

By In Solidarity 7 March 05

Related:

Annan tells world leaders to respect law
United Nations (UN) secretary-general Kofi Annan has made an impassioned plea to bring about the rule of law across the globe today. Mr Annan told world leaders to respect international law at home and abroad.

Darfur death rates 'six times higher' than normal!!!!!!
As many as 10,000 displaced people could be dying each month in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region - six times higher than normal mortality rates - a World Health Organisation study shows.

Sudan urged to allow international peacekeepers in Darfur
The United Nations is urging Sudan to allow international peacekeepers to restore order in the troubled Darfur region.

UN warns of worsening conditions in Darfur
The WFP says disease and hunger are threatening lives. It is trying to deliver food to some of the more than 1 million people who have been displaced by fighting but officials say disease and heavy rains are adding to the difficulties. The number of hepatitis cases has doubled in the past month.

Washington tightens the screws on Sudan
Sudan's rebel forces are on the offensive and are reported to have seized large areas in the eastern part of the country. Their success may be due in part to covert backing from the United States government, which has its own reasons for interfering.

Sudan talks end in deadlock
Darfur rebels and the Sudanese Government have ended peace talks in Nigeria in a deadlock on how to address what the United Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Top UN official concerned about 'lack of progress' in Darfur
The top UN official in Sudan has expressed concern about a "lack of progress on the ground" in reining in marauding Arab militias in Sudan's western Darfur region, the United Nations said.

Sudan launches fresh helicopter attacks in Darfur: UN
Sudan has carried out fresh helicopter attacks in Darfur, worsening an already desperate humanitarian situation, while Arab militia targeted refugees trying to escape the conflict, the United Nations said.

African Union may send 2,000 troops to Darfur
The African Union (AU) may boost the number of troops deployed to Sudan's troubled Darfur region to 2,000, subject to the move gaining approval at a meeting of its members, a spokesman said.

Sudan rejects UN resolution deadline
Sudan has condemned a 30 day deadline set by the United Nations Security Council for action on Darfur, but has said it would implement a 90 day program as agreed earlier with UN secretary-general Kofi Annan.

African Union considers Sudan peacekeeping mission
Intervention considered: The African Union says the Sudanese Government has failed to stop the bloodshed.

Annan urges more aid for Sudan
UN secretary-general Kofi Annan is pressing governments for more aid for the troubled Darfur region, as the Security Council considers threatening the Sudanese Government with sanctions over its role in the humanitarian crisis in the region.

Terrorism obscuring world crises, Sir William says
The former governor-general, Sir William Deane, has advised Australians not to lose perspective about international crises during the ongoing focus on terrorism.

Annan, African leaders to hold Sudan talks
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan will hold talks with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and other African leaders on peace initiatives in Sudan and Ivory Coast on Thursday, a Nigerian spokeswoman said.

US threatens Sudan with UN sanctions
The United States has circulated a United Nations resolution threatening sanctions against the Sudan government if Khartoum did not prosecute Arab militia leaders in the western Darfur region.

UN sanctions for Sudan 'unlikely'
United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan says Sudan has made little progress in curbing marauding militias in the Darfur region but diplomats said sanctions against Khartoum were unlikely.

Sudan rejects human rights report on Darfur
The Sudanese government has slammed a report by Human Rights Watch over the strife-torn western region of Darfur and accused the organisation of attempting to provoke the UN Security Council into imposing sanctions against the country.

Health catastrophe looms in Sudan: UN
A malnourished Sudanese refugee child lies at a feeding centre in Iriba Town in Chad.

Sudan decrees end to relief restrictions
The Sudanese Government, under international pressure to help displaced people in the western region of Darfur, has ordered an end to restrictions on the movement of relief organisations and imports of relief supplies.

Sudan urged to take urgent action to protect refugees
The UN is urging the Sudanese Government to take urgent action to protect more than 1 million refugees.