My heart gave a little lift this evening when I read that the Nobel winning novelist JM Coetzee had spoken out implying that John Howard’s proposed new anti-terrorist laws were similar to the human rights abuses under apartheid in his native South Africa.
“I used to think that the people who created (South Africa’s) laws that effectively suspended the rule of law were moral barbarians. Now I know they were just pioneers ahead of their time,” he told the Australian Book Review function.”
Detailing how South African police were able to do whatever they wanted, Coetzee ended with: “All of this
and much more during apartheid in South Africa, was done in the name of the fight against terror.”
(Via Articulate)
Laws for a secret state without any safeguards by Malcolm Fraser is also worth reading on the topic.
GetUp is a newish Australian online activist site, along the lines of MoveOn in the US. Their blog sure could use an RSS feed, though.
Updated links 2015
