Illusive Mind

Martha Ojulo holds a photo of her son, Liep Gony.

A race issue on the eve of a John Howard election, we thought it might’ve just been the Aboriginal Intervention strategy or the Citizenship test or the Haneef debacle and leave it at that. Well, the polls just aren’t bouncing for the Coalition are they?

There aren’t any Tampa boats on the horizon either, so we’ll just invent one about these Africans that just can’t seem to integrate dog gone it. Boom, No Africans Allowed.

So let’s get a time-line going:

August 18th 07

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews announces the Refugee and Humanitarian Intake for 2007-08. It is reported that “It will cut the number of immigrants from Africa by 30 per cent” but is met with little media attention. Andrews’ announcement states:

The (decreased) intake from the Africa region reflects an improvement in conditions in some countries and an increase in the number of people returning to their country of origin.

The Refugee intake is adjusted towards the Middle East.

Intake from the African region will drop from 50 per cent of the total to 30, while the intake from the Middle East and Asia will increase to about 35 per cent. The number of new arrivals will remain at 13,000.

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews says the composition has been adjusted to reflect the areas in greatest need.

“There are some millions of people displaced from Iraq and neighbouring countries such as Syria and Jordan and we will be taking an increased number of those people - many of whom are Christians who’ve been displaced by the conflict between the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq,” Mr Andrews said.

“We consult the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, we consult various refugee groups in Australia, and then we make a judgement based on where the need is as we best see it around the world, but also… in terms of how people will integrate into Australian society.”

It is met with bipartisan support. It seems that the ‘integration’ angle was not what they used to sell the numbers to the opposition. In his own press release he suggests that difficult integration is best solved by more funding and greater availability of settlement programmes:

I am conscious of the particularly traumatic experiences that many people coming to Australia under the Humanitarian Programme have experienced over a prolonged period of time and that this can make successful settlement and integration difficult. To increase the availability and range of settlement programmes available to recently arrived humanitarian entrants the Australian Government has committed an additional $209.2 million over four years.

I want to ensure every new entrant to Australia is given the best possible chance to successfully settle, become part of our community and contribute to our great nation.

This from the Refugee Council of Australia’s Intake Submission. You can read it here. It appears quite different to the composition the government decided upon.

August 19th 07

Amnesty International welcomes the changes with more people accepted from the Middle East.

The number of arrivals over the next 12 months will remain at 13,000, with fewer people accepted from Africa and more from the Middle East.

Amnesty International spokesman Graham Thom says it is a positive step to follow the United Nation’s recommendation to provide more places, especially for Iraqis.

“Australia is one of the few countries who have resettled people out of this region and so we applaud that commitment to protecting those at greatest need,” he said

September 28th 07

Liep Gony, a nineteen year-old refugee from Sudan dies after being found in a pool of his blood near Noble Park train station. Assistant Commissioner Paul Evans says inter-racial violence is not common in the Noble Park area but there have been a few incidents in Melbourne recently. “They seem to be assaults or issues involving the same nationality groups.” Police described the bashing as particularly violent and vowed to clamp down on gang activity in the area.

September 30th 07

Dylan Sabattino and Clinton Rintoull, both Noble Park locals (and not African) are arrested by South Australian police in Adelaide accused of murdering Liep Gony.

October 1st 07

Kevin Andrews is questioned about the death of Liep Gony and whether better settlement services are needed, he responds:

I have been concerned that some groups don’t seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian way of life as quickly as we would hope and therefore it makes sense to put the extra money in to provide extra resources, but also to slow down the rate of intake from countries such as Sudan.

Refugee Council chief executive officer Paul Power said Mr Andrews’ comments on Melbourne radio station 3AW undermined the Government’s refugee and humanitarian program and were particularly damaging to the Sudanese community in Australia.

MINISTER UNDERMINES REFUGEE PROGRAM WITH COMMENTS ON AFRICAN INTAKE

Mr Power said the Minister was undermining the Government’s own program, raising questions about the basis of the decision on the 2007-08 refugee and humanitarian intake.

“It is quite valid for the Government to decide to shift its refugee intake to include more people from very needy circumstances in parts of Asia and the Middle East,” Mr Power said. “That is a judgement a government is entitled to make, having reviewed current global needs.

“But, through his comments today, the Minister has raised questions about whether responding to humanitarian need remains the core objective of the Government’s refugee program.”

So it would seem that the Government decided after the fact that they would use the Refugee Intake numbers as a race card and an argument about “assimilation or integration, whichever word you want to use” as John Howard put it. Whilst simultaneously maintaining they are not being racist because the Refugee Intake numbers are about giving more support to Middle Eastern and Burmese refugees.

Have I mentioned lately that Kevin Andrews Must Resign?

So they get to do the old nod and wink to their racist support base (the evils of mandatory voting) whilst attempting to wedge Labor. Maybe I could even buy this idea that we are just slowing the intake of refugees from Africa until we ‘dealt with the problem‘ if they government said just one step they were going to take to increase support services for these refugees.

One study finds: Discrimination, language barriers, poor job opportunities and a lack of support are making it harder for African refugees to settle in Australia. Instead we are treated to this idea that there is just something wrong with these black people, especially the ones from Sudan, they don’t integrate properly.

The Reverend David Pargeter, director of the Commission for Mission at the Uniting Church, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania says the refugees need support, not vilification.

“When a government minister, on the eve of an election, connects violent action with one particular cultural group, we know we have reached deeply into the darkness of racial politics,” Mr Pargeter said.

Ain’t that the truth. But is this any more soul crushing and disgusting than Tony Abbot’s attempt to use a woman’s miscarriage in the New South Wales Royal North Shore hospital for political ammunition against the state government? This is a Government desperate for traction with the ‘heart-strings’ or perhaps the lesser-angels of the demos.

However, having pulled this trick one-too many times it is all too easy to spot the This is another Tampa routine. At least I continue to hope that the xenophobic, mortgage belt bogan swinging voters or “aspirational voters” aspire to something different after all these years of the lying rodent.

A spokesman for Andrews trotting out the ‘Africans have trouble settling here‘ line admitted she was using “anecdotal” evidence while “Citing media reports of some serious crimes involving Sudanese”. Meanwhile Victoria’s Chief Commissioner of Police, Christine Nixon, refutes the suggestion that African refugees are more violent than any other group.

CHRISTINE NIXON: When you look at the numbers we’re talking about, the young Sudanese who are actually coming in to custody or have dealt with us, only really make up about one per cent of the people we deal with.

So faced with evidence contrary to an assertion, what does the unbelievable dick of a man Kevin Andrews (who must resign) do? HE CITES A SECRET REPORT!

From The Australian:

IMMIGRATION Minister Kevin Andrews has accused senior police of trying to paper over a serious Sudanese gang problem, but has refused to release evidence to back up claims that African migrants were a major crime threat.

Despite Victorian Chief Police Commissioner Christine Nixon saying that Africans committed just a fraction of the crime in the state and were not a problem, Mr Andrews said anecdotal evidence suggested otherwise.

The Immigration Minister cited “cabinet in confidence” for not releasing a report that he said detailed a serious problem among African refugees.

“The advice on which we made the decision was largely material which was provided in submissions to cabinet and, as you know, cabinet submissions are confidential. But can I say there was widespread examination of this, including by an interdepartmental committee particularly in relation to the settlement issues.”

It turns out that these HIV infected Sudanese terrorists have weapons of mass destruction and are selling wheat to Saddam Hussein and throw their own children into shark infested waters. Given how well we have gone this century with “I was acting on advice” or “I was acting on intelligence” they might as well be the boogey men the government would have us believe. Well here’s an intelligent piece of advice for you, STOP LYING TO COVER YOUR OWN ASS. Take some responsibility because you are accountable to the people. Go on try to use the secret evidence ploy one more time you paternalistic cockroach, that is what the people are looking for in their leaders, good luck at the election.

Haha, as if elections in this country were about integrity, it’s the economy stupid. When ‘working families’ can read Bolt’s column “Some gangs are too ethnic for the police to see” without flinching you know we’ve got problems. That’s right Bolt, it’s far more likely that the police are engaged in a massive conspiracy to cover up the extent of ‘ethnic gangs’ in Victoria rather than the Government (bastion of honesty that they are) beating it up for their own (misguided?) ends.

But here is the nub. There is a kid, Liep Gony who was bashed to death in Noble Park. He fled war torn Sudan with what was left of his family looking for safety and opportunity. He was in our country, he was in our care, it wouldn’t have mattered even if his alleged murderers were Sudanese.

We have failed him, not the other way around.

To quote the Minister for Immigration:

“But the reality is that there’s evidence that this is occurring. The best way to deal with it is to name the problem, for a start. If you don’t name the problem, you’re not going to adequately be able to deal with it.”

I agree, and the problem in this country is racism. The reason is our leaders cultivate the fears, prejudice and bigotry of this nation. Australian soldiers dressed up as KKK are just “letting of steam” and race riots in Crounulla is a “law and order issue”, there is no widespread racism in this country.

I hope that Rudd leads the country out of this morass and puts the values back into the so-called Christian Values of this nation. Liep is another casualty in a long line of casualties of this country’s bigotry and fear. Let’s come together and do something to honour his memory not sully it by demonizing him and his countrymen.

Here is one letter to Kevin Andrews, why not write your own?

This government is compounding our reputation as a racist xenophobic country throughout the world.

Human Rights Commissioner Graeme Innes and national Race Discrimination Commissioner Tom Calma:

The Australian Government should maintain its role as a principled and committed global citizen through a refugee policy that makes it a priority to respond to the worsening plight of refugees and their need for asylum from persecution and war,” Commissioner Innes said.

“The government’s decision to cut African refugee numbers because they are not settling and adjusting to the Australian way of life is at odds with the primary concern of the Refugee Convention, that is, providing a safe haven for people who are fleeing persecution in their country of origin. “Of course people fleeing war torn countries or cruel regimes may well have special settlement needs, but this is not a reason to reject them,” Mr Innes said. “Rather, it is the very reason we should embrace them and work towards helping them rebuild their lives.

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Today in The Age, I read about the case of Hew Griffiths:

BEFORE he was extradited to the United States, Hew Griffiths, from Berkeley Vale in NSW, had never even set foot in America. But he had pirated software produced by American companies.

Now, having been given up to the US by former justice minister Chris Ellison, Griffiths, 44, is in a Virginia cell, facing up to 10 years in an American prison after a guilty plea late last month.

Griffiths’ case - involving one of the first extraditions for intellectual property crime - has been a triumph for US authorities, demonstrating their ability to enforce US laws protecting US companies against Australians in Australia, with the co-operation of the Australian Government.

If Hew had cracked software whose headquarters was in Thailand, would the Australian government be shipping him off to Bangkok to face ten years in a Thai jail? Probably not. The reason is Australia does not have a cowardly and sycophantic relationship with Thailand as we do with the US.

Australia lacks the defense forces or the defense budget to realistically counter any future threat from our surrounding Asian neighbours. Our entire defense strategy seems to involve being as cosy to America as possible. (eg. Australia is the only other advanced country that refuses to sign the Kyoto protocol, even though we have met the emission targets).

As Richard Ackland writes, (’Another one sacrificed in the name of the alliance‘):

It is a shocking case. The governmental cravenness is unwarranted. It means that if Griffiths is convicted in the US it is likely he will never be able to return to Australia, where he has lived all but seven years of his life. The Americans have provided him with a one-way travel document to the US.

But that’s the price of keeping in sweet with our great and powerful friend.

The case of Hew Griffiths reeks of the same injustice visited upon Australian citizen, David Hicks. No civil liberty is too precious that our government will not violate it in order to lend legitimacy to the US, legitimacy it tends to desperately need.

Australia distinguishes itself from the UK, which refused to subject their citizens to the farce of the military tribunal system and who has also dealt with other members of the pirate group (DrinkorDie) under their own laws.

Legal Aid Commission lawyer, Antony Townsden, criticised Australian authorities:

“A number of people have been charged under British law and have been dealt with in their own country, and Mr Griffiths is the only one where extradition was sought. One has to ask whether we have abrogated our own responsibilities to properly deal with Mr Griffiths under Australian law.”

Perhaps the US only sought the extradition of Griffiths because he happens to be an ‘absorbed person’. That is, “having come from Britain at age seven. He is 44 and until he was arrested, lived with his aged father on the NSW Central Coast. Since arriving here he has not travelled outside Australia and has never applied for an Australian passport.”

The US may well know how the Australian government feels about people living inthis country that don’t bother to become citizens. That is, they cruelly exploit them, as was the case of Robert Jovicic, who was deported to Serbia, a country his father was born but he himself had never been to. Griffiths’ citizenship is not of vital importance though because this country shits on citizens and non-citizens alike.

There are two distinct issues in the case of Hew Griffiths. One is the criminality of copywright infringment. The DrinkorDie group, of which Griffiths is allegedly the ringleader has supposedly cost US companies “$US50 million ($A60 million), if legal sales were substituted for illegal downloads undertaken through Drink or Die”.

For this crime Griffiths faces a possible 10-year jail term (maximum), and a fine of $US500,000. “He has probably already spent more time in prison than any person convicted of a copyright offence in Australia.” Bloggers such as Mark @ stoush.net, clearly take issue with the extent of criminalization and the resources spent prosecuting people for such crimes:

Copyright violations are victimless crimes: they stop copyright holders from profiting from their copyright holdings, but don’t actively harm them. Yes, there may be struggling musicians who are forced to get day jobs, but it’s the copyright laws themselves that victimise people, from kids who have to get part time jobs to line the pockets of musicians and movie moguls, to the people who are denied access to medical, cultural and literary products because of the cost, to Hew Griffiths, an unassuming man, who has been torn from his home by federal agents and removed to a US jail and now is threatened with ten years in prison for fiddling with bits of code on a computer screen and then giving other people the same fiddled-with code.

This issue is distinct from the locality of internet crime. It seems to offend common sense that you could be tried for crimes in a country you have never been to. The US won the extradition appeal by arguing that crimes had taken place in the US and not on Griffiths’ home computer in Australia.

The US had appealed against a decision by magistrate Daniel Reiss to release Griffiths from jail in March, after he found there was no extraditable offence. Justice Peter Jacobson said the magistrate had “misdirected” himself, possibly because he held the view that the alleged crimes had been committed in Australia - from Griffiths’s home computer - when case law and the indictment showed it was committed in the US.

The US alleged Griffiths was one of the few who controlled access to the so-called drop site, located on a computer network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

These issues are similarly identified by skepticlawyer at catallaxyfiles.com

From a classical liberal perspective, this raises two issues. First is the utter stupidity of much intellectual property law, viz, is intellectual property deserving of the same protections as other forms of property? Second, what are we to make of US attempts to control internet use across state borders? Griffiths did his downloading in Australia, and has never set foot in the US.

Gary McKinnon, “the hacker who entered various U.S. military and NASA computers in 2001 and 2002″ faces a similar instance of this idea in that, he faces extradition to the US for computer crimes he committed from another country.

So whether the accused is a ‘foreign terrorist’ or a copyright infringer the issue of how you define the location of internet based crime remains the same. It may be a matter of degrees (as IPKat argues), perhaps it is right to extradite someone for the ‘greatest millitary computer hack of all time’, but not for ‘cracking software’.

It is a worrying but perhaps indicative sign that the profit concerns of multi-national corporations trump the rights of individuals and even the sovereignty of nation states. Australia again, leads the world in surrendering to the US, willingly in this case, but what will happen in the future to foreign nationals whose governments may be less co-operative? How much further will the nation-state erode to serve the interests of multi-natoinals? Say, Swedish nationals?

Griffiths case is another reason for all Australians to feel unsettled, and ashamed at the actions of their government. The comparison to David Hicks, is one easily arrived at, eg. The David Hicks of the Copyright World?, or at larvatusprodeo.net:

If you think David Hicks is the only Australian that the Howard government has stitched up and gladly handed over the United States on a dodgy legal pretext

Unlike the Hicks case, the government has not used the ‘he can’t be tried here’ defense. Griffiths can be tried under the Australian Copyright Act, but the relevant minister, Chris Ellison has just failed to refuse extradition.

The NSW Attorney-General, Bob Debus, wrote to Ruddock in June 2005 making the same argument, that extradition is inappropriate in this case. These pleas went nowhere and yet there is no explanation why this man cannot be charged in Australia and why of all those arrested, he is the only one the Americans want in captivity on their soil.

Legal Eagle at legalsoapbox.blogspot.com, argues that the extradition is baseless under the law:

Article 3 of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspect of Intellectual Property Rights (”TRIPS”) says that states must accord foreign copyright holders the same degree of protection that they accord their own copyright holders (called “national treatment”). The only basis on which the US could validly argue that its IP laws should operate extraterritorially would be if Australian law did not comply with national treatment (ie, it did not protect US copyright holders to the same extent as Australian copyright holders). Australian law clearly complies with this provision, and in fact, is in conformity with international intellectual property norms. Therefore, I would argue that the purported extraterritorial operation of the US copyright law is clearly baseless in this instance. Further it is a breach of Australian sovereignty.

It is a safe bet that Griffiths is being singled so that he can be made an example of for political reasons, and Chris Ellison, is all to happy to comply. If you have a problem with this, as I do, you might like to shoot Chris an email (senator.ellison@aph.gov.au) as I will.

I can only hope that consistent with Kevin Rudd’s talk of a ‘robust alliance’, this sort of thing would not happen should Labor take power later this year.

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