Civil Rights Defence is a group concerned at how some of our most basic civil and human rights are being destroyed, under the pretext of the ‘war on terror’. CRD campaigns to challenge and repeal Australia’s extreme anti-terrorism laws, and to raise awareness of the threat they pose.

Anti-terrorism laws introduced by federal and state governments since 2002 drastically erode the right to a fair trial by lowering the standard of proof, reversing the presumption of innocence, and giving unprecedented power to the executive. The new laws include ‘preventative detention’ without charge, ‘control orders’ without proper review, the banning of groups at the whim of the Attorney General, and vaguely defined crimes such as possessing ‘a thing’ connected with terrorism. Sedition measures are an attack on freedom of speech, and wide-ranging powers to classify information mean that politicians and police can avoid scrutiny and accountability by using the catch-all of ‘national security’.

These laws have already been shown as unjust, unnecessary, and open to abuse. Jack Thomas was acquitted on two counts of ‘providing resources to a terrorist group’, but sentenced to five years imprisonment for lesser offences, on the basis of an interview obtained under duress in a Pakistani military prison. The convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal, but in an extraordinary move, the government then issued its first ever ‘control order’, placing Mr Thomas under house arrest and monitoring his every action.

For over two years, 13 unconvicted Melbourne men have been incarcerated in punitive circumstances in the Acacia Unit of Barwon Prison, charged with the new crime of ‘belonging to a terrorist group’. Their contact with family and lawyers is severely curtailed, and they are subjected to extrordinary conditions - in solitary confinement, humiliated with frequent strip searches and forced to wear orange jump suits in imitation of the US-run Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba, where Adelaide-born David Hicks was incarcerated without trial for more than five years, an abuse for which the Australian government was fully responsible.

There are many other injustices - Mohamed Haneef, Izhar Ul-Haque, Faheem Lodhi, Aruran Vinayagamoorthy and Sivaraja Yathavan. We can’t allow these abuses of power to set a precedent - the government has to be confronted publicly!

Civil Rights Defence holds informal meetings every fortnight, on Tuesday at 6pm in the New International Bookshop, in Trades Hall, cnr, Lygon & Victoria Sts, Carlton (Melbourne). Everyone is welcome. Dates: 3 June, 17 June, 1 July .
For more information, please email civilrightsdefence[at]riseup[dot]net