Good move! Bruce
Islamic prayers could be illegal under new laws By Barney Zwartz February 6, 2006 The AGE STANDARD Islamic prayers in mosques may be illegal under new anti-terror laws, international law specialist Ben Saul told a conference in Melbourne. Dr Saul said yesterday it could be against the law to pray in Australian mosques for victory for the mujahideen in Iraq. The conference also discussed the legality of showing training videos recruiting Muslims to fight in Chechnya. The sedition laws applied only where Australia was at war with a country or group - so training videos for al-Qaeda, the Taliban or Iraq would be illegal. But if the Australian Government had proscribed some Chechen organisations, recruiting for them would be illegal. Dr Saul, of the University of NSW, said the new sedition law criminalised some things said in a religious context, such as the standard prayer "may God grant victory to the mujahideen in Iraq". "The legislation is very ambiguous. You don't necessarily have to encourage someone to fight Australian troops - even contributing blankets to mujahideen could be criminal." Dr Saul told The Age the anti-terrorism laws were an excessive and unjustified over-reaction to the threat Australia faced, and some provisions breached human rights under international law. "The risk to the US and UK is undoubtedly far greater than the risk to Australia, but we've adopted far more invasive orders. And unlike those countries, we don't have the protection of a bill of rights," he said. People could be subjected to house detention for the 10 years the legislation lasts without ever being charged. "If one person in a mosque says something outrageous in support of terrorism, these laws allow the government to close down the entire mosque - an extremely disproportionate reaction which collectively punishes every worshipper," Dr Saul said. He said there was confusion and uncertainty among Muslims about the new laws. Muslim leaders did not know what they could say until they saw how the laws were used. Precise information about the terrorist threat to Australia had not been made public, so justification for the laws was hard to judge, Dr Saul said. "Australians are deprived of information and asked to trust political judgements when we know they have been manipulated in the past," he said. About 70 Muslim leaders and others attended the Darebin conference, which was funded by the Federal Government's Living in Harmony program. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
