September 22, 2014

Australia's counter-terror laws could threaten free speech

located:	Australia
editor:	Vanessa Ellingham

This week the Australian parliament is debating changes to national security laws with the aim of countering terrorism.

However, the proposed laws risk criminalising the work of whisteblowers, journalists and human rights activists, argues Elain Pearson in an opinion piece for Human Rights Watch.

The proposed changes are being debated less than a week after the Australian police foiled an Islamist terror plot which would have seen an Australian civilian chosen at random and beheaded on camera.

Australia is one of the Western nations with the highest proportion of Muslims having left to fight in Syria and, more recently, join ISIS.

While the timing of these two events is merely coincidence, the Australian public, having so recently faced a serious terrorist threat, is likely to be supportive of measures that aim to ramp up security.

But Pearson says the parliament shouldn't be too hasty to adopt the laws, which would see people imprisoned for five years for disclosing information related to special intelligence operations.

"Punishing those who leak security information or publish it can be problematic because it suppresses information that may be vital for the exercise and protection of human rights, accountability and democratic governance", she writes.

"Some of the most significant revelations of human rights violations come from disclosures of once-secret information relating to the misconduct of security agencies. If this amendment passes, lawyers, journalists and activists could be prosecuted simply for doing their jobs of holding the government to account."

Intelligence, whistleblowing and human rights are all a theme in Oceania right now.

Just last Monday, New Zealand saw whistleblower Edward Snowden andWikileaks' Julain Assange attend a election rally via video conference to give evidence that the New Zealand government is spying on its citizens, which it denies.