Jayeless

Yesterday I read about the case of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, who was found guilty of the attempted murder of her American interrogators in a New York court.

Reading that article, it seemed fairly obvious that the case didn’t stack up. In 2003, Aafia Siddiqui went missing, with no (public) record of her whereabouts for the next five years. The next the public record knows of her, she was arrested by Americans in Afghanistan in 2008.

US military personnel argues that they were interrogating her in Afghanistan when she picked up an unattended gun, and started shooting at them. She didn’t manage to hit a single soldier, but they sure got her, and then they hauled her back to the US to try her for attempted murder.

Forensic evidence suggests that the gun she ostensibly fired was never fired by her, nor even fired at all. Furthermore, common sense suggests that US soldiers wouldn’t have left loaded guns lying around unattended where their prisoner would be able to reach them.

Aafia Siddiqui also says that during her five years of imprisonment, she was held in a secret US prison in Afghanistan. This is denied by both the US and the Pakistani authorities, but it is not exactly hard to believe. Read More »

A few days ago, an Indian man named Nitin Garg was brutally killed in West Footscray. Yesterday, another Indian man was “doused in liquid and set alight” (according to Nick Bryant). Victoria Police have been investigating these crimes, but apparently that’s not enough for the sensationalist Indian media, who’ve decided our police are as racist as the Ku Klux Klan. I’m not sure how they figure this — I think it’s because they haven’t arrested anyone yet.

Of course, as any truly justice-minded person would be aware, the police actually need an idea of who did it before they can go about charging others with murder. I’m starting to feel like these Indian shock-jocks (they must be the equivalent of our shock-jocks, right?) don’t want justice, they want a sacrificial lamb. They want the first white guy who walks past the police station arrested, charged and convicted of murder, whether or not he did it.

Otherwise it would make no sense to bitch that our police are the Ku Klux Klan just for investigating a murder.

I won’t deny that some of these attacks may have had a racial motivation. Deplorable as it is, some people in Australian society are racist. Deplorable as it is, some people in Australian society are thugs. There is overlap between these two small groups. Racially-motivated violence is inevitable.

Not that it is acceptable, of course, but nor are violent crimes ever acceptable. Supposing Nitin Garg was actually killed by an Indian thug, would that make his death A-OK? No, obviously not. No violent crime is acceptable, whether the motivation was racism or not. (And believe it or not, there are a number of motivations for violence that are not racism.)

And what do the shock-jocks want us to do? The editor responsible for publishing the Ku Klux Klan slur said this:

The more agitated they get, the harder they will work to improve the situation.

Uh, yeah, and what does that mean? What would be an improvement in “the situation”? WTF do you want us to do? Aside from dispensing with justice and creating a scapegoat out of some poor man? I don’t think that counts as an improvement, somehow.

Besides, this editor’s thinking doesn’t check out, either. The more “agitated” Australians get with this sensationalist coverage, the more willing we’ll be to sacrifice our sense of justice? Yeaaaaaah that makes sense. Far more likely is that the more “agitated” Australians get with this sensationalist coverage, the more indignant we’ll become, and the less we will see these attacks for what they are — reprehensible, brutal crimes.

Indian media is not helping anyone, least of all the victims, by accusing Australians — not “some elements of Australian society”, but almost everyone, especially Victoria Police — of racism. Let’s all hate on the criminals together, instead of turning it into an India v. Australia issue when it’s not.

This morning, I was comfortably fast asleep in my bed when I was disturbed by a loud, sharp knocking at the front door. I remained curled up in my comfy bed and waited for someone else to get the door, which they did soon enough. The next thing I heard was, “Hi, I’m from the homicide squad…”

Okay, a few years ago, we had this weirdo move into the flats next door. For some reason my mother befriended him, but I always hated him. He was a creep. My mother allowed him virtually free reign of the house, and I clearly remember spending hours pretending to be asleep (until 5pm) so I wouldn’t be made to talk to him. At the time my dad was on an overseas conference, so he barged into our lives and called himself my “dad”, even though Dad would only be gone for two weeks, and despite my obvious disgust. My mother insisted I was being rude by disliking him, and forced my sister and I out on shopping expeditions with him (and not her). I remember that he gave away my bike on one of these expeditions.

Life seemed hideous, but Dad came home after two weeks and that was the end of that excruciating episode of my life. At some point, thank God, my mother and this weirdo must have had a falling out, since I don’t remember having to deal with him after those awful two weeks.

In recent months he’d been harassing us, or at least we assume it was him harassing us because we don’t know of anyone else who would bother. The tyres on Dad’s car were slashed, so he had to replace them all. He received a series of abusive phone calls late at night. A mug was thrown at our back door (which is made of glass), shattering into little pieces, from the fence that separates us from this weirdo’s block of flats. He shouted abuse at my sister when she was in the backyard.

And today, he’s been arrested and charged with murder.

I’m sure there’s something in the law about not jeopardising others’ rights to a fair trial, so I will try to refrain from saying too much more, even if there’s more I would say. I think it suffices to say, I feel safer with him in custody.

A few days ago I read the book Nightmare in Laos by Kay Danes. Perhaps surprisingly considering the books I’ve blogged about before, it’s a non-fiction book, about the incarceration of the book’s author and her husband in Laos’ Phonthong prison. It’s also about the other prisoners at the prison, the guards — who are also in a sense prisoners — at the prison, and about the Australian embassy’s efforts to get Danes and her husband out of prison.

I bought this book ages ago, but I only got around to reading it after something popped up in the news about Thailand forcibly deporting Hmong refugees to Laos. The article I was reading suggested that the Hmong people faced persecution in Laos, which was why the UN had recognised them as legitimate refugees, but apparently Thailand is one of those countries that doesn’t think this is a reason to help people.

Ignoring the story of Kay Danes herself — since that is only one of the stories of her book — Nightmare in Laos paints a certain picture of Laos which would make it pretty obvious that yes, the Hmong have every right to flee. Laos is not a nice place to be. As one of the last remaining communist regimes in the world, the Lao government maintains strict control over its population, and especially those unlucky enough to be trapped in its prisons. Read More »