bastards in paradise...

It's time to rattle their chain again...

The Hon Philip Ruddock MP
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

May 25, 2006.

Dear Mr Ruddock,

I refer to Mr Scott Parkin's legal challenge, in the Federal Court of Australia, to the adverse security assessment which those under your responsibility have made.

Mr Ruddock, I charge you to ensure that Scott Parkin gets a fair hearing. That is your job, and I expect you to do nothing less.

Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), people have the right to a fair and public hearing and to an effective remedy for human rights violations.

I am most concerned that your use of a non-disclosure certificate under the National Security Information Act (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) 2004 would compromise both Mr Parkin's right to a fair and public hearing and Australia's obligation to provide an effective remedy for human rights violations.

Mr Ruddock, please stop using ridiculously paranoid security legislation to harrass harmless and well-intentioned peace activists. When you attack them, you attack me. When you harrass them, you harrass me. I take all of that very personally, Mr Ruddock, and it just serves to harden my resolve to fight you at every turn as you cook up dodgy legislation or mis-use existing legislation to thwart dissent.

This is Australia, Mr Ruddock, not some Central American banana republic run by a CIA-installed puppet government (or is it?). You are going very close to dishonouring everything I hold sacred about freedom and democracy in my country. Not to mention basic human decency.

Remember one important fact, Mr Ruddock: You are working for us - the citizens. All citizens, Mr Ruddock, not just the robber barons at the Big End Of Town. Your job description requires that you do not cow-tow to foreign powers or corporate entities.

I beseech you to use your office to obtain a fair and open hearing for Scott Parkin, whose only crime was to stand up against corporate imperialism and the wars this breeds.

Yours sincerely,

Gerry XXXXXX
Vietnam veteran
Freedom fighter
Anti-war activist
Fighter for human rights.
Fighter for democracy
Fighter against corrupt politicians

Come on, guys, please get with the program. I know Iain Murray, Scott Parkin's "co-conspiritor", and co-ordinator of this letter writing campaign. I first met Iain at the National Nonviolence Gathering last year. He is 100% committed to nonviolent action. If Parkin was working directly with Iain, which he was, then there is absolutely no way that Parkin would have been involved in planning anything violent. No way.

Late update: Iain requests that the letters be written in a temperate tone (that means not at all like I am wont to write.) And I agree with him. One hothead is enough, and I bags that role, ok?