You put three sacred cows into perspective:

John Howard is not a cackling anti-christ;
Haneef may actually have done something to attract police interest, and;
There are countries on this earth which actually have an executive who couldn’t care less about the suffering of the people.

How dare you speak commonsense on a fantasy website!

I guess the point is our justice system used to have a concept of innocent until proven guilty and its something a lot of us arent happy to let go easily. And we are uncomfortable with the feds hysterical willingness to ‘politick’ the entire terrorism issue the way they have.

SO, even if Haneef isn’t innocent, we haven’t got anything of substance to prove it that would warrant his present treatment.

There is certainly something very suspicious about Haneef.

Thanks for the info, Srinivas.

Ethnological insights into Bangalore culture would appear to be at least as valid reasons for locking Dr Haneef up as anything the AFP have adduced so far.

There is certainly something very suspicious about Haneef.

And there is even more suspicion as to why Howaed, Ruddoch and Andrews are prepared to trample over the Judiciary to fan those suspicions about Haneef.

The doubt arises because, if Haneef had planned to go to India to see his family, he, in all likelyhood would have had some spare cash to go to India and would not have asked his father-in-law to book his ticket. It is very unusual for a Indian guy to ask his father-in-law for this kind of a help, unless in an absolute emergency and by his own admission, he was planning to go to India much before Jul 2nd. There is certainly something very suspicious about Haneef. One more factor is he seems hardly to have any non-muslim friends, which is very unusual for a guy from Bangakore, the city where I come from.

What is shocking is how the government and AFP together engaged in this dastardly plan of lies and deceit in order to con the gullible and naïve yet again, in what has turned out to be an aborted attempt to change the poll ratings. This series of deceit and lies shows that this government, with the support of the AFP will go to any lengths to con and manipulate the voting public. This is very worrying, too close to a police state and too close to the ‘game’ played by Hitler before he took total control of Germany. Perhaps Steve is right and if Howard wins again, those of us who dare to speak up may end up on Christmas Island. Having worked in the justice field most of my working life, I am especially concerned about this, the false evidence, the prejudicial statements, the corruption of the legal and justice system in what appears to a combined plan of wedge politics. Be worried, be fearful, of what the Howard government will do to further the police state if he gets reelected.

Oh rats, i forgot, i’m a citizen of this increasing bizzare country.

I hope you’re right. We’ll see around 2:00pm on August 7th, won’t we?

This debate should not be about whether Haneef is guilty or innocent: it should be about how the case is handled from beginning to end and where there may be need for further [my emphasis] changes to the existing laws and systems.

Huh?

Among many things, the debate should be about whether the AFP had any just cause at all to subject Dr Haneef to prolonged police scrutiny, prolonged detention, partial disclosure of evidence at their disposal.

And look at Shamaham’s weasel word “further”. This implies the need for legislative changes that take administration of justice further away from tried and true juridical methods.

Shamaham should be judged and condemned for blatant begging of the question.