Terrorism has provided quite a few challenges for the civil society to face and its different manifestations have given different nations and governments a lot of headaches to worry about. May it be the Al-Queda, LTTE, JKLF or any other name it may take, all means disruption to normal human life and endangerment of peaceful human co-existence. The reasons behind the formation of these terrorist organizations are manifold but at the same time they all stem from one basic reason – absence of respectful living conditions in their homeland.
There have been efforts from all over the world and from a good lot of intelligent people to identify the reasons behind the birth of a terrorist and so I am not going into the same lest there will be re-inventing of the wheel. Here the subject in discussion is the importance of the fine act of balancing between countering the threats that terrorism puts forward and respecting one of the most important aspects of a society viz. civil liberties. There is only a fine line between the two and hence it is very important to move forward pretty cautiously on this subject. This was made pretty evident in the way in which the Australian Government has handled (or mis-handled) the whole episode of the arrest of the Indian doctor Mohammed Haneef.
Dr.Haneef was arrested under the charge of “recklessly” providing support to terrorists in committing a heinous crime of a dreadful bomb blast at Glasgow, Scotland. The world, and to be more precise the US and its allies, is so frightened and alarmed by terrorism that they tend to forget about the great human values of freedom and liberty while handling cases of suspected terrorist plots. Dr.Haneef was arrested as his SIM card was found in the jeep of the terrorist that they used to drive into the Glasgow airport. He had given the SIM card to his cousin who is the prime accused of the Glasgow bomb blast, when he left Britain and that has ended up being the reason behind his arrest and subsequent torture at the Queensland police station. The court has found out that there are no evidences to support that Dr.Haneef is involved in the terror plot and hence gave him bail. But the Australian Immigration Minister, Kevin Andrews using his constitutional power has cancelled his Visa stating that there were enough evidences against Haneef. This deed of the Minister didn’t go well with the Australian media and human rights groups. They started protesting and the effective campaigns done by them against the in -humane handling of Haneef by the authorities resulted in his release. The efforts put in by Haneef’s Lawyer Mr. Russo cannot be forgotten either.
Dr.Haneef’s release is certainly the victory of the Australian media and their continuous support in uplifting the importance of respecting civil liberties. The Australian government should have kept in mind that Haneef was just a suspect in the terrorism plot and was not proven in the court as the perpetrator of that crime. Present day world needs a more careful handling of terrorism related issues and the bizarre execution of in-humane anti-terrorism laws cannot be the rule of the day. Civilized societies should behave more gently and compassionately and should always bear in mind that civil liberties is the most important aspect of a peaceful and harmonious life in this globe.
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