Locke Keith: Motions — Terrorism Suppression Act—Referral of Provisions to Foreign Affairs  Defence and Trade Committee 
Locke Keith: Motions — Terrorism Suppression Act—Referral of Provisions to Foreign Affairs  Defence and Trade Committee 
[Volume:423;Page:18560] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The review of the Terrorism Suppression Act is most welcome. The Greens support it because around the world anti-terrorism legislation has been subject to much criticism. Such legislation was also discussed in a major report commissioned by the Secretary-General of the UN Kofi Annan and delivered to him on 2 December. That report was from the High-level Panel on Threats Challenges and Change. The panel stated it had received widespread feedback that in its words “the current war on terrorism has in some instances corroded the very values that terrorists target: human rights and the rule of law”. We have had a reinforcement of that judgment with more and more reports of mistreatment and torture by American personnel at Guantanamo Bay and by both the American and British forces in Iraq. We have had our own shameful episode with regard to Ahmed Zaoui who was imprisoned without charge for 2 years but now thankfully is out of prison. 
A big problem with regard to the anti-terrorism legislation enacted since September 11 is that those who have been most keen to drive it through have been themselves guilty of terrorist acts. We just need to look at how the United States forces have operated in Iraq to see that. The devastation of Fallujah by American bombs and missiles was clearly terrorism. The American forces knew that most of those killed would be civilians yet they went ahead. They wanted to teach the people of Fallujah a lesson: that supporting the resistance carried a heavy price and that if people do not let US troops occupy their cities they risk the destruction of their cities. That was a replay of United States policy in Viet Nam four decades ago. Members may remember a US general proclaiming that he had to destroy a Viet Namese village in order to save it. Unfortunately because America is a superpower it gets off too lightly when it engages in what could be called State terrorism. So also do some of its allies. 
Let us look at what has happened over the past week following revelations that an Israeli diplomat was expelled from Australia and the press was reporting the expulsion had something to do with the attempt by Israel’s Mossad spy agency to fraudulently obtain New Zealand passports. It is rather odd that our Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that he was not going to investigate that matter on our behalf even though two Mossad agents had been jailed for the fraud and there was evidence that that particular Mossad operation against New Zealand had been run out of Australia. The relevance of that to this review of the Terrorism Suppression Act is that the Mossad operation is the only potentially terrorism-linked operation in New Zealand since the bombing of the  
Rainbow Warrior 
 in 1985. 
Israel has used false passports to engage in state terrorism in the past. In 1997 one of its operatives used a false Canadian passport in an attempt to assassinate a Palestinian leader Khalid Meshaal in the Jordanian capital Amman. Has Mossad been designated a terrorist organisation under our Terrorism Suppression Act? No. That Act does not accommodate such State terrorism. Matters would be even worse if the Israeli newspaper  
Haaretz 
 is correct in stating that our Security Intelligence Service has a relationship with Mossad and that Mossad was pressuring it to sweep the passport fraud under the table. I do not believe that our SIS would have played ball with Mossad in those circumstances but it may well be that the SIS and its Australian partner the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation were not looking out for Mossad terrorism. One of the jailed Mossad agents Eli Cara was able to run a dummy tourism company in Australia north of Sydney and to travel between New Zealand and Australia 24 times in 2 to 3 years without detection. 
One of the main concerns expressed by submitter after submitter when the terrorism suppression legislation went through the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee before it was enacted was that the definition in the legislation of a terrorist or a person who is helping a terrorist is too broad. The definition could potentially cover visitors to New Zealand from liberation movements overseas or people in New Zealand who support those movements. It could even cover New Zealanders engaged in non-violent domestic protests or strikes if their actions were deemed to disrupt infrastructure facilities in a manner that endangered human life—because according to the definition in the Act there does not have to be an intention to endanger human life. The definition of terrorism provided by the high-level panel reporting to Kofi Annan at least has the virtue of being restricted to acts “intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants”. That gets away from the problematic reference to simply disrupting infrastructure that is in our Act. 
Another problem with regard to the designation of terrorist organisations is that it is a political process under the authority of the Prime Minister. We have seen how that type of political designation process can go wrong in the case of Ahmed Zaoui. The Government put him in jail as a high security risk but 2 years later it came up empty-handed when the Supreme Court asked it for evidence as to why he should not be given bail. Now he is free. The people currently designated as terrorists under our Act are essentially those whose names have been provided by UN agencies. The high-level panel reporting to the UN has expressed concern that that process is not adequate. One of the panel’s recommendations is: “The Al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee should institute a process for reviewing the cases of individuals and institutions claiming to have been wrongly placed or retained on its watch lists.” There is no proper judicial process whereby those labelled as terrorists by the UN committees have the right to contest that designation either before or after the event. New Zealanders are also being affected by the very large so-called terrorist watch list operated by the United States. Last year a New Zealander Mohammad Abbas had his money transfer from New Zealand to his family in India delayed for a month because his name matched that of a person on the huge US watch list. 
At least under New Zealand’s Act there is recourse to a court after an individual or group has been designated as a terrorist. But that process is flawed as is illustrated again by the Zaoui case. Mr Zaoui has been handicapped by the Government’s claim that it has classified information on him—information that he has not been allowed to see in 2 years. The Act allows for a similar withholding of crucial information in court proceedings following a terrorist designation on the basis that the information is classified. 
In the US Britain Australia and New Zealand alleged terrorists have not been allowed to have a proper judicial process to clear their names. The Supreme Court in America the law lords in Britain and the courts in New Zealand are bit by bit trying to overcome unjust anti-terrorism administrative procedures and to re-establish proper judicial oversight. Last December the British law lords brought down a landmark ruling that the Government was acting illegally by indefinitely detaining foreigners suspected of terrorism without charging or trying to charge them. The process was labelled a violation of European human rights laws. One of the judges Lord Leonard Hoffman stated: “The real threat to the life of the nation in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these. That is the true measure of what terrorism may achieve. It is for Parliament to decide whether to give the terrorists such a victory.” And it is for this Parliament to do that too. 
That is why this review process is so important. As Lord Rodger stated in the law lords’ judgment: “There is also a danger that by its very nature a concern for national security may bring forth measures that are not objectively justified. Sometimes of course as with the Reichstag fire national security can be used as a pretext for repressive measures that are really taken for other reasons.”