Tim Doughney
The next major anti-war protests, to be held on November 5 and 6 around Australia, will focus on the main aspects of the "war on terror", calling for the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq, and also an end to the attacks on civil liberties and the scapegoating of Muslims.
"The worst aspects of this war of terror are being perpetrated on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, but we in Australia are also being directly affected", Kim Bullimore, a Socialist Alliance member who will address the Melbourne rally, told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly.
"The equation presented to us by the Australian government, that they are eradicating many of our basic democratic rights in order to protect us from terrorists who want to destroy democracy and freedom just doesn't add up. The November 5-6 rallies will present a human equation - one of solidarity with other people, instead of fear, and one that stands up for all people's rights, whether they are unionists, Muslims or the people of Iraq, not the 'rights' of war profiteers and warmongering politicians."
Others speakers at the Melbourne rally, organised by the Stop the War Coalition, include Donna Mulhearn, a "human shield" in Iraq during the invasion who has just toured the US and seen the recent growth of the anti-war movement there. Civil rights campaigner and lawyer Rob Stary, Muslim barrister Urfa Masood and CFMEU construction division state secretary Martin Kingham will also speak.
Pip Hinman, a convener of Sydney's Stop the War Coalition and Socialist Alliance activist, told GLW that the Sydney rally is being supported by a growing range of organisations "rightly worried about the effect of the new 'terror' laws on our civil rights". The CFMEU is supporting the rally and, at the urging of the NTEU, Unions NSW has agreed to notify all its affiliates about the protest.
"It is important in a time when fear and division are being actively promoted by federal and state governments that the community stands together and defends our right to dissent, and our right to support others - namely the Iraqi people - who are doing the same", Hinman said. "It is also important that the peace movement supports the trade unions in the fight against Howard's new industrial relations laws, because if the unions are crushed or muzzled, it will be all the more difficult for the likes of us and other social movements."
Hinman and Bullimore stressed the connection between Australia's participation in the war in Iraq, the increased threat of a terror attack here, and the federal government's attacks on civil rights. "Australia's own security agencies say that a terror attack is more likely because of Australia's role in the 'coalition of the willing'", Hinman said. "Most Australians didn't want Australia to join in the invasion and many still say that we should not be there. Pulling the troops out is the first step to allowing the Iraqis to decide how to run their own country."
In Perth, the protest rally will be addressed by Terry Hicks, father of Guantanamo Bay prisoner David Hicks, and Unions WA secretary Dave Robinson.
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From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, October 26, 2005.
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