SIS "evidence" isn't, again

Back in 2016, then-Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne cancelled a New Zealand woman's passport, claiming she was a terrorist. The basis for his decision was a secret briefing by the SIS, which claimed that if she was allowed to travel, the woman would "engage with individuals who encourage acts of terrorism". The Supreme Court has now ruled that that decision was unlawful and invalid:

In its judgment released today, the court found the minister did not have reasonable grounds to believe the woman intended to facilitate an act of terror, and the briefing paper provided to the minister by the SIS was not fair, accurate, or adequate.

The judgement said Dunne's reliance on the woman potentially travelling to Syria to join a terrorist group fell short of the requirement under the law that the person be an actual danger to a country, not just a potential one.

The judges also found the law required there be evidence that the passport holder intended to travel and facilitate in a terrorist act, and Dunne did not have reasonable grounds to believe this - a higher standard than just suspecting it.

So, once again, SIS "evidence" turns out to be a tissue of lies and assertions when subjected to independent judicial scrutiny - just as it was in the Zaoui case. No wonder they kept the entire trial under a cloak of secrecy.

Obviously, this invites serious questions about why the SIS is so bad at its job, and why Ministers persist in relying on their "evidence" when it so obviously and so publicly gets it wrong whenever tested. And it invites serious questions about the quality of the "security assessments" they apply to visa applicants, and whether those assessments are also similarly unfair, inaccurate, and inadequate. A serious government, and a serious opposition, would be asking those questions. But given the way these things normally go, instead we'll see legislation to prevent judicial scrutiny of such decisions, rammed through under all-stages urgency, with the full support of the Labour Party.

Will the SIS double down on Islamophobia?

Yesterday the government announced the terms of reference for a royal commission of inquiry into the Christchurch terrorist attack. Among other things, the inquiry will be examining the failure of intelligence agencies in allowing a violent Nazi to buy weapons and murder fifty people, and whether there was "any inappropriate concentration or priority setting of counter terrorism resources by relevant state sector agencies" - in other words, whether the SIS was Islamophobic and focused on spying on the victims rather than protecting them. But as Scoop's Gordon Campbell points out, their likely defence strategy will be to double down on Islamophobia and smear the Muslim community some more:

What will happen is that the SIS (and presumably the GCSB) will attempt to defend and rationalise their actions in the light of the “Muslim threat” priorities set out in the string of SIS annual reports for the past decade or more. Again and again, those reports cite the over-riding threat to New Zealand from local and foreign jihadi agents, influences and social media recruitment efforts. That’s the dilemma. This Commission of Inquiry has been established in the wake of a horrific attack, amid a groundswell of public compassion for the victimised Muslim community in our midst.

If, however, the SIS is going to conduct a high profile defence of its concentration of time and resources on Muslim surveillance, there is an obvious risk that this process will result in the re-stigmatising of the Muslim community all over again.

A "blame the victims" strategy by the SIS would be absolutely indecent. A government agency engaging in hate speech against the people it failed to protect, echoing Nazi propaganda in an effort to cover their own arses and protect their jobs would be utterly vile. But I doubt it would go down well with the public, not least because it would effectively be an admission of guilt, a confirmation of what everyone suspects. The question is whether anyone in the national security deep state can recognise this, or whether they are that far down their own rabbithole...

An unrepentant Islamophobe

Back in 2005, Winston Peters gave an utterly vile speech called "The End of Tolerance", in which he demonised Muslims, calling them "two-faced" and a front for extremists. After last month's act of terrorism targeting Muslim New Zealanders, you'd have expected him to have reconsidered those views and his role in encouraging and legitimising hate. Sadly, he has not:

Winston Peters isn't backing down over comments he made about Muslims during a 2005 speech titled The End of Tolerance.

[...]

Mr Peters told Morning Report the comments were made in the context of recent terror attacks in London and that Imams around the world were saying the same thing.

"I was talking about extremism and I don't resile from that."

And that pretty much settles it. Winston is unrepentant. And that means he needs to be fired. There should be no place in our parliament, let alone in Cabinet, let alone as Deputy Prime Minister, for a man who promotes this sort of hate against our fellow New Zealanders. It is simply a matter of political hygiene: Winston Peters must go.

More Australian racism

How vile is Australian politics? A federal Senator has called for a "final solution" to immigration, and called for a return to the white Australia policy:

An Australian crossbench senator has invoked the term “the final solution” in an inflammatory speech calling for a plebiscite asking voters whether they want to end all immigration by Muslims and non-English speaking people “from the third world”.

Fraser Anning, formerly of the far-right Pauline Hanson One Nation party, and now a member of the Katter’s Australia party, used his maiden speech in the Senate to call for “a plebiscite to allow the Australian people to decide whether they want wholesale non-English speaking immigrants from the third world, and particularly whether they want any Muslims”.

[...]

Anning also invoked the white Australia policy, suggesting Australians may want “to return to the predominately European immigration policy of the pre-Whitlam consensus”. The white Australia policy, which restricted non-European immigration, ran from 1901 until it began to be dismantled in the late 1960s.

The speech has been condemned by government ministers, but it all seems a bit two-faced when that government has been fearmongering about "immigrant gangs" and is putting refugees in Pacific concentration camps and letting them die of preventable diseases in an effort to psychologically torture them into renouncing their claims to refugee status. The blunt fact is that Anning's vile politics are simply an extension of the government's.

The cost of a free and democratic society

So, a pair of foreign racists want to visit New Zealand, and naturally some people want to have them banned to prevent them from speaking:

Pressure is mounting on Immigration New Zealand to deny entry to a controversial Canadian pair set to give a talk in Auckland next month.

Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux are best known for their far-right alternative views on everything from feminism, gender and immigration to Islam.

Earlier this year, Ms Southern was banned by from entering the UK on the grounds of her involvement "in the distribution of racist material in Luton", according to the BBC.

The Islamic community voiced their opposition to the visit last month.

New Zealand Federation of Islam Associations president Hazim Arafeh said it had written letters to the Immigration Minister, Minister for Ethnic Communities and the Human Rights Commission asking for Lauren Southern to be denied entry.

"[She] abuses her right of freedom of speech. She's just going to give a talk in which she's just going to insult all of us," Mr Arafeh said.

Unfortunately, being insulted is just something people have to put up with in a free and democratic society, and our Supreme Court is on record (in Brooker v Police) as saying so. We have a right to freedom of speech in New Zealand, which covers not just the right of these racists to speak, but also the right of their racist audience to listen. Restricting that right pre-emptively requires a very high test: basicly an announced intention on the part of the speaker to incite a riot. If that test isn't met, there's no justifiable reason to prevent them from speaking. And as I've said in other cases, the answer to speech you don't like is more speech, not less. If they're giving a speech, then protest outside, and make it damn clear to everyone that kiwis don't agree with their racism and Islamophobia.

New Fisk

Trump has opened his arms to immigrants, but only if they’re white Canadians

New Fisk

Donald Trump's arbitrary, cruel ban on refugees from Muslim countries sets a chilling precedent
This is how Theresa May should have reacted to Donald Trump’s travel ban – for the sake of British Muslims

"A government of laws, not of men"

This weekend has shown us both the worst and the best of America, with Trump's racist Muslim-ban, followed by mass-protests at major airports and cities against it and lawyer flash-mobs to help its victims, and US courts stepping in to bar the deportation of those detained so far. But its also shown us just how tenuous the rule of law is in the USA - because when push comes to shove, Trump's border guards are ignoring those court orders:

Customs and Border Protection agents defied the orders of federal judges regarding Donald Trump’s travel bans on Sunday, according to attorneys who rallied popular protests around the country in support of detained refugees and travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries.

“Rogue customs and Border Patrol agents continue to try to get people on to planes,” Becca Heller, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, told reporters on Sunday. “A lot of people have been handcuffed, a lot of people who don’t speak English are being coerced into taking involuntary departures.”

[...]

“We continue to face Border Patrol’s noncompliance and chaos at airports around the country,” said Marielena Hincapie, director of the National Immigration Law Center. Officials, she said, were “kafkaesque” in their confused responses, and Trump’s order “has already caused irrevocable harm, it has already caused chaos”.

At its birth, the USA proudly proclaimed itself to be "a government of laws, not of men" - that the law was more important than the will of the king. Clearly that is no longer true anymore. The "world's greatest democracy" is fast turning into the world's biggest despotism.

A barrage of hate

Since the US election there have been a distressing series of reports of hate crimes against immigrants, African-Americans, and Muslims from the US. Now, a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center has explicitly linked this to Donald Trump's election:

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has counted 867 hate incidents in the 10 days after the US election, a report released Tuesday found, a phenomenon it partly blamed on the rhetoric of Donald Trump.

The advocacy group collected reports of incidents from media outlets and its own #ReportHate page. SPLC said it was not able to confirm all reports but believed the number of actual incidents was far higher, as according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics most hate crimes go unreported.

[...]

According to the report’s findings, anti-black and anti-immigrant incidents were the most commonly reported, with K-12 settings and colleges the most common venues.

Nearly a third of the incidents (289 of them) were motivated by anti-immigrant sentiment, the report said. Assailants often invoked Trump’s promise to build a wall in their attacks and called for the victims to be deported. For instance, in Redding, California, a student brought “deportation letters” to school and recorded himself handing them out to Latino students. In Royal Oak, Michigan, students chanted “build the wall” in a school cafeteria the day after the election.

SPLC released a separate report on Tuesday detailing the impact of the election on schools.

Anti-black incidents were the second-most common, making up 23%, or 180, of the total. References to lynching were frequent, and pictures of nooses were used for intimidation. For instance, a black doll was found hanging from a noose in an elevator at New York’s Canisius College.

In a school in Orlando, students wrote “Yall Black ppl better start picking yall slave numbers. KKK. 4Lyfe.” followed by the line “Go Trump. 2016”.

This is what happens if you run a campaign based on hate (see also: Brexit). The problem, as Jim Bolger recognised, is that you have to govern the country in the morning. No matter how much Trump's racist supporters want it, non-white people aren't going to just suddenly disappear from the US, and if they try and make that happen, its going to lead to civil disorder. But the scary thing is that Trump might be quite happy for that to happen, provided his name is on the desk.

Customs are Islamophobic and racist

Radio New Zealand this morning has appalling data on apparent Islamophobia by Customs, with kiwi Muslims being regularly stopped and searched at airports for no apparent reason other than their religion:

Members of New Zealand's Muslim community say they have been humiliated and treated like "criminals" by airport customs.

They say they are regularly stopped at Auckland Airport for hours, while their belongings are searched and their mobile phones taken off them.

[...]

On Sunday night, Muslims living in Auckland's Mount Roskill suburb gathered at Al Manar mosque to pray, celebrating the final week of Ramadan.

Between prayers, the Imam made an announcement asking those who had been stopped by New Zealand customs to come forward and share their stories.

RNZ News spoke to 11 people that night.

Unmentioned: thanks to National, Customs can give the data it pulls off those phones and digital devices straight to the police, or the SIS (who can then pass it on to their foreign masters), without any need for suspicion, let alone a warrant.

Also worth noting: this isn't the first time this issue has been raised. Its a persistent, pervasive problem of discrimination at the border. Customs, of course, denies it, pretending that there is a reason for these searches. Unfortunately, what this "reason" boils down to is Islamophobia and racism. And the net effect of it is to tell kiwi Muslims that they're not "real" New Zealanders and that the state hates them and will not let them live their lives in peace. And when you're fighting a "war on terror", that message is an extremely dangerous one to send.

Back to the middle ages in Samoa

Before the wars of religion and seven and a half million dead made them recognise the value of religious tolerance, European states persecuted those who followed a different religion from their ruler. Today, Samoa seems intent on going back there, with the Prime Minister considering constitutional changes to reflect christianity while the powerful council of churches is calling for an outright ban on Islam:

Samoa's council of churches has welcomed the prime minister's call to review the religious freedom provisions of the constitution.

Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi recently said the country's supreme law may be changed to recognise Christian principles and teachings, not just in the preamble.

However the Secretary General of the Samoa Council of Churches, Reverend Ma'auga Motu, said he would go a step further and ban the religion of Islam.

He said even though most Samoans are Christian, Islam poses a future threat to the country.

The supposed justification for this is concerns about "Islamic extremists". I can think of no better way to radicalise people and turn them to extremism and violence than to ban their religion. On the flip side, if you want people to live in peace, you leave them in peace. Interfering in people's private choices rather than ignoring them is the cause of discord.

This isn't helping

Speaking of ham-fisted anti-terror measures increasing radicalisation, Radio New Zealand has the appalling story of a kiwi Muslim questioned at the airport after visiting her family in Iraq. There seems to have been no justification for this questioning, and its primary effect is to reinforce the perception that Muslims aren't real kiwis and are enemies of the state who will not be left to live their lives in peace. Which is not exactly going to encourage a positive perception of the state which bullies them in this way, or encourage them to volunteer information which may result in others being similarly bullied.

Countering terrorism ultimately depends on community cooperation. And you don't get that by victimising and bullying an entire community. Instead, that just makes things worse. We have only to look at the UK or Australia for the consequences.

Making the problem worse

From the UK, a warning that ham-fisted anti-terror policing is radicalising Muslims:

UK authorities are radicalising young Muslims by tackling the terror threat in the wrong way, a former Home Office counter terrorism advisor has claimed.

Jahan Mahmood, who resigned from his government job over disagreements on counter-terrorism strategy, claims authorities are misrepresenting the severity of the threat facing the UK.

Mr Mahmood said far too many people were being arrested, with the majority never charged or convicted.

[...]

He claimed this led only to further radicalisation of already ostracised individuals, arrested on “very flimsy” evidence only to be released.

Apparently only 39 percent of those arrested in the UK under anti-terrorism legislation are ever charged. Which suggests a huge level of over-policing. And the experience of these unjustified arrests for the victims and their families and their communities is not exactly going to be a glowing recommendation of the British state. Instead, it makes it clear to them that the state regards them as an enemy and that they will not be permitted to peacefully get on with their lives like any other citizen. And that last bit - the basic denial of human dignity - is a chief driver of radicalisation and terrorism. Its hard to escape the conclusion that if the UK didn't look so hard for "terrorists", and didn't go around kicking in people's doors in the middle of the night because someone was seen wearing a hijab, they'd have a lot less of them.

New Fisk

Niqab row: Canada's government challenges ruling Zunera Ishaq can wear veil while taking oath of citizenship

New Fisk

In Canada, Harper's Conservatives seem to have forgotten a cherished tradition about refugees

New Fisk

First rule of refugees – don’t be a Muslim if you want help

Britain now opposes freedom of thought

Earlier in the month, UK Prime Minister David Cameron reminded us all of what an illiberal place Britain had become, with the super-villain-esque statement that "for too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone". And now its got worse, with a senior police officer demanding that the UK polices the "private space" - meaning thoughts and beliefs - of Muslims:

Islamist propaganda is so potent it is influencing children as young as five and should be countered with intensified monitoring to detect the earliest signs of anti-western sentiment, Britain’s most senior Muslim police chief has warned.

Scotland Yard commander Mak Chishty said children aged five had voiced opposition to marking Christmas, branding it as “haram” – forbidden by Islam. He also warned that there was no end in sight to the parade of British Muslims, some 700 so far, being lured from their bedrooms to Syria by Islamic State (Isis) propaganda.

In an interview with the Guardian, Chishty said there was now a need for “a move into the private space” of Muslims to spot views that could show the beginning of radicalisation far earlier. He said this could be shown by subtle changes in behaviour, such as shunning certain shops, citing the example of Marks & Spencer, which could be because the store is sometimes mistakenly perceived to be Jewish-owned.

Note that this isn't targeting extremist behaviour - its targeting extremist belief, victimising people not for their actions, but for their thoughts (unless they're white, of course, in which case these beliefs are considered harmless). And it pretty obviously violates the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion affirmed by the ECHR and in the UK Human Rights Act - not to mention the anti-discrimination clause (because only Muslims will be targeted for these beliefs). Bluntly, whether people celebrate christmas or approve of certain shops is no business of the state - and only a tyranny would believe otherwise.

But its also fruitless, because while the state can persecute and victimise and make people mouth the words and pretend conformity, it can't actually change what they believe. Meanwhile, that persecution and victimisation will further erode its legitimacy and make it clear that if people want the simple dignity of being left alone, they will have to overthrow the state. And to be honest, they'd be right to. A state which seeks to open windows into men's souls is a tyranny, and deserves to be overthrown.

The end of freedom in Britain

Having won a tenuous mandate of 37% of the vote (which, after turnout, is less than 25% of the electorate), British Prime Minister David Cameron isn't mucking about, promising a crackdown on "extremists":

A counter-terrorism bill including plans for extremism disruption orders designed to restrict those trying to radicalise young people is to be included in the Queen’s speech, David Cameron will tell the national security council on Wednesday.

The orders, the product of an extremism task force set up by the prime minister, were proposed during the last parliament in March, but were largely vetoed by the Liberal Democrats on the grounds of free speech. They were subsequently revived in the Conservative manifesto.

The measures would give the police powers to apply to the high court for an order to limit the “harmful activities” of an extremist individual. The definition of harmful is to include a risk of public disorder, a risk of harassment, alarm or distress or creating a “threat to the functioning of democracy”.

The aim is to catch not just those who spread or incite hatred on the grounds of gender, race or religion but also those who undertake harmful activities for the “purpose of overthrowing democracy”.

[...]

Cameron will tell the NSC: “For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone...

So, in Cameron's Britain, merely obeying the law will no longer be enough - you've got to be the right kind of subject: quiet, obedient, and of course non-Muslim. Because of course while he never says it explicitly, that's who this will be targeted at: Muslims who aren't quiet about it (though this being Britain, these powers will naturally be used against environmentalists, lefties, and peace campaigners as well). And those who the government doesn't like will suddenly face a ban on public speaking and pre-emptive censorship of any "web publication" (effectively silencing them or turning them into habitual criminals, because who wants to wait months for the plods to approve every forum post or tweet?) Which will then allow people to be deported or jailed for the "crime" of posting unapproved cat gifs to Facesuck. Calling it an attack on freedom of speech is an understatement - it would effectively end freedom of speech in the UK (because "freedom" to only agree with the government is no freedom at all).

I doubt this will survive HRA or ECHR scrutiny. And in the interim it will have exactly the opposite effect from that intended, creating more extremism, not less. You have only to look at history to see that. Back in the C16th, England swung between Catholic and Protestant monarchs, each viciously persecuting the followers of the wrong creed. But rather than stamping out Catholics or Protestants, all this persecution did was make it crystal clear that the state was their enemy, and even if all they wanted was just to be left alone to practice their faith in peace, they had to overthrow it. Which led to plots, which led to more persecution, for the next two hundred years.

I don't have an answer to extremism, but I know this isn't it. Instead, it will drive it, just as the British government's immoral foreign policy has. In a modern state, supposedly committed to democracy and freedom of speech, you can't just demand that those who object to the government's actions stay silent about it, and threaten to jail them if they don't. And if you do, you cease to be a modern, liberal state, and instead become the sort of state which deserves to be overthrown.

British intolerance

The British government is planning to draw up a blacklist of "extremists" who should be banned from holding public service positions:

The Home Office is drawing up a blacklist of extremist individuals and organisations with whom the government and public sector should not engage, Theresa May has revealed.

The list of legal but unacceptable organisations is being compiled by a new Home Office “extremism analysis unit”, which is also to develop a counter-entryism strategy to tackle Islamist radicalisation and ensure there is no repeat of the Trojan horse affair in Birmingham schools across the public sector.

What's an "extremist"? Someone who espouses "vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs". Which would seem to cover both the Conservative and UKIP parties, not to mention the authors of this proposal. After all, what they're proposing to do is discriminate against people on the basis of their peaceful religious and political views. Which seems distinctly at odds with those "fundamental British values" they purport to adhere to.

But I forget. Only Muslims are "extremists". The term just doesn't apply to white people.

Fortunately its difficult to see how such unjustified political and religious discrimination could survive a legla challenge. If the UK courts don't defend English liberty, then the ECHR certainly will. Unfortunately, that probably won't be enough to stop Britain's lawless government from instituting such legal Islamophobia.

An inflated risk

Writing in the Dominion-Post on Saturday, Andrea vance outright accuses the Prime Minister of inflating the risk of terrorism, highlighting the way he has misled and manipulated the public about the threat. Exaggerating the number of jihad tourists, theatrically inventing a "terror-alert level" so he could cynically raise it, talking up threats to sporting events - and then hiding behind secrecy when any of this is challenged. The scepticism seems justified. Despite all of Key's fearmongering, its worth remembering that we have not had a single arrest or prosecution for joining or financing ISIS - and surely if there was real evidence that people were committing these serious crimes, the police would swoop. Likewise, Key has cancelled only two passports this year - hardly an example of a flood of kiwi jihadis.

Meanwhile, the media's examples of kiwi ISIS supporters show that we have nothing to be afraid of. Yes, both support a foreign regime which engages in crimes against humanity (one while denouncing those crimes). But that's well within the bounds of discourse of a free and democratic society (or else we'd be arresting every supporter of the US, Israel and China), and there's no indication that that support is anything beyond peaceful and political. One of them would leave New Zealand if Key wages war on ISIS? Again, that's a democratic action, not a terrorist one.

If these are Key's bogeymen, we do not need new laws. Instead, it looks like we need a Prime Minister who doesn't jump at shadows.