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Police alarm on racial profiling

Simon Kearney

AUSTRALIA'S 50,000 police want the federal Government to indemnify them against civil lawsuits accusing officers of "racial profiling" of Muslims under new anti-terror laws.

Despite John Howard assuring the Muslim community yesterday that they would not be singled out under the new laws - due to be discussed with state leaders in Canberra today - the Police Federation of Australia said it was "inevitable" that police would focus on Muslims.

"Everyone's skirting around this but no one is saying it," said federation chief executive Mark Burgess, who represents federal, state and territory police officers.

"If the intelligence suggested that the likely terrorist will be a young male of Middle Eastern appearance, then they are the people that will be searched," Mr Burgess wrote in a report to be submitted to the Government.

"In New York, there have now been a number of high-profile civil actions commenced against police for racial profiling."

While police support the terrorism package, they are concerned that new stop-and-search powers wil leave them open to accusations of focusing on particular groups.

"Senior cops are not going to waste valuable resources on searching 60-year-old grandmothers - your resources and valuable time are strained enough - (so) it's inevitable that it's going to happen," Mr Burgess said.

The Prime Minister denied that the laws were designed to target any particular group.

"There is nothing in these laws which is aimed specifically at the Muslim community or indeed any other communities," Mr Howard said. But the Muslim community has agreed with police - saying that while the laws themselves are not discriminatory, the implementation would be - and is considering a legal challenge.

Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Ameer Ali said: "The anti-terrorism laws are going to create a legal nightmare for the Government."

The police warning came as state leaders threatened to go it alone and introduce time limits on controversial new counter-terrorism laws if the federal Government does not agree to them at a special Council of Australian Governments meeting in Canberra today.

The premiers and chief ministers will hold a tactics meeting at a Canberra hotel this morning before heading to Parliament House. They want a sunset clause -- an expiry date -- on the new laws, which include detaining terrorist suspects for up to 14 days without charge and electronically tagging suspects for a year.

Mr Howard promised he would listen to their concerns.

Mr Burgess said police in Britain, where there were similar laws, handed out booklets explaining in several languages why people were being stopped and searched. He said Australia should adopt the same system.

Dr Ali said the Islamic community would be taking legal advice on the laws as soon as the details were released.

Lawyer Stephen Hopper said that no matter what safeguards were put in place, people subject to control orders might never know what they were accused of.