Illustration: Eric Lobbecke Source: TheAustralian
IN the real world, combating terrorism means pursuing the least worst options. There are no absolutes. No absolute right to freedom of speech or freedom of association. Given politicians can do only what we allow them to do, it’s critical we understand the threat, the gaps in existing laws, and that the freedom of the majority depends on treading on the liberties of a few.
Get set for more hysteria from those Pollyannas who adopt moral absolutism just when deadly circumstances demand a reality check. The Australian has been told a new urgent terrorism bill — in addition to the foreign fighters bill — will be introduced tomorrow to fill a gap crucially identified by the Australia Federal Police. The gap came to light during last month’s Operation Appleby, when police swooped on this country’s largest cell of Islamic State sympathisers allegedly planning a random attack to behead an Australian. There was not enough evidence to arrest some in the cell, nor could authorities rely on the current control order regime.
While the foreign fighters bill, expected to become law this week, extends the circumstances of the control order regime to foreign fighters who return home from fighting with jihadists in Syria and Iraq, there are gaps. In addition to the circumstances of Operation Appleby, let’s say a young radicalised man has jihad on his mind. His passport has been cancelled because he’s seen as a security risk but he has not taken part in hostilities in Syria and Iraq. His circumstances are not covered by the current regime or the new extension in the foreign fighters bill. The new bill will catch this and other scenarios.
We are not dealing in hypotheticals. Think Operation Appleby. Think Numan Haider, the wannabe jihadist who attacked police in Melbourne last month. Think Canada, where jihadists struck twice within days, killing military personnel and striking fear into the nation. Think New York, where a jihadist wielding a machete struck police.
When terrorism laws were drawn up after September 11, 2001, critics claimed control orders would be abused by law enforcement agencies. In fact, control orders were used twice, for David Hicks and Jack Thomas.
It was the same with preventive detention orders. Critics said they would be abused. Available only for “imminent attacks”, they have been used only once during Operation Appleby.
Control orders are likely to be used more often to catch jihadist-minded men who don’t leave the country and the ones who return from foreign terrorist battles.
There is a big difference between the intelligence our security agencies gather and evidence that can be used in court for prosecutions. If radicalised men cannot be arrested and prosecuted for terrorist activities — due to insufficient admissible evidence — control orders become an important backstop.
Nearly 70 men from Australia are fighting in Syria and Iraq. Fifteen have been killed. At least a further 100 are in Australia — including 20 returned from Syria and Iraq — involved in getting jihadists to Syria and Iraq. These home-grown terrorists include former Kings Cross bouncer Mohammad Ali Baryalei, now a senior Islamic State commander, who last month called on young jihadists to kill “a random kafir (non-believer) on the streets of Sydney; Khaled Sharrouff, whose nine-year-old son was photographed holding the severed head of a Syrian soldier; Ahmed Succarieh, Australia’s first suicide bomber in Syria; and many more.
Some say we should let jihadists go to Iraq and Syria and close the door behind them. But we cannot export terrorism if we expect other countries to prevent the export of terrorism.
Moreover, when these men do slip back into the country, under aliases and false passports, they are trained, angry fighters with new-found confidence.
The emergence of so-called “lone-wolf” jihadists presents a different threat from large-scale terrorist attacks. These radicalised loners act quickly, suddenly, silently, without the planning and organisation that usually triggers alarm bells with intelligence agencies. Inspired by a radical Islamic ideology, their aim is no less deadly: to kill.
Yet Pollyanna critics use the “lone-wolf” descriptor as the latest excuse to ignore the implications of terrorism. As Canadian Mark Steyn wrote last week after the terrorist attack in Ottawa, “it suits them to say, ‘Oh no this is just some mentally ill guy in Ottawa and this is another guy who’s a bit goofy in New York and there’s no connection between the two.’ Because otherwise you … have to treat it like ideological Ebola and you have to stop the infection.”
NSW senator David Leyonhjelm was wrong to say jihadists are simply idiots and easy to catch. Some jihadists are deluded. Others are evil. The fake imams and slippery sheiks who radicalise young men are both smart and difficult to catch under existing laws.
Here’s why they have avoided prosecution. Current incitement to violence laws require a direct correlation between the incitement — the words — and the act of violence. If a sheik says to a gathering of 200 people “good Muslims must kill Western infidels”, that is not incitement to violence under existing law. If he spreads his jihadist cause to thousands, or millions, using social media, that too slips the net. Under new reforms due to become law, advocating, encouraging or promoting terrorism will become a criminal offence.
Again, sadly, we are not dealing in hypotheticals. Self-proclaimed sheik Musa Cerantonio — a former Catholic from Melbourne — has become one of the most influential global online preachers promoting jihad. In July he told his myriad followers he was headed to Syria to fight. In fact, the keyboard terrorist was arrested days later in an apartment in The Philippines. Deported to Australia, he was questioned by AFP officers but not arrested because he had not broken any Australian law.
Cerantonio is not alone. There are many others and authorities fear groups such as the al-Risalah Islamic Centre in western Sydney and the al-Furqan Centre in Springvale in Victoria are hotbeds of radicalisation.
In 1915 even progressive judge Henry Bournes Higgins said parliament was entitled to entrust a minister with “extraordinary powers during the present extraordinary war”. We are in the midst of another extraordinary war that requires extraordinary powers because without security, liberty is a meaningless Pollyanna dream.
janeta@bigpond.net.au
