Outback Justice
SYDNEY (AFP) - Proposed legislation in Australia would make it a crime for one parent to tell the other that their child had been detained under anti-terror laws, a report says.
If a youth aged between 16 and 18 was detained, one parent would be informed and allowed to visit for two hours daily during the detention, which could last for two weeks without charge, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
But if the chosen parent was the father, for example, and he told the mother where the child was, he could be jailed for up to five years.
Yahoo News, via Pop Occulture
When thinking about so-called security measures, ask “what threat this is supposed to defend against?” So what is the threat here? What is gained by keeping one parent ignorant about a child’s fate? Not a damn thing.
One use I can imagine for such a law is to arrest a child, notify the chosen parent (the actual target), and then arrest that parent when (s)he inevitably tells the other parent. At that point the child could be released, or maybe shot. What the hell are these people thinking?
Posted on October 24th, 2005 by pwyll
Filed under: law
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