A Scottish rhyme goes: ‘If fuzzy-wuzzy wuz a bear, but fuzzy-wuzzy had no hair, he wasn’t a fuzzy-wuzzy wuz he?’ If Haneef is not a terrorist, why is Australia holding him as one? India is heir to countless stories of the abuse of counter-terrorism laws. Ten years ago, an exasperated Supreme Court ordered review committees on terrorist cases, which have now been incorporated into the statute. Scores of wrongful arrests have been identified. But review committees are not the answer. Abuse cannot be tackled after the event.

After 9/11, the ‘north’ states reinforced each other’s perspectives on counter-terrorism. America’s Patriot Act, 2001, violates due process. English judges struck down the indefinite detention provisions of UK’s anti-terrorist laws of 2001-05. Australia joined the anti-terrorism ‘western’ club of nations by way of imitative support. No ‘terrorist’ attacks have taken place in Australia since 2001. The Bali bombings of 2002 and 2005 in which Australians died, and the attack on its embassy in Jakarta in 2004 deepened Australia’s apprehensions. Blind in its support of anti-terrorism, Australia is not averse to neglecting to protect its citizen, David Hicks, who is being tried by a military commission in Guantanamo Bay. Perhaps, because David Hicks is a Muslim?

Australia’s terrorism laws define terrorism widely to include actions or threats which advance an ideological cause to coerce, threaten or intimidate Australia, its public, or a foreign country. The offences against members of a terrorist organisation can go upto 25 years and those associating with such organisations upto three years. Preventive detention exists upto 14 days and control orders upto one year. Interrogations of upto 24 hours can stretch for 14 days — if staggered. This kind of law is catch-all. It targets terrorists, anti-terrorists, suspected terrorists and imagined terrorists.

... contd.