Friday, March 24, 2017

London terrorist attack: another reason why we need a Royal Commission on radicalisation

Despite being on high alert, the UK authorities were not able to stop the deadly terrorist attack in London yesterday. This event should have a great impact on how our authorities deal with local radicalisation.

In the UK (same as in Australia), the government together with authorities and opposition, acknowledged there was a problem with radicalisation but chose not to take any action against it. Some sections of the media and politicians even used this radicalisation to stir up division and more Islamophobia in our society.

In the last few years, in Australia, there has been no debate on where the source of this sudden “discovered” high radicalisation came from. We saw both the minister and shadow minister of education claim they had no prior knowledge of the high radicalisation in our public (and Islamic) schools. When in fact, myself and many of my friends, knew about this high radicalisation.

We had grave concerns when we witnessed our media, together with our politicians, support terrorism in Syria under the false banner of supporting the “Syrian revolution". It is a fact that every terror attack both in Australia and around the world, has been perpetrated by supporters of the so called Syrian revolution or by terrorists returned after participating in the Syrian revolution.

After all the terrorist attacks on home soil and the heightened alert, still to this day, our authorities have not taken any practical steps towards de-radicalisation. Extreme centres are still allowed to preach hate, mosques managed by extremists remain open, extreme Imams haven’t been deported and funding to extreme organisations is still active.

So far all we have seen from our authorities is the arrest of a few radicals just before they commit terror attacks or immediately after they have committed one. We have seen plenty of rhetoric without any meaningful action.

This lack of actions from our authorities towards radicalisation is due partly to the fact that extremist have become a very powerful lobby in this country. No government, no major party and no politician can take meaningful steps against the source of radicalisation. The radicals have infiltrated our political system, media and education system.

We believe that the only solution is to form a royal commission to reveal who allowed the radicalisation to infiltrate in our system at all levels. A royal commission, with its power to grant immunity and protection for witnesses and experts, will have a better chance to explore and reveal the reality of this sudden-discovered high radicalisation.

A royal commission can:

• Investigate how radicals infiltrated political parties and parachuted their preferred candidates on parties in safe seats.
• Investigate how terrorists were able to easily travel without passports to join the fight in Syria.
• Reveal how the authorities were actively engaging in bullying campaigns to silence anti-extremism campaigners to the point of conspiring with foreign authorities (in my case to ban me from entering Lebanon).
• Reveal how Saudi Arabia and other foreign countries were able to infiltrate our universities, schools, media and political parties.
• Explain how Australia found itself populated by thousands of hardcore radicals who are working very hard to kill our citizens and spread chaos in our beautiful country.
• Investigate how our media, especially state-funded ones, were actively spreading radicalisation by falsely reporting on what was happening in other countries, especially Syria and Libya.
• Explore how government departments are funding extremist organisations with millions of dollars and discover the extent of radicalisation achieved with such funds.

A royal commission will be able to give answers and recommendations.

A royal commission is our only hope to find out what went wrong and how to correct past mistakes. Without assertive de-radicalisation steps, we are dealing with symptoms and not with the real cause.

Without a royal commission and its findings, radicals and their foreign financiers will continue their infiltration of our political system, media and schools.

They will have enough money to build more mosques, centres and schools to continue radicalising our youth.

A royal commission is the only meaningful step to stop the blame game between the minister for education and the shadow minister on what is happening in our public schools.

We will mount a campaign demanding a royal commission to start a meaningful de-radicalisation plan. Such plan is vital not only to prevent terrorist attacks in Australia, but it is also important to start a campaign to restore faith in our authorities and the system.

We need to restore security and social harmony in our community and the only way to achieve this is through a royal commission.

Friday, September 11, 2015

Our comments on the Australian government announcement of policy on Syrian crisis

Following the Australian government announcement of policy on Syrian crisis, we would like to mention:
- Australia has committed itself to a very dangerous mission. The Australian participation in bombing of targets inside Syria could be very dangerous manoeuvre for Australia and the region. The region is already a jungle of foreign armies ready to attack each other. We are aware that thousands of Chinese, Russian and Iranian military enforcement has arrived in Syria and in the Mediterranean off the Syrian coast. Any mistake on Australians’ side of bombing of Syrian military or their allies could inflame the whole region. Australian jets could be met with hostile retaliation from both sides. We all remember the Jordanian pilot who was burned alive when his jet was shot down by terrorists.
- The only guarantee that this could be avoided is by acknowledging the only legitimate force on the ground, the Syrian army, the only force fighting terrorists. Without coordination with the Syrian army, Australian participation in the war is far too dangerous. In addition, the bombings of targets by US and its allies for the last year were ineffective and achieved almost nothing.
- In regard to proposed refugees’ intake of 12000 Syrians, we also would like to voice our deep concerns. We are aware with documents that hundreds (if not thousands) of terrorists had fled Syria and could successfully infiltrate refugees masses to Europe. We are very concerned that some of refugees that will be taken by Australia are terrorists who are following orders to infiltrate Western countries as sleeping cells (few of terrorists caught on camera can be seen on https://www.facebook.com/Omar.George.Ali/videos/874499582634422/ .
- During our visits to Jordan and Lebanon in the last 2 years, we heard horrific stories about what is happening in Syrian refugee’s camps (in Zaatary-Jordan, and refugee’s camps in Irsal-Lebanon). The camps are fertile ground for all kind of extremism/terrorism. The camps are full of sleeping cells of terrorist organisations. Last year, terrorists of Jabhat AL Nusra and ISIS attacked Lebanese army from these camps in Irsal area. The situation in Jordan and Turkey is similar.
- The authorities should be careful in choosing any Syrian refugees. We suggest:
1- Preferences given to refugees who have families in Australia. The families in Australia should be known to be not extremists and do not support extremism and have no criminal record or any trouble with authorities
2- Preferences to be given to well-educated refugees with tertiary education and their criminal background checked.
3- Some kind of intelligence exchange should be established with the Syrian authorities to gather information. It is not necessary for our authorities to take the Syrian government advice. Guidance only.
4- Australian authorities should consult Syrian, Arabic and Muslim organisations in Australia known to be anti-extremists. So far, the authorities and media had consulted known extremist individuals and organisations. There advice would be pro-extremists.
5- Imagine that the terrorist pictured in this Youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXhEiZUBBrQ) was brought to Australia by mistake. The evidence we have is that many similar terrorists have already been accepted as refugees in Sweden and Germany.


Jamal Daoud
Social Justice Network
Mob. 0404 447 272

Sunday, July 21, 2013

SJN position statement on Rudd’s latest announcement on boat people

Social Justice Network acknowledges the following facts in regard to the current debate on refugees and asylum seekers and the latest Rudd government’s announcement on unauthorized arrivals:
1- Australia does not face any crisis of unauthorized arrivals as the numbers of people arriving unauthorized by boats constitute very tiny numbers if compared to unauthorized arrivals received by Western countries.
2- The issue of boat arrivals was made as big problem when this humanitarian issue was politicized to become issue for political score-pointing to win votes and power.
3- Arriving by boat without any visa is not illegal under Geneva Convention on Refugees Status, if arrivals found to be genuine refugees.
4- Rudd government’s announcement is no more than a cheap election stunt to win back deserted voters but will not achieve any positive outcome, including stopping boats arrivals.
5- The proposed policy change, in addition to being highly inhumane and impractical, is highly likely to fail if tested in Australia’s legal system. It is highly likely that this policy will have the same fate of the “Malaysian Solution”.
6- The prospect of any success in implementing this policy is very grim.
7- The new announcement will further deteriorate Australia’s reputation on respecting human rights.

As for the claim that the policy change came for two main reasons: to save lives from drowning in the ocean and to break the people smugglers module, we can suggest Labor to adopt one of the following two solutions to achieve these targets:
1- Introduce “ Jakarta solution”, where Australia can negotiate to sign regional agreement with Indonesia to establish processing centres in Jakarta operated by Australian authorities in cooperation with UNHCR to receive and process all applications for protection and then resettle genuine refugees in Australia within increased quota (within the proposed 27,000 refugees quota).
2- Adopt European solution for the issue of unauthorized arrival: detain unauthorized people for the shortest period until health and security checks made and then release them to community awaiting decision on applications for protection.

The network notes here that the new policy changes announced by Rudd’s government are not only inhumane and violate Australia’s commitments under international treaties, but also creates high discrimination among asylum seekers based on their unauthorized arrival mode. If unauthorized arrivals happen by plane, the asylum seekers’ applications will be processed as normal. But if the arrivals happen by boats, they will be denied any rights to lodge application.

The SJN believes that the Australians’ vulnerability towards this issue is a direct result of the complete secrecy around the whole issue. If Australians will be told the full facts and the real humanitarian reasons for people to risk their lives on leaky boats, we believe that public opinion on this issue would be changed dramatically.

The SJN supports dealing with this issue as humanitarian issue, not political. If European countries like Britain can cope with more than hundreds of thousands of unauthorized arrivals every year without the need to resort to inhumane policies of mandatory detention of all arrivals and deport them back to third world countries lacking basic needs for their own people, Australia can do the same.

Our PM and his minister for Immigration can consult our neighbouring NZ on how to manage unauthorized arrivals without detention centres or deporting genuine refugees to other countries in a clear violation to international treaties.

For media comments, you can contact Jamal Daoud (network spokesperson) on 0404 447 272


Saturday, June 16, 2012

Lunch with detainees and refugees in WRD: Mandatory detention system should end

The Social Justice Network (SJN) is holding its annual celebration of World Refugees Day next week as recognition of the deep suffering and sacrifice of the refugees during their journey to reach safe country that protect their lives and dignity.

This year’s celebration, the SJN decided to have the celebration as lunch with refugees and detainees. The network wants to give community members and journalists chance to meet refugees and detainees to explore the truth about their suffering in our detention centers. The celebration will present golden opportunity to clear any misinformation about the boat people and the reasons to make this dangerous journey.

“For the last few years, the refugees and asylum seekers (especially those who arrived by boats) endured sustained attacks from the opposition Liberal party, demanding very tough and inhumane measures to “stop the boats” said Jamal Daoud, spokesmen of SJN.”Instead of standing up against these attacks, the Greens-backed Labor government bowed to these attacks and adopted very tough measures that attracted national and international criticism”.

“The Greens-backed Labor government wanted to introduce legislations to deport asylum seekers to Malaysia, before their claims examined. Such move that was labeled as “inhumane” and “violating international laws” even by Liberal party”.

“The Greens-backed Labor government adopted very inhumane measures that resulted in 6 deaths inside our detention centre, hundreds of refugees attempted to end their lives, rooftop protests and riots and fire in almost all detention centres in the country”

Instead of acting to end the suffering of detainees that caused all these, the government resorted to more draconian arrangements. The government released thousands of detainees on community detention with no rights and no time frame of visa grant.

At the celebration-lunch, many of these “detainees” in community detention arrangement will be present and will be happy to explain their plight. The insecurity and instability they suffer have inherited almost all of them deep mental health problems. Almost all of them are living now on anti-depressants and sleeping bills. Many had told us that they are thinking seriously to end their suffering by ending their lives. Their release from detention centres to unknown destination, did not improve their situation or their health.

What makes situation worse is the fact that many of these detainees in community have either been found to be refugees earlier (in Indonesia or in Australia when they came by boat during Howard era). Many of them are stateless that will be almost impossible for this government or any future government to deport them to any country in the world. In the celebration, there will be chance to meet some of them.

In the celebration, there will be many refugees who survived the boat crash off Christmas Island, December 2010.

During the network’s celebration this year, we want to send strong message to the Australian politicians. The message includes deep disappointment the refugees and their supporters are feeling of the empty rhetoric the politicians promised them before the last elections.

The Greens-backed Labor government should have worked to change the policy fundamentally. They should have worked progressively to abandon the policy of mandatory detention, closing down all detention centres and increase the settlement services for refugees and asylum seekers. This is the declared policy of the Greens. The Greens assumption of balance of power did not bring any relieve to refugees and asylum seekers. On the contrary. Their situation got worse, while the Greens is still engaging in empty rhetoric about setting committees and introducing bills that will never pass the parliament.

The Greens should have used their power (uniquely in both houses) to enforce the Labor government to abandon its inhumane policies. The unique power should have enabled the Greens to enforce the Labor to move more forward and introduce more progressive policies, including widening the definition of refugee to include statelessness and environmental refugees.

The annual celebration is aiming also to send message of solidarity with refugees in Australia and outside for their resilience to survive. The last few years witnessed major armed conflicts that created millions of refugees. The celebration will remember and salute the sacrifice of refugees, everywhere.

The celebration will be held next Sunday 24 June 2012, 1 pm at Kebab Abu Ali restaurant – 14/75-77 Auburn Rd, Auburn.

For media, you can contact Jamal Daoud, the SJN spokesperson, on 0404 447 272

Monday, April 2, 2012

Social Justice Network rejects call to decriminalize illicit drugs: show us evidence!!!

It is shocking today to hear that some “high profile” Australians are calling to decriminalize some or all illicit drugs because the “war on drugs was not successful”. The “experts” who met and lead such call did not give us any evidence that decriminalizing drugs would solve any problem.

“It is the easiest way to give up responsibility by decriminalizing illegal substances or activities. But the consequence of such moves was and would be always deadly” said Jamal Daoud, spokesperson for SJN. “The decriminalization of gambling saw the addict gamblers numbers increased from few hundreds to few millions at the moment”.

The “experts” did not tell us why they chose drug addictions only to ask for its decriminalization. The “experts” know very well that all human societies failed to stop other addictions and criminal activities. Human civilizations could not, for example, stop pedophilia, rape, killing, theft and other evil crimes.

“We wonder if these “experts” would move later on to demand legalizing pedophilia, killings, rape and theft as a solution for historically lost war on these horrendous crimes!!!”

The same “experts” that caused all socio-economic crisis our society is facing now, are trying to add to its problems.

The “experts” compare between illicit drug addiction to cigarette addiction, but failed to make valid conclusion to learn lessons from historical mistakes. Yes, smoking cigarettes is very bad and dangerous (though not to the extent of illicit drugs). But the experts do not observe the tremendous efforts to limit the devastation of such bad habit. Instead of demanding delegalising smoking cigarettes, the experts reached the wrong conclusion by demanding decriminalization of illicit drugs.

Other societies experience on decriminalization of illicit drugs were complete failure. Holland and Portugal became capitals of drug addiction, trafficking and all related socio-economic problems.

The SJN opposes and will strongly oppose any such move. This does not mean that the government and other security agencies should not take extra measures to fight the addiction, like community education campaigns and other rehabilitation campaigns.

The government should also consider other factors that lead people to become addicts. These include stress, poverty, social isolation, discrimination, loss of hope and other socio-economic factors that lead people to addiction. But any move to legalize illicit drugs would send the wrong message to the wrong direction and will have devastating effects and consequences.

For media contact, Jamal Daoud can be contacted on 0404 447 272

Monday, January 23, 2012

SJN call for Australian participation in Global March to Jerusalem

After participating in Amman conference to organise Global March to Jerusalem, 11 December 2011, the Social Justice Network invites all peace loving activists who opposes the Israeli occupation of Palestine to actively participate in this historical march.

The march is planned to start from different countries around the globe and meet on the borders of Palestine on 30 March 2012, to coincide with the annual anniversary of Palestinian Land Day. Then the participants of the march will progress to the borders demanding their free passage to the holy city of Jerusalem. Under international resolution, Jerusalem is a holy city for all religions and the passage to it should be allowed without any obstacle. Israel occupied the holy city during the war of 1967 and since then it took several steps to change the demographic composition of the city in a bid to claim that it should be the capital of its state.

The main march will be in Jordan. Other points of assembly will be on the borders of Palestine with Syria, Lebanon and Egypt.

It is expected that hundreds of thousands of protestors will participate in the march to oppose the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the demand for international community to enforce Israel to recognize and implement International resolutions.

The network is in the mid of gathering support and endorsement for the Amman Communiqué which outline the objectives of the march. We aim to encourage as many Australians as possible to participate in the march by travelling to Jordan. Special attention will be given to get support of high profile Australians for the march. The network will send representatives to the march.

We started already seeking input of active community members and representatives of human rights and Palestinian rights organization to make the Australian participation both effective and valuable. We first asked them to consider endorsing the objectives of the march by endorsing the Amman Communiqué.

Further information on the march could be found on the website http://gm2j.com

We are in the process of calling for broader meeting of individuals and organisations supporting and active on this important issue. We will keep everyone in the society posted about the outcome of the meeting and the efforts to achieve descent Australian participation in the march.

If further information is needed, I can be contacted on 0404 447 272. You also can access our Facebook of Social Justice Network, the Facebook of Viva Palestina Australia or our website www.socialjustice.net.au

Activists can register their intention to participate or endorse the march by sending email to daoud_j6@yahoo.com.au or on the website www.socialjustice.net.au


Jamal Daoud
Social Justice Network

SJN call for Australian participation in Global March to Jerusalem

After participating in Amman conference to organise Global March to Jerusalem, 11 December 2011, the Social Justice Network invites all peace loving activists who opposes the Israeli occupation of Palestine to actively participate in this historical march.

The march is planned to start from different countries around the globe and meet on the borders of Palestine on 30 March 2012, to coincide with the annual anniversary of Palestinian Land Day. Then the participants of the march will progress to the borders demanding their free passage to the holy city of Jerusalem. Under international resolution, Jerusalem is a holy city for all religions and the passage to it should be allowed without any obstacle. Israel occupied the holy city during the war of 1967 and since then it took several steps to change the demographic composition of the city in a bid to claim that it should be the capital of its state.

The main march will be in Jordan. Other points of assembly will be on the borders of Palestine with Syria, Lebanon and Egypt.

It is expected that hundreds of thousands of protestors will participate in the march to oppose the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the demand for international community to enforce Israel to recognize and implement International resolutions.

The network is in the mid of gathering support and endorsement for the Amman Communiqué which outline the objectives of the march. We aim to encourage as many Australians as possible to participate in the march by travelling to Jordan. Special attention will be given to get support of high profile Australians for the march. The network will send representatives to the march.

We started already seeking input of active community members and representatives of human rights and Palestinian rights organization to make the Australian participation both effective and valuable. We first asked them to consider endorsing the objectives of the march by endorsing the Amman Communiqué.

Further information on the march could be found on the website http://gm2j.com

We are in the process of calling for broader meeting of individuals and organisations supporting and active on this important issue. We will keep everyone in the society posted about the outcome of the meeting and the efforts to achieve descent Australian participation in the march.

If further information is needed, I can be contacted on 0404 447 272. You also can access our Facebook of Social Justice Network, the Facebook of Viva Palestina Australia or our website www.socialjustice.net.au

Activists can register their intention to participate or endorse the march by sending email to daoud_j6@yahoo.com.au or on the website www.socialjustice.net.au


Jamal Daoud
Social Justice Network