Australian officials are rushing to denounce expressions of support for the Hezbollah resistance group as a violation of a new counter-terrorism law, writes Caitlin Johnstone.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong in in 2017. (From video by Staff Sgt. Katherine Spessa, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)
By Caitlin Johnstone
in Melbourne, Australia
CaitlinJohnstone.com.au
Listen to Tim Foley reading this article.
As Israel begins another invasion of Lebanon, Australian officials from both sides of the imaginary partisan divide have been falling all over themselves to get Australians punished for speech crimes about the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah.
The Australian political-media class have been in an uproar ever since footage surfaced of people waving Hezbollah flags at a protest in Melbourne over the weekend and displaying pictures of the group’s deceased leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated by Israel in a massive airstrike on Friday.
[See: AS’AD AbuKHALIL: The Middle East After Nasrallah]
After initially stating that no crime had been committed in these acts of political speech, Victoria police are now saying they have identified six potentially criminal incidents related to the demonstration.
These incidents reportedly involve “prohibited symbols” in violation of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment which was enacted last year.
Needless to say, free nations do not have “prohibited symbols.”
This development follows numerous statements from various Australian leaders denouncing the protests as criminal.
“I expect the police agencies to pursue this,” Victorian premier Jacinta Allan said of the protests, adding, “Bringing grief and pain and division to the streets of Melbourne by displaying these prohibited symbols, is utterly unacceptable.”
[See: Journalist Richie Medhurst Arrested at Heathrow Airport Under ‘Terrorism Act’]
Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong took to Twitter to denounce the protesters, saying Australians must not only refrain from supporting Hezbollah but from even giving “any indication of support.”
“We condemn any indication of support for a terrorist organisation such as Hizballah,” Wong tweeted, adding, “It not only threatens national security, but fuels fear and division in our communities.”
Pretty hard to take this supposed 'rejection of terrorism and extremism' seriously when Senator Wong and the Labor government she's part of have never seen fit to condemn the decades of terror inflicted by Israel on the Palestinian (and Lebanese) people. https://t.co/242oHqljQr
— Victorian Socialists (@vic_socialists) September 30, 2024
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke wants to deport any international visitors displaying prohibited symbols in Australia, saying “I won’t hesitate to cancel the visas of visitors to our country who are spreading hate.”
On the other side of the aisle, opposition leader Peter Dutton is on a crusade to get new laws passed to ensure the elimination of banned symbols from public view, saying “enforcement for law is required and if there are laws that need to be passed to make sure that our values are upheld then the Prime Minister should be doing that.”
“Support for a proscribed terrorist organisation has no place on the streets of Melbourne,” tweeted Labor MP Josh Burns. “Anyone breaking counter-terrorism legislation should face the full force of the law.”
“Australians cherish the right to peaceful protest,” tweeted independent MP Zoe Daniels. “However, there is no justification for supporting a proscribed terrorist organisation. Those who were seen doing so on the streets of Melbourne at protests yesterday should be investigated and prosecuted.”
shameful racism from the media, from politicians, from our institutions. the continued harmful & divisive treatment of Palestinians, Lebanese ppl, Arabs, Muslims, is disgusting, and we all need to be saying so. pic.twitter.com/YAK0JtLWJP
— Jordy Silverstein (@jordana_s_) September 30, 2024
In an article titled “Hezbollah flags at protests shape as test of new hate-symbol laws,” ABC [the Australian Broadcasting Corporation] reports that these legal efforts to stomp out dissenting political speech are made possible by laws which were recently passed with the official intention of targeting Nazi symbols, but which “also cover the symbols of listed terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah.” Which is about as strong an argument on the slippery slope of government censorship as you could possibly ask for.
Hezbollah is listed as a “terrorist organisation” on the say-so of the Australian government, not because of its actions or methods but because it stands in opposition to the U.S. power alliance of which Australia is a part. This arbitrary designation is smeared across any resistance group on earth which opposes the dictates of Washington, and can then be used to suppress the speech of anyone who disagrees with the murderous behavior of the Western empire.
Free Palestine Coalition’s @SammakTasnim tells us what her reaction was when she found out that the Hezbollah flag was being waved at pro-Palestine protests held in Sydney and Melbourne. pic.twitter.com/2HDrmD5kyl
— The Project (@theprojecttv) September 30, 2024
And it should here be noted that Australia is the only so-called democracy in the world which has no national charter or bill of rights of any kind. A tremendous amount of faith has been placed in state and federal legislators to simply do the right thing, which has proved foolish and ineffective.
Professor George Williams wrote for the Melbourne University Law Review in 2006:
“Australia is now the only democratic nation in the world without a national bill of rights. Some comprehensive form of legal protection for basic rights is otherwise seen as an essential check and balance in democratic governance around the world.
Indeed, I can find no example of a democratic nation that has gained a new Constitution or legal system in recent decades that has not included some form of a bill of rights, nor am I aware of any such nation that has done away with a bill of rights once it has been put in place.
“Why then is Australia the exception? The answer lies in our history. Although many think of Australia as a young country, constitutionally speaking, it is one of the oldest in the world. The Australian Constitution remains almost completely as it was when enacted in 1901, while the Constitutions of the Australian states can go back as far as the 1850s.
The legal systems and Constitutions of the nation and the Australian colonies (and then states) were conceived at a time when human rights, with the prominent exception of the 1791 United States Bill of Rights, tended not to be protected through a single legal instrument.
Certainly, there was then no such law in the United Kingdom, upon whose legal system ours is substantially based. This has changed, especially after World War II and the passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but by then Australia’s system of government had been operating for decades.”
If you ever wonder why Australia so often stands out as a freakish anomaly in the Western world with its jarring authoritarianism and disregard for human rights, this is why.
As an Australian, I don't feel terrorised by Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis.
But I do live in abject fear & terror of the Australian Govt &the politicians who seek to jail those who oppose genocide & censor those who seek to get the truth out about Israel's extermination agenda.— ????? ?? #FreePalestine ?? Emma Meconi? (@SpotlightForYou) September 30, 2024
The powerful abuse our civil rights because they can. We are pummeled with propaganda in the birthplace of Rupert Murdoch and increasingly forbidden from speaking out against the atrocities of our government and its allies overseas. We are being groomed into mindless, obedient sheep for the empire.
Caitlin Johnstone’s work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following her on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, YouTube, or throwing some money into her tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy her books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff she publishes is to subscribe to the mailing list at her website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything she publishes. For more info on who she is, where she stands and what she’s trying to do with her platform, click here. All works are co-authored with her American husband Tim Foley.
This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com.au and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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How much more decadent and decaying can our so-called Western ‘civilized’ society get??? No self-respect? No integrity? No morals? No ethics?
This is all so disturbing! The western governments and their cronies, the military and mainstream media are aiming to take away all of our civil rights and freedoms just because they want War – AKA Armageddon which is totally man-made!
Without condoning the authoritarianism and censorship of the Australian government, I think it would be more appropriate to wave Palestinian flags. If/when they punish people for doing that they would be making their racism, Islamophobia and support for an apartheid and genocidal regime abundantly clear. In the West we get knee-jerk reactions to Hamas and/or Hezbolloah, which are impossible to get beyond in order to make any meaningful points with these hacks.