..that I don’t even know what I can do.
I have been following with oscillating levels of furiousness the unfolding drama of the Indian trained Doctor from the Gold Coast who has been charged with providing material support to a terrorist organisation, after he left his mobile phone sim card in Britain with his second cousin, who has subsequently been implicated in the recent attempted car bombings in the UK.
(for those of you in NZ/elsewhere who have not heard much about this: Yes, they are actually being that ridiculous.)
The Australian federal police have forensiced his entire house and held him for questioning on no charges for 11 days (although at least here, as opposed to UK/US the police has to go back to court every 2-3 days and apply to a judge for an extension of the detention, and provide a reasonable argument as to why it was necessary).
Then when they eventually charged him (seemingly because they wanted to keep holding him, but couldn’t do so without a charge) he applied for bail, and a judge (sensibly) said effectively “He gave his cousin a sim card?? Yeah, I can see how that makes him a really dangerous person”, and granted him bail.
The thing that happened almost immediately which has got my currently fuming is that the federal immigration minister revoked his imigration visa, so that if he wasn’t in jail he would be rounded up and locked in one of Australia’s legally dubious (according to the UN and several groups specialising in International Law) immigration detention centers.
The whole thing smacks of (a) legislative interference in a judicial matter, and (b) downright vindictive f*ckwit arsehole nastiness on the part of the government (again) in a migrant legal rights issue.
I keep on thinking about my long term future in Australia with regard to staying here and naturalising etc, but in the decade I lived in NZ and was politically aware of these kinds of issues I think there may have been 1 time I was infuriated by the nastiness of the government, whereas in the 5 years I’ve been in Australia there have been 3 or 4 thing which have made me angry towards and deeply ashamed of this country’s government.
So today I once again got fuming mad, expressed my opinions (intermixed with a healthy quantity of expletives) to Simone (who, to my frequent consternation, has almost no political interest at all) and did the only think I could think to reasonably do as law abiding member of society: I wrote to the local MP (and the local federal MP and Senator..). I can only hope that they are as willing to meddle in the workings of the judiciary as the minister of immigration seems to be.
I doubt it will amount to anything, but it is about the only thing available to me to dispel my feelings of of anger, frustration, and perceived helplessness.
(And as an aside, aren’t those the three things they tell you are the foundations of terrorism recruitment in minority groups, and thus precisely what governments are supposed to avoid causing? (Just a thought). )