Palestinian exhibition axed after police visit

THE decision by a Sydney library to dump an exhibition about Palestinian refugees after a visit by counter-terrorism police the night before it opened has been criticised as an act of censorship.

Leichhardt municipal library was to launch the Al-Nakba pictorial exhibition last Friday. A local community group, Friends of Hebron, had developed the display of photos, poems and articles over eight months.

"We set up the exhibition at the library on Thursday night and the librarian … approved the exhibition, and said that it could be seen by children and other people who enter the library," said Carole Lawson, a Friends of Hebron member.

But that night, shortly before the library closed at 8pm, officers from the police counter-terrorism operations arrived at the library.

A police spokesman said the officers were from the operations' community contact unit and had come only to "say hi" to Friends of Hebron members. "They went to introduce themselves just to let them know who they are and what they are about. [Speaking with community groups] is part of their charter," he said. "When they got there the librarian was the only one there … they just had a quick chat to the librarian."

But Ms Lawson said: "They wanted to put the fear of god into the library staff and wanted the staff to feel threatened."

The librarian, Marilyn Taylor, would not speak publicly. But the Mayor of Leichhardt, Carolyn Allen, confirmed Ms Taylor later contacted her boss, the council's director of corporate services, David Marshall, on Thursday evening to discuss the exhibit.

They arranged a meeting for the next morning, and a decision was made to cancel the exhibition at about 9.30am.

Ms Lawson was informed of the decision later that morning. "It's the censorship of Palestine - apparently the anti-terrorism squad decides what we can see on the public walls of a library," she said.

The president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, Terry O'Gorman, said it was clear the police visit on the eve of the exhibition had influenced the council's decision. "The terrorism unit's explanation [of coming to introduce themselves] is unacceptable," he said. "The fact that they turn up as a display is being mounted is entitled to be interpreted as a threat."

Cr Allen maintains the decision was made by the council and the library, and not influenced by police. The council had decided last year that exhibitions such as Al-Nakba would need to be assessed by a panel of councillors to ensure they were not divisive, she said. This had not happened earlier with Al-Nakba because of a "a breakdown of managerial process".

But Mr O'Gorman criticised the library for being "too-ready [with] self-censorship". .

Shane McArdle, a council spokesman present when the decision to cancel was made, said some photo captions were deemed capable of causing anxiety and "undue angst".

But Ms Lawson said there was nothing alarming in the exhibition and that it merely highlighted the plight of many Palestinian refugees in Hebron, about 30 kilometres south of Jerusalem.

"The exhibition was taken down because it was about Palestine, the dispossession of Palestinians and what's going on in Hebron," she said.

She said the group would now look to hold the exhibition at another venue, promoting it as "the exhibition the council didn't want you to see".

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An extra 500 federal cops to fight crime
An extra 500 Australian Federal Police (AFP) positions will be created over the next five years to fight domestic and transnational crime. The federal budget contains an additional $191.9 million to fund the positions. "These officers will be directed to build the AFP's capacity to tackle organised and transnational crime, particularly in the areas of high-tech crime, drug trafficking, major fraud, money laundering and combating terrorism," the budget papers said. The fight against terrorism will not just be one fought through arrests and investigations.

[Also the usual? Like political scapegoating? draconian laws? Attacking Iraq and Afghanistan? Or by being compromised over Palestine and Lebanon?]

The AFP plans to establish Islamic liaison teams in each Australian capital city during the next financial year to "facilitate communication and relationship-building activities", the papers said. On the wider theme of regional security, the budget offers $80.1 million in direct assistance to Australia's Pacific neighbours to help the island nations create better police forces [colonialism?]

And the AFP will receive $47 million to help put more police on the ground in Afghanistan to fight the opium trade at the centre of the war-torn nation's economy [Because of pre-emtive strikes by NATO waging illegal and degrading war and crimes against humanity to steal and move Middle Eastern oil resources and build oil and gas pipelines.]

"Through increasing AFP numbers and supporting our international friends in their policing efforts, Australia is pulling its weight in the fight against terrorism in a statement and transnational crime," Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus said.

[Mainly because of our Pre-emptive strikes produced because of Australia's very bad foreign policy invading countries in the Middle East with illegal and degrading war crimes against humanity.

The budget also offered an extra $16 million over four years to beef up the examination of containers at four ports: Launceston, Darwin, Townsville and Newcastle.

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Mr McClelland separately ruled out compensating or apologising to the Sydney medical student Izhar Ul-Haque, who a Supreme Court judge said had been kidnapped by ASIO officers. The conduct of ASIO in the case of Mr ul-Haque, who was cleared of terrorism charges, is being reviewed by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Ian Carnell.

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CONTROVERSIAL powers granted to NSW police during last year's APEC summit are likely to be made permanent - or at least available to police for any special event - under a proposal to be taken to state cabinet.

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In 1998, Dick Cheney, now US vice-president but then chief executive of a major oil services company, remarked: "I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian." But the oil and gas there is worthless until it is moved. The only route which makes both political and economic sense is through Afghanistan.

Unknown News
"News that's not known, or not known enough."

-- IN IRAQ --

30,000 IRAQI TROOPS KILLED
and 90,000 SERIOUSLY INJURED Aug. 2003

785,957 IRAQI CIVILIANS KILLED
and 1,414,723 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

3,615 U.S. TROOPS KILLED
and 50,677 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

287 OTHER COALITION TROOPS KILLED
and 861 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

160 U.S. CIVILIANS KILLED
and 288 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

251 OTHER COALITION CIVILIANS KILLED
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8,587 AFGHAN TROOPS KILLED
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3,485 AFGHAN CIVILIANS KILLED
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342 U.S. TROOPS KILLED
and 1,026 SERIOUSLY INJURED Jan. 2007

278 OTHER COALITION TROOPS KILLED
and 834 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

? U.S. and COALITION CIVILIANS KILLED
and ? SERIOUSLY INJURED]

Loyal troops farewell an old campaigner
Comrades in arms [war criminals] Tony Blair (ret.) and George Bush (about to ret.) stood shoulder-to-shoulder last night to honour John Howard (ret.).[co offenders for crimes against humanity.]

Prosecute War Criminal John Howard
To: International Criminal Court
We, the undersigned, called for the indictment and prosecution of John Winston Howard (currently Australian Prime Minister) for acts of terrorism and war crimes.

EXCLUSIVE: Fmr. Military Intelligence Officer Reveals US Listed Palestine Hotel in Baghdad as Target Prior to Killing of Two Journalists in 2003 Last month marked the fifth anniversary of the US military shelling of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. The attack killed two journalists: Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and Jose Couso, a cameraman for the Spanish television network Telecinco. The Pentagon has called the killings accidental, but in this broadcast exclusive Army Sgt. Adrienne Kinne (Ret.) reveals she saw secret US military documents that listed the hotel as a possible target. Kinne also discloses that she was personally ordered to eavesdrop on Americans working for news organizations and NGOs in Iraq.

Jail parents of truants, says Iemma

EDUCATION and welfare experts have ridiculed Morris Iemma's plan to send parents to jail if their children repeatedly miss school, saying the policy is "heavy-handed" and will only hurt the most disadvantaged students.

Primary school principals backed the Premier's move yesterday but the Federation of Parents and Citizens' Associations attacked it and Tony Vinson - who has spent 30 years researching education and disadvantage - said it could do more harm than good.

"It is impossible for me to see how a threat like this is going to enhance the life prospects of a child," Professor Vinson said.

Gloria Larman, the chief executive of Shine for Kids, a support group for the children of prisoners, said: "Children with a parent in jail are five times more likely than an average child to end up in jail themselves. Are they going to send the minister for community services to jail because he is the legal guardian of many kids that don't go to school?"

Mr Iemma revealed he would strengthen Education Department powers to allow it to seek court orders to force a parent to enrol their child in school. If parents disobeyed, they could face jail.

"We're not talking about kids that wag the odd day," Mr Iemma told Parliament. But "if counselling, mediation and second chances" did not work, the next step for parents could be prison.

"Schools will now have the support they need to get their students back into class, where they belong, where they can be protected and where they can develop and thrive," he said.

When pressed on how the laws would work? Which of two parents might be found culpable and sent to jail? Might both parents be jailed? If so, who would be left at home to ensure the child was sent to school?

A spokesman for the Education Minister, John Della Bosca, said it would be "highly unlikely" that both parents would be jailed because "there are significant therapeutic options for the courts" and it was probable that care orders would already be in place requiring the child to be looked after by someone else.

The Opposition said it would hit the disadvantaged, especially Aborigines, and that the Government should enforce existing laws on truancy. Mr Della Bosca's spokesman said 34 parents had been fined between $200 and $1100 over truancy, but it was expected prosecutions would rise to about 250 under the new laws.

The president of the NSW Primary Principals' Association, Geoff Scott, said jail would be the only deterrent for some parents.

"Certainly you don't want to be sending parents to jail but that is way down the track. But it's really something we support because we know that kids will succeed best if they come to school."

Mr Scott said most schools would have a child who needed to be rescued from truancy.

But Andrew McCallum, chief executive of the Association of Childrens Welfare Agencies, said it would only worsen the problem of disadvantage. "Truancy is a social problem and it won't be attacked by heavy-handedness."

Last year the Education Department admitted that seven-year-old Shellay Ward, who was found dead at Hawks Nest in November, had never attended school. It had put various options to her parents, it said, but none was accepted.

The new law will allow independent medical experts to assess if a child is "too sick" to be enrolled rather than taking the word of parents. It will give extra protection to people such as neighbours who report chronic truancy.

The president of the P&C federation, Dianne Giblin, urged the Government to focus on better co-operation between its agencies, including Health and the Department of Community Services.