OPINION: The terror of anti-terror laws

Last June, I was sitting in a KL restaurant with some Malaysian lawyers. I was explaining to them the intricacies of Australia's new anti-terror laws and the negative impact these had on civil liberties.

In particular, I was telling them about a special new order known as a "control order". This order enabled internal security officials (including the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation or ASIO) to approach a judge and obtain an order that someone be detained or their movements be restricted for a certain fixed period (usually a week or two).

I was surprised when one lawyer's face lit up.

Irfan, you people are so lucky in Australia. Here in Malaysia, we have this legal beast called the Internal Security Act whereby innocent people can be locked up for months!

Another provision of Australia's anti-terror laws is one which allows the Federal Attorney-General to declare a particular organisation to be placed on a list of terrorist organisations. Once an organisation is placed on the list, anyone deemed to be a member or supporter of that organisation could be prosecuted and jailed. I am offering no awards for anyone guessing which religion all banned organisations are linked to.

In this respect, Australian law is similar to laws enacted in the UK and US. Following the London bombings on July 7, 2005, the Blair government tried to have one specific organisation (known as Hizb ut-Tehrir or HT) banned. He knew this group had already been banned in countries - the bastions of democracy and human rights - such as Pakistan and Uzbekistan.

On Dec 24, 2006, The Observer newspaper reported that senior police and the Home Office opposed Tony Blair's efforts to have HT banned, fearing such a step "would serve only as a recruiting agent [for] the group". A similar debate has raged in Australia, with many State Governments calling for HT to be banned and the Federal Government resisting.

HT has operated in Australia freely and ineffectually for decades. Its platform is the establishment of an international caliphate in Muslim-majority states. HT believes that the solution to the many problems facing Muslims is the establishment of a caliph who will implement the sacred law of Islam (known as sharia) as the law of the land.

Paranoid columnists

In recent times, the Australian branch of HT has made headlines with its seminars, many of which have deliberately provocative titles. Yet their meetings would be lucky to attract 400 people, despite plenty of free advertising from the hostile press. Compare this to the typical Friday prayer service at the Auburn Gallipoli Mosque (one of the largest in Australia), which each Friday attracts 5,000 people. Remember that Friday is a working day in Australia, and even the most hostile newspapers don't bother with Friday sermons.

HT's radical rhetoric has provided more paranoid columnists and commentators with plenty to talk and write about. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on Jan 27, Miranda Devine claimed that HT was a bigger threat to Australian social cohesion than the white supremacists who orchestrated the racial riots at Sydney's Cronulla Beach.

A report in the Melbourne Age cited Anglican minister Dr Mark Durie who alleged HT was "a major world force for radical political Islam, with links to terrorist groups". The report didn't remind readers that Durie was and remains a supporter of Danny Nalliah, a radical Melbourne Christian preacher who has called upon his supporters to call for the destruction of Hindu and Buddhist temples.

HT recently made headlines again with their Jan 28 conference whose theme was "Khilafate". They invited two guest speakers, including the Chairman of HT's Indonesian wing Dr Ismael Yusanto. The Federal Government condemned Yusanto's presence in Australia, though their condemnations soon ended when the Sydney Morning Herald reported on Jan 29 that Yusanto had been invited by the government to speak at a security conference only three years earlier. Further, Yusanto is known to be a regular guest at the Australian embassy in Jakarta.

I attended the conference for most of the day. Hardly 400 people were in attendance, many of them present were there to show support for a group they otherwise disagreed with but which they felt was being unfairly targeted.

For many young Australian Muslims, HT is a temporary ideological pit-stop on their way to more refined and sophisticated Islamic thinking. HT thinking provides them with a simplistic device to understand their troubled world.

Double-standards

HT speaks of double-standards when it comes to human rights and fighting terror. It criticises Western governments sponsoring tyrannical rulers, generals and kings in many Muslim countries. It speaks of restoring some collective dignity to the Muslim ummah (faith-community).

Such views often resonate with young Muslims tired of seeing their faith maligned and their sentiments ignored by Australian governments and peak Islamic bodies. Perhaps one good antidote to stem the perceived growth of HT influence is for Australian governments and political parties to start involving Muslim Australians in the foreign policy discourse.

When the Australian government and Muslim peak bodies ignore the views of young people, the youth are often pushed into the waiting arms of fringe groups like HT. Fifteen years ago, I used to go to Muslim youth camps with HT's Australian leaders. In those days, they were young teenagers with sharp tongues for whom a Muslim youth camp was one of the few opportunities they got to escape their difficult household. They went onto achieve an extraordinary degree of academic success.

Although I now detest HT's isolationist ideology, I can understand its attraction. I could so easily have become addicted to the same kind of thinking. Those were the days when radical political Islam was regarded by Western governments as an antidote to what was considered the bigger enemy of communism. I can understand how HT's Australian followers ended up where they are. It could so easily been me also.

A good way to turn HT into a real security risk is to ban them using anti-terror laws and send them underground. This will galvanise support for HT amongst even mainstream Muslim Australians who feel marginalised and ignored by governments and peak Muslim bodies. Time will tell which way the government inevitably goes.

(IRFAN YUSUF is a Sydney-based lawyer, writer and blogger whose articles and reviews have appeared in various newspapers including the Sydney Morning Herald , Melbourne Age , Canberra Times , Australian Financial Review and New Zealand Herald. First published in malaysiakini on 15 February 2007)