Against Arrest of Mohd. Haneef

28 July Leaflet

Shame on the Australian Government for Harassment of Dr. Haneef!

Resist Witch-hunt of Innocents in the Name of ‘War on Terror’ – be it in Australia or India!

The Australian Government has had to drop all charges against the Dr. Mohammed Haneef. The Australian Government, unable to face the outrage – in Australia and internationally – against the illegal detention of an obviously innocent man – has finally dropped its racist justifications for harassing Haneef, and has dropped all charges against him.

But many questions remain unanswered:

· Why did the Australian Government try to cook up a case against him based on the flimsy ground that he had given away his sim card to someone – that too, a sim card that had not even been used in the terror plot?

· Why did they cancel his visa after a magistrate had granted him bail, claiming that he ‘failed the character test’ for immigrants? Why do they continue to deny him his visa?

· Why did they try to leak false stories to the media, painting him as a terrorist?

· Who will be punished for subjecting an innocent man to this witch-hunt, and for casting false aspersions in public on his ‘character’?

The fact is that the US-led ‘War on Terror’ has become an excuse for the witch-hunt and violation of human rights of Muslims in the USA and Europe – through the use and abuse of a host of terror laws.

Haneef’s case is a reminder of the widespread Islamophobia and racist and communal witch-hunt against Muslims all over the world, and in India too.

The Indian Government and Indian media are full of self-righteous outrage against Haneef’s detention. But there are many Haneefs in India too – and barring a few high-profile cases, very few of them get justice.

· Remember S A R Geelani – he was accused of involvement in the Parliament Attack case on totally flimsy grounds – based on a single innocent phone conversation! He was tortured in jail and police custody; and even after he was exonerated by the Court, the Delhi Police engineered a nearly fatal attack on him. Even today, he lives in fear of his life.

· Remember Iftikar Geelani, the journalist, also falsely accused of being a terrorist? The police claimed to have found secret intelligence documents on his computer – but in Court, it was prove that those ‘secret’ documents are in fact freely available material on the internet! Then the police planted pornographic material in his home and tried to accuse him of peddling pornography!

· Mohammad Afzal still awaits justice in jail, with a death sentence hanging over his head. There is ample evidence that suggests that Afzal was a pawn in the Parliament attack case, and in fact that he acted under threats and coercion from STF officers. Yet, the real perpetrators of the Parliament Attack have never been identified – Afzal has been made a scapegoat and sentenced to death. India’s Supreme Court, as well as Indian media and most of the powerful political parties have been happy to remain silent and let Afzal die without even a fair trial.

Of course, that is not all.

· What about the hundreds of Sohrabuddins who are killed off in fake encounters and branded as ‘terrorists’ in death?

· Why is the Srikrishna Commission Report and recommendations never implemented ?

· Why do the Shiv Sena-RSS-BJP perpetrators of the 1993 Mumbai riots and the complicit police officers still go scot-free, despite being held guilty by the Commission?

· What explanation do the Congress govt. of Maharashtra and UPA govt., ruling in the name of “secularism”, have for such collusion with and protection to the communal marauders?

The democratic campaign for justice has paid off in Haneef’s case, and Haneef’s innocence stands vindicated – but this case must only remind us of the innocents whom we continue to condemn to torture and illegal imprisonment in the name of the war on terror!