Photo Above: The act of charity that has seen the Australian regime disgustingly jail 68 year-old Chinese-Australian Di Sanh Duong for two years and nine months. At the height of COVID, Duong donated more than $37,000 to the Royal Melbourne Hospital to help it purchase pandemic response materials. Duong made the 2 June 2020 donation which was collected from his Oceania Federation of Chinese Organisations for Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in a ceremony involving then immigration minister Alan Tudge. Photo credit: James Ross/AAP
Free Di Sanh Duong!
Free the Three Cold War Political Prisoners in Australia!
29 February 2024: Australian citizen of Chinese descent, Di Sanh Duong, today became the first person jailed under Australia’s “Foreign Interference” laws. The Australian regime sentenced 68-year-old Duong to two years and nine months jail for making a charitable donation to a Melbourne public hospital during the height of the pandemic. Yes, you read that right! The act for which Doung has been jailed is the making of a public donation to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a ceremony with then immigration minister, Alan Tudge. The Australian regime and its courts deemed this to be illegal in a largely secret trial. Their allegation boils down to a claim that by giving himself a good name through the donation, Duong was “preparing” to in future advance the interests of the Communist Party of China (CPC) – the party that administers the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). What Duong is really being punished for is the fact that although he is certainly no leftist (Duong was actually a long-time member of the Liberal Party!), the group that he led, the Oceania Federation of Chinese Organisations for Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, has signed (from a Chinese patriotic point of view) public statements showing some sympathy for the PRC. By jailing Di Sanh Duong, Australia’s capitalist regime is seeking to threaten others, especially members of this country’s Chinese community, that they should not express any positive views about the PRC. They are also demonising Duong in order to try and create an anti-communist, anti-China hysteria amongst the population. The Australian ruling class wants to justify to the masses its rabidly enthusiastic participation in Western imperialism’s all-sided political, economic and military campaign to destroy socialistic rule in China.
The charge under which Duong has been jailed is so ridiculous that Duong was not even convicted of “foreign interference”. Instead, he was convicted of “preparing to commit an act of foreign interference”. As we explained in an article titled, “Resist the Cold War Repression” that was written a few months before Duong’s trial late last year:
“Federal prosecutors claim that Duong’s donation to the hospital charity was a means for him to `interfere’ with then immigration minister Tudge – presumably by presenting Duong in a good light to the minister. Yet if that logic is followed consistently, there would literally be tens of thousands of other donors being arrested: for every single person who makes a donation to a charity in a public way is doing it to win themselves credibility with others and gain the influence which that brings. Yet the Australian regime is fine with nearly all others who make public donations to charity. Indeed, when a billionaire tycoon publicly donates to a charity a tiny fraction of the wealth that they have leached from the masses, the regime gushes with praise. But when the leader of a Chinese organisation that is somewhat sympathetic to the PRC makes such a donation, Australia’s regime screams that that this is a sinister act of `foreign interference’ on behalf of the CPC. Such a claim is a crystal clear example of McCarthyism. McCarthyism, the name given to the 1950s anti-communist witch-hunt in the U.S. and Australia, is based on the premise that those who either support communism or are even mildly sympathetic to a socialistic state should be treated with suspicion and denied the rights accorded to others … in this case even the right to publicly donate to a local public hospital!”
Yet even when compared with the hysterical zealotry of the 1950s McCarthyist witch-hunt, today’s lengthy prison sentence handed down to an elderly man – who suffers from glaucoma and cataracts as well as diabetes and high blood pressure – for merely making a public donation to a hospital to aid their pandemic response comes off as especially fanatical. Today’s sentencing judgement by judge Maidment was full of vitriolic denunciations of the Chinese Communist Party and it’s supposedly “pervasive foreign influence program”. Basically the judge has decided that an Australian person, who has even vague links to organisations associated with the Chinese Communist Party, who advocates a political position and happens to take the same stance as the Chinese Communist Party is definitely engaging in “foreign interference” rather than that person happening to share the same belief on an issue as the PRC government that is led by the Chinese Communist Party. Moreover, the Cold War extremist judge’s sentencing judgement practically insists that anyone who has any relations with people who are members of the Chinese Communist Party and who does not declare those associations before making any political advocacy is engaging in “a significant breach of trust” using “covert methodology”. Do Australians who have friends in, or links with, the Liberal or Labor or Greens or One Nation parties here – or say the Republican or Democrat parties in the U.S. – always declare their friendships or connections with those parties every time that they advocate something to a political figure or community organisation?
Despite the sentencing judge’s rantings, the truth is that the Communist Party of China conducts almost no direct interference in Australia’s politics. The foreign state that interferes in Australian political processes the most is the USA. But even U.S. influence operations on Australian politics are today of secondary importance. By far the biggest interferers in Australia’s “democracy” are the wealthy capitalist tycoons and the corporations that they own. These ultra-rich capitalists make very public charity donations to gain a positive reputation in order to influence political decisions according to their agendas – as Di Sanh Duong is alleged to have done – but on a scale far, far bigger and wider than a person like Duong collecting from members of his grassroots community organisation would ever have any hope of doing. This big end of town uses far more direct and potent methods to control political life in this country to an extent that is in great disproportion to their small size. They do so through direct donations to political parties, through the corporate and bosses organisations that they fund, through the corporations that they own being able to entice politicians and high-ranking bureaucrats with the prospects of future lucrative careers in their companies, through using their control of the economy to effectively hold government and other state institutions to ransom; and through the lobbyists that they hire, the media that they own and the NGOs and “independent” think tanks that they establish (like the Lowy Institute, the Institute for Public Affairs and the Australia Institute). Many of these influence operations involve truly “covert methodology” with their media and think tanks making the completely false, lying claim that they are “independent”, unbiased publishers of news and opinion. And while some of their direct political donations are reported – albeit usually many months after they first make them thus diminishing the impact of the disclosure – much of it is concealed through paying big payments to attend super-expensive fundraising dinners or through being funnelled through third parties. Yet none of these corporate bigwigs and their henchmen are even threatened with imprisonment for engaging in such interference in this country’s political system! That is of little surprise – the ruling capitalist class always intended Australia’s “democracy” to be a “democracy” that is controlled exclusively by their class, making sure that their so-called “democratic” system was organised and administered in such a way that would be most conducive for the political interference of the rich in it to continue unabated and largely unhindered.
Resist the Cold War Repression!
Di Sanh Duong’s sentencing judge has slapped a very severe jail term on a person who has had no prior convictions for a supposed “offence” that involved no violence, had no victim and was not even alleged to have done any damage unless you believe that helping hospitals treat COVID is damaging! By contrast, last ANZAC Day when a Brisbane man shouting racist abuse against Chinese people assaulted several Asian-Australians fishing on a pier, he was not only not given a jail term but he was not even given a criminal conviction. He was, instead, merely given a small civil fine. This is despite the fact that his assault using a metal object as a weapon could have been fatal had he succeeded in knocking one of the victims into the water after debilitating them through a blow with his weapon. That slap on the wrist to a violent anti-Chinese racist when contrasted with Duong’s outrageously heavy sentence shows the extreme anti-communist and racist bias of Australia’s legal system and judiciary.
Sunny Duong, as he is affectionately known, has today become Australia’s third Cold War political prisoner. Of the other two current political prisoners, one is pilot Daniel Duggan who has been imprisoned for the last sixteen months under harsh conditions for merely training Chinese pilots to fly more than ten years ago! The Australian regime is seeking to extradite Duggan to the U.S. to face charges as nothing he did is illegal by Australian laws. Meanwhile, Alexander Csergo has been jailed for the last eleven months accused of violating Australia’s “foreign interference” laws for merely looking up open source politics and defence affairs articles on the internet and passing their contents over to a Chinese think tank!
The anti-China hysteria surrounding all this Cold War repression – especially the persecution of ethnic Chinese Di Sanh Duong – will only further inflame anti-Chinese racism in Australia. It is a call out to all the filthy racists. It will lead to more people of Chinese appearance being abused in public transport and shopping centres, being bullied at school and being physically attacked on Australia’s streets. Moreover, these Cold War prosecutions have helped produce such a “national security” obsession that it is being used to intensify the repression of those targeted for matters not directly related to the Cold War. Thus, there is no doubt that the repressive political atmosphere created by the new McCarthyist witch-hunt has contributed to the prosecution of whistle blower, David McBride. McBride was convicted last November of “unlawfully disclosing Commonwealth documents” after he gave to the media information detailing the horrific and very widespread war crimes that were being committed by the Australian regime’s forces during their participation in the NATO occupation of Afghanistan. Now, he too faces imprisonment. The entire Left and all genuine defenders of democratic rights in Australia must demand: Drop the Charges against David McBride! Free Di Sanh Duong now! Free Daniel Duggan and Alexander Csergo! Scrap Australia’s draconian “Foreign Interference” laws! Down with the new McCarthyist witch-hunt!
21 September 2023, Eastwood, Sydney: Leftists and progressive members of the Chinese community rally to oppose the Cold War Witch-Hunt in Australia and the stigmatisation of Australia’s Chinese community that has accompanied the ruling class’ Cold War drive against socialistic China. The action was initiated by Trotskyist Platform and the Australian Chinese Workers Association. Below: One of the slogans carried at the action called for the scrapping of Australia’s new McCarthyist, “Foreign Interference” laws.
As part of their Cold War drive to destroy socialistic rule in China, the Australian and other imperialist ruling classes seek to attack the PRC over “human rights”. However, the truth is that unlike Australia’s capitalist regime the PRC does not jail people for donating to public hospitals! We should stress that the imprisonment of Di Sanh Duong here has very little in common with the former imprisonment of Australian citizen, Cheng Lei, in China and the current jailing of another Chinese-Australian in China, Yang Hengjun. Cheng Lei was jailed for illegally supplying state secrets overseas – a form of spying. Notably, Cheng Lei confessed to the crimes – although she has tried to walk back and obscure her confession after returning to Australia after serving her sentence. For his part, Yang Hengjun was found guilty of espionage. It is important to understand that not only were Cheng Lei and Yang Hengjun convicted of offences that would be considered very serious in any country, from the point of view of the interests of the working class of Australia and the whole world their actions truly are crimes. For they weaken and undermine a workers state – a workers state in the form of socialistic China. Their actions are as abusive towards the working class masses as a person who crosses a picket line to scab on a strike but with potentially even more damaging consequences. Unlike the Cold War political prisoners that Australia has imprisoned here, Cheng Lei and Yang Hengjun were not jailed for merely donating to a public hospital or teaching people (apparently civilian pilots) how to fly planes or passing on the results of Google searches!
Today, the claims of the Australian and other Western capitalist rulers that they stand for “human rights” are being thoroughly exposed by their active support for Israel’s heinous war on the Palestinian people. Through hosting and jointly operating the joint U.S.-Australia spy base at the Northern Territory’s Pine Gap – which pinpoints a large number of Israel’s air and artillery strikes on Gaza – and through joining the U.S.-led Red Sea operation against Yemeni actions in support of Gaza, the Labor Party-administeredAustralian regime is directly participating in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. This shows that whether administered by the right-wing Liberal-Nationals, the social democratic ALP or any other party, Australia’s capitalist-serving state will use the cruellest means possible to protect the interests of this country’s ruling class – that small but powerful class of people that obtain their massive wealth through exploiting the labour of others. And that includes putting people sympathetic to Red China who publicly donate to hospitals in jail!
Today’s imprisonment of Di Sanh Duong underscores the importance of the demonstration that Trotskyist Platform and the Australian Chinese Workers Association conducted in Sydney’s Eastwood last September that called to “RESIST THE COLD WAR WITCH-HUNT!” That action also opposed the marginalisation of Australia’s Chinese community that has accompanied the ruling class’ Cold War drive against socialistic China. During the protest march, we loudly chanted, “Resist, Resist, the Cold War Witch-hunt!” and “Di Sanh Duong, Drop His Charges Now!” We now need to urgently build on that action and grow and strengthen the movement. We need to build a mass united-front movement of anti-Cold War leftists, pro-PRC members of the Chinese community and the most advanced sections of the workers movement to demand: Free Di Sanh Duong! Free Australia’s three Cold War political prisoners! Scrap Australia’s draconian “Foreign Interference” laws! Down with anti-Chinese racism! Down with the Western capitalist ruling classes’ Cold War offensive against socialistic China that is the root cause of this repression!
Energetic Protest Opposes the Australian Rulers’ Cold War Witch-Hunt
26 September 2023: Two days ago, about forty people participated in a determined protest against the stigmatisation and marginalisation of Australia’s Chinese community that has accompanied the ruling class’ Cold War drive against socialistic China. Witch-hunting in Australia associated with the U.S. and Australian rulers’ new Cold War has specifically targeted that majority section of the Chinese community that has a friendly attitude towards the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). Sunday’s action also opposed the broader Cold War repression in Australia. This repression is increasingly targeting even non-Chinese people who continue to maintain pragmatic relations with the PRC and her institutions. Even people with no particular political sympathy for China are being persecuted.
Sunday’s protest in the Sydney suburb of Eastwood has special importance. Since the Australian ruling class began aggressively persecuting the PRC-friendly section of the Chinese community nearly six years ago and started targeting others in this witch-hunt too, this was the very first action whose main focus was pushing back at this Cold War repression. And it was the first demonstration to in any way call-out such Cold War witch-hunting since the campaign to free pro-North Korea, then political prisoner in Australia, Chan Han Choi, culminated nearly two and a half years ago when Choi was freed from the clutches of capitalist Australia’s “justice” system.
The September 24 rally and march was reported on by the popular Chinese-language Australian news site, Sydney Today and picked up by many other Chinese-language news sites. Reflecting the deep concerns of Australia’s Chinese community, the article about the rally had one of the highest number of readers’ comments of any article published by Sydney Today on the day that the report was issued.
The main banner of the demonstration called to “RESIST THE COLD WAR WITCH-HUNT!” The other banner slogans included, “Free the People of Many Ethnicities That the Australian Regime is Cruelly Prosecuting for Merely Engaging with China’s Institutions!”, “Stop the Marginalisation of the Chinese Community!”, “Resist the Attacks on Social Organisations Friendly to China!” and “Stop the New McCarthyist Witch-hunt! `Free Speech’ Must Include the Right to Express Positive Views about Socialistic China!”
The September 24 rally was proudly multiracial in composition bringing people of white Australian background together with people from Chinese, Korean and other Asian and Middle Eastern ethnicities. It was endorsed by the Australian Chinese Workers Association (ACWA), ourselves in Trotskyist Platform, Anti-War West Sydney and, in an individual capacity, by well-known peace activist Nick Deane who is both the convenor of the Marrickville Peace Group and a member of the Independent and Peaceful Australian Network (IPAN). For the ACWA, it took particular courage to participate in this action. Since the Cold War witch-hunt threatens all Chinese community organisations that have either a friendly or neutral attitude towards Red China – that is all Australian-Chinese groups that refuse to enlist in the capitalist rulers’ PRC-bashing campaign – the ACWA is itself one of the groups in the firing line.
Each of the endorsing entities had representatives speak at Sunday’s rally. The formal part of the demonstration began with an address by one of the two co-chairs of the event, ACWA chairman, David Chen. Introducing the action David stated:
“Thank you everyone who has come here to support this important action to oppose the marginalisation of the Chinese community in Australia and to stand up against the new Cold War witch-hunt.
“I want to start by acknowledging that we are gathering here on the land of the Wallumettagal clan of the Eora First Nations people.
“My name is David Chen and I am the chairman of the Australian Chinese Workers Association. I will be co-chairing this event together with my friend Sarah Fitzenmeyer who is the chairwoman of Trotskyist Platform, the Australian-Chinese Workers Association’s partners in initiating this event.
“My remarks will be focussed on one important symptom of the marginalisation of the Chinese community. That is Ryde City Council’s decision to name a big chunk of Eastwood without properly consulting the Chinese community or the broader community at all [Editor’s note: According to the latest census, people of Chinese ethnicity are by far the biggest ethnic group in Eastwood and make up 49% of the suburb. However, recently the local council that covers Eastwood has decided to rename a big chunk of the suburb as `Koreatown’ without consulting the Chinese community. This has provoked outrage among some who see it as a symptom of how marginalised the Chinese community in Australia has become]. Sarah and other speakers will then talk about the many other aspects of Cold War repression in Australia which has seen Chinese social organisations slandered, people of various ethnicities jailed or charged for having connections to China and violent racist forces being encouraged on the streets.”
In calling to “suspend the construction of the Koreatown project” until a proper consultation has taken place, the ACWA chairman stressed that his group’s stance has nothing to do whatsoever with rivalry with the Korean community or even disapproval of the existence of a “Koreatown” within Eastwood per se but is based on opposition to the Ryde City Council’s lack of consultation with the Chinese community and lack of openness around the Eastwood naming issue. He concluded by calling for Ryde to become “a model multicultural community where all ethnic groups live together in peace, friendship and equality.” Indeed, it was notable that several people of Korean ancestry joined the September 24 protest.
Above:Australian Chinese Workers Association chairman David Chen, one of the two rally co-chairs, makes his opening remarks to the September 24 action. Below: the Chinese language banner carried by demonstrators. It’s main slogan was “We Demand an Immediate Halt to the Marginalisation and Stigmatisation of the Australian-Chinese Community in the Context of the New Cold War“. The Chinese banner’s additional slogans were: “Free Australians of Any Ethnicity who Are Being Cruelly Imprisoned or Prosecuted for Maintaining Pragmatic Relations with China and Her Institutions!”, “Suspend the Recent Naming of a Big Part of Eastwood Which Was Rammed through without Consulting the Suburb’s Most Numerically Significant Community – the Australian-Chinese Community!”, “Stop the Attacks on Chinese Community Organisations That Exercise Their Right to Have a Sympathetic or Neutral Stance towards China!” and “Down With the New McCarthyist Witch-hunt! Stop the Attempts to Repress People who Make Social Media Comments Sympathetic to the People’s Republic of China!”
“For All Working-Class People and Nearly All Middle-Class People Too, the Cold War Witch-hunting is Completely Against Our Interests”
Next to speak, was the other rally co-chair, our Trotskyist Platform chairwoman Sarah Fitzenmeyer. Sarah began her speech by stating:
“We are gathering here today on the stolen land of the Wallumettagal clan of the Eora First Nations people. This country’s current political order is built on the brutal dispossession of Aboriginal people. Alongside this, the regime here has often engaged in persecuting Asian people – especially Chinese people. This started from the mid-19th century gold rush and then continued on into the White Australian Policy after Federation.
“Anti-Chinese racism has come back with a vengeance over the last few years – driven not only by the long-standing racist xenophobia but also the jingoism surrounding the Australian rulers’ participation in the Western regimes’ Cold War drive to destroy and ultimately annihilate socialistic rule in China. To justify their Cold War, the Australian ruling class have created a fear of China. They have been slandering sections of the Chinese community as supposed “agents” of “foreign interference” from Red China. Such propaganda inevitably creates hostility towards the Chinese community.
“To stifle any opposition to their Cold War drive, Australia’s capitalist rulers use repression to silence people – both within the Chinese community and the broader community – anyone who dares to express a positive view on the Peoples Republic of China.
“In the face of this increasing stigmatisation, we say that the Chinese community should not have to stand alone. It is the duty of Australians of other ethnicities, especially white Australians, to strongly oppose the attacks on the Chinese community and – in particular – the attacks on that large section of the Chinese community that has positive views about the Peoples Republic of China. Taking such a stance is a big part of what today’s demonstration is all about.”
Sarah then listed some of the “examples of how the Australia’s rulers’ Cold War, China-bashing campaign has caused great harm to both the Chinese and the broader community” and recalled the 1950s McCarthyist witch-hunt in the U.S. and Australia (that saw many communists and others deemed sympathetic to then most powerful socialistic state – the Soviet Union – being sacked from their jobs and in many cases imprisoned):
“Five years ago, all of Australia’s parliamentarians from all political parties voted to introduce repressive, so-called Foreign Interference laws. The true purpose of these authoritarian laws is to prevent certain groups of people from expressing views that are positive about socialistic China.
“The following year, the then NSW Liberal state government, pressured by the Greens, banned the China-connected Confucius Institutes from teaching Chinese language in NSW schools. The politicians ludicrously claimed that this language teaching would be used by China to conduct foreign interference.
“Around the same time, Australia’s ASIO secret police unleashed threatening interrogations against Chinese international students who had become involved in political activity. In August 2019, the students had organised a large pro-China rally against the pro-colonial, anti-China rioters in Hong Kong. While the Australian ruling class were overtly backing the anti-communist, anti-China forces holding rallies here, when pro-Peoples Republic of China activists did the same, they were hit with terrifying intimidation by Australia’s secret police….
“In November 2020, the leader of the Chinese community group, the Oceania Federation of Chinese Organisations, Di Sanh Duong, became the first person charged under Australia’s Foreign Interference laws. Ridiculously, the Australian regime claimed that the charity collection that he organised for a public hospital was an act of `Foreign Interference’. Can you believe it?
“The Cold War repression has reached such a level that many non-Chinese people are now also being targeted.
“The NSW state MP, Shaoquett Moselmane, in 2020, was subjected to an intense media attack after he made the manifestly true statement that China had responded effectively to the COVID pandemic. Both the AFP and ASIO unleashed a massive raid on Moselmane’s home to supposedly investigate `foreign interference’….
“The neo-McCarthyist witch-hunt has reached such proportions that even people without the slightest sympathy for China but who have had pragmatic relations with PRC entities are being persecuted….
“In one of the most outrageous persecutions of this entire neo-McCarthyist campaign, Australian citizen and former U.S. fighter pilot, Daniel Duggan, is facing extradition to the U.S. simply for training Chinese, most very likely civilian, pilots in South Africa …. For this Duggan has been languishing in harsh conditions in NSW prisons for the last ten months. The prosecution of the 54 year-old pilot has little to do with upholding the law. In the context of the crazed Cold War drive against socialistic China, Duggan is a convenient object for the U.S. and Australian rulers to create a show trial to hype up the supposed `Chinese military threat.’
“If we do not push back against this Cold War repression it’s going to get even more intense. Earlier this year, the Albanese government banned public sector employees from accessing the popular Chinese, short-video platform, TikTok, on government devices. Last month, a parliamentary committee further demanded that TikTok and WeChat be subjected to requirements that could provide the basis for completely banning these platforms in Australia.”
The rally co-chair stressed that “for all working-class people and nearly all middle-class people too, the Cold War witch-hunting is completely against our interests”:
“This Cold War witch-hunt is helping to foster an unhealthy, hysterical national security obsession. It is this climate that has enabled the Australian regime to persecute the courageous whistle blower, David McBride, the former Australian Army lawyer who exposed the Australian regime’s horrific war crimes in Afghanistan.
“The main aim Western rulers’ have for their new Cold War is of course to crush socialistic rule in China. This would be completely catastrophic for more than 90% of the people of Australia and the entire West. To ensure that this future does not come true what is most badly needed is for socialistic rule in China to succeed and flourish…. While people in Australia are ground down by unaffordable power, fuel and food prices because of the greed of the oil, gas and electricity company owners, we need to be able to point to the existence and reality of what public ownership is capable of [in the PRC], how China’s energy and power sectors are publicly owned and thus price gouging does not exist there.
“Sisters and brothers this is what we must do, we need to oppose in entirety the political, economic, propaganda and military campaign which is being waged against socialistic rule in China. And this means that we must oppose all Cold War witch-hunts that are being used to promote the war drive and to silence any opposition to it.”
Next to speak was anti-war activist Nick Deane. Recalling how he had campaigned against the Vietnam War and then against the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Nick Deane expressed his fear that the U.S. and its allies would actually unleash a war on China. He explained that China is no threat at all to any country and that Australia actually does not have any external threats whatsoever. Instead the real threat is the climate crisis. The peace activist emphasised the need to oppose Australia’s planned acquisition of nuclear submarines under the AUKUS pact.
Demonstrators at the September 24 action listen to a speech by anti-war activist Nick Deane.
“We Have to Resist the Coming New Fascism by Resisting the New McCarthyist Repression Today!”
Samuel Kim then spoke on behalf of Trotskyist Platform. He began by skewering the persecution of Di Sanh Duong and the so-called “Foreign Interference” laws that Di Sanh Duong has been charged under: Take the case of Melbourne Vietnamese-Chinese community leader, Di Sanh Duong, known as Sunny Duong. Three and a half years ago, Sunny arranged for a community group to collect over $37,000 for a Melbourne Hospital to treat COVID patients …. You would think that this act of charity would win Sunny’s organisation praise. Instead he has been arrested and charged with foreign interference. The reason that Sunny is being targeted is because his group has a friendly attitude towards China. Donating money to a hospital could see Sunny Duong facing up to ten years in jail!
Sunny Duong was charged under Australia’s draconian, so-called, “Foreign Interference” laws brought in five years ago. Under the cover of these authoritarian laws, a very large number of office bearers of Chinese social organisations that have a friendly attitude towards Red China have been subjected to intimidating interrogations by Australia’s ASIO secret police. This Gestapo style secret police then threaten people not to talk about the interrogations. Therefore, it is not publicly known who had been interrogated! The combined ASIO intimidation, repressive laws, and media lies have pressured many Chinese social organisations to reduce their public activities.
Samuel warned of how the new McCarthyist witch-hunt is threatening to persecute ever more people: A couple of months ago, the likes of far-right Liberal MP James Patterson and Greens MP David Shoebridge even demanded that the police arrest people who make strong social media comments defending China against anti-communist, anti-China activists. If we are not careful, in the future even people here who criticise the Cold War and extremist Sinophobes, or who advocate for the public ownership of the banks and key sectors – may be accused of “foreign interference”…. Like a cancer, the Cold War witch-hunt in Australia is spreading. The whole parliament from parties that are neo-fascist like One Nation to the Liberals, Labor and the Greens join the Cold War as they all serve the ruling class. Many non-Chinese are now also being targeted.
During his speech, Samuel Kim briefly addressed the Eastwood naming issue noting that he is a person of Korean background: With Chinese voices silenced by the Cold War no wonder that the Council renamed part of Eastwood “Koreatown” without consulting the Chinese community. As a Korean person, I was shocked, because I knew Eastwood is overwhelmingly Chinese, and not Korean. If there should be a Koreatown, it should be in the southern part of Lidcombe where Koreans are the main ethnic group. But what has happened here in Eastwood is not about Koreans. This is a symptom of the growing attacks on the Chinese community.
The Trotskyist Platform spokesman not only re-asserted the basic point that the Cold War repression in Australia is aimed at ensuring the population’s subservience to the capitalist rulers’ drive to crush socialistic rule in China but explained why the capitalist rulers are hell-bent on this quest and why we must defend socialistic rule in China: Despite China’s transition to socialism being incomplete and bureaucratically deformed from hostile pressure, China is proving that socialism can greatly improve the lives of the masses …. This will encourage the struggle for socialism here…. Capitalist rule in Australia is leading to homelessness and unaffordable rents …. Meanwhile workers real wages are plummeting, all whilst corporate profits soar, the prices of food, fuel and electricity are surging and society is becoming more toxicly racist and cannibalistic due to capitalist individualistic savagery and brutality. So it is crucial that socialistic China succeeds and societies learn from her socialist-owned banks, property, and enterprises. Working-class people here must do whatever is possible to defend socialistic rule in China. We demand U.S. and Australian navies get out of the South China Sea! Down with the acquisition of long-range missiles and nuclear subs! Scrap Western support for the anti-working class Taiwanese regime! Challenge the propaganda against China – over COVID, Hong Kong or treatment of her Uyghur minority – for they are lies like the Iraq WMD allegations that lead to war, took lives, and wasted trillions of dollars!
In the context of the Cold War repression in Australia, Samuel responded to the demands by Australia’s capitalist media that prime minister Anthony Albanese attack the PRC “over human rights” when Albanese has his expected meeting with the PRC president in China later this year: When prime minister Albanese meets Chinese president Xi Jinping later this year he has absolutely no right to criticise China about “human rights”. In fact, we appeal to Chinese president Xi Jinping to ask Albanese to scrap Australia’s draconian, so-called, Foreign Interference laws and to stop the intimidating ASIO interrogations…. We also appeal to Xi to demand that the Australian regime drop the charges against those imprisoned here or facing jail on charges related to the Cold War witch-hunt.
The Trotskyist Platform representative concluded his speech by urging resistance to the new McCarthyist witch-hunt in Australia warning that it if this Cold War repression is not resisted it could become a springboard to something even more horrifying: As the capitalist order decays, there are far-right forces strengthening who want nothing less than to impose a Nazi-style or Mussolini-style fascist version of capitalism to maximise profits and quell dissent. In the U.S., Europe and to some degree Australia, these forces are growing. We have to resist the coming new fascism by resisting the new McCarthyist repression today …. Workers, students, out-of-work people of all ethnicities, religions, and background have to step up and struggle …. Let’s demand: Stop the attacks on Chinese social organisations friendly to China! Drop the charges against Di Sanh Duong! Free Daniel Duggan! Free Alexander Csergo! Stop the Cold War marginalisation of Australia‘s Chinese community! Stand with socialistic China!
Alongside the speeches of our spokespeople and the leaflets that we distributed, Trotskyist Platform supporters promoted a perspective of working-class based opposition to the Cold War repression through the placards that we carried at the rally. Among our many signs at the demonstration were ones that called to: “Resist the Push By Australian Politicians to Repress People Who Make Strong Social Media Comments Sympathetic to the People’s Republic of China!”, “Resist the Australian Regime’s Attempts to Silence Positive Opinions About Socialistic China! With Working-Class People Here Suffering Unaffordable Rents, Insecure Jobs and Plunging Real Wages We Badly Need to Hear About China’s Socialistic Alternative” and “A Strong Socialistic China is Good for Australian Working Class People. Australian Workers: Defend the PRC Workers State!” Additionally our ethnic Korean supporters carried bilingual English and Korean placards with messages such as: “Working-Class Korean-Australians Say: Stop Discrimination Against Australia’s Chinese Community!”
Some of the rally participants gather together prior to beginning their march through the streets of Eastwood.
Sabotuers Rebuffed, the Pro-PRC Chinese Community Given Confidence, the Resistance is Energised
After several speeches in English, ACWA chairman David Chen addressed the Chinese-speaking people present at the rally by reiterating in Mandarin Chinese the points made in his initial introductory speech. The rally then marched west down Eastwood’s Rowe Street mall and then snaked through the shop-crowded streets of Eastwood in a loop that took us past the main entrance to the suburb’s railway station. Here is a video of a part of the march taken by the Australian-Chinese online newspaper, Sydney Today:
Immediately after the march, a message of solidarity to the action was read out from Wayne Sonter, the leader of activist group, Anti-War West Sydney. The messaged expressed “strong opposition to this governments attempts to intimidate and suppress all those who may have links with, or express views supportive of the PRC.” The solidarity statement stressed that:
“Anti-War West Sydney supports the concepts of a global community of nations, a global green new deal and aspirations for an ecological civilisation.
“We support and advocate a pathway to peace, progress and sustainability, not a road to endless war, destruction and catastrophe.
“We, or our governments cannot choose to do both. The Australian government, by these acts of intimidation and a host of associated commitments shows to the Australian people that it has chosen the wrong path and is on the wrong side of history”
During the march, participants loudly chanted “Resist, Resist, the Cold War Witch-hunt!” and “Di Sanh Duong, Drop His Charges Now!” Chinese-speakers on the march also chanted in Mandarin, calling to unite against the discrimination targeting the Chinese community. The march attracted a great deal of interest and sympathy from onlookers in the local Chinese community and from the broader Eastwood community. Indeed, throughout the whole event we met with few signs of hostility (aside from some drunken rednecks who chanted “We want nukes” as we marched past a pub that they were patronising).
However, in the days leading up to the demonstration, there was a concerted attempt by hostile forces to sabotage the action. A small number of representatives of two Chinese business bosses’ groups – the Eastwood Chinatown Chamber of Commerce and the Northwest Chinese Business Association – that had both hastily scrambled together their formation in the three weeks leading up to the rally, tried to bully the ACWA into pulling back from the September 24 action. Most harmfully, they spread disinformation within the Chinese community implying that Sunday’s demonstration would be deemed illegal by the police. We would not call these disgusting acts of sabotage a “betrayal”. Rather, it is a case of capitalists and their henchmen acting in their own class interests – the interests that is of a class that extracts its income from plundering the fruits of their workers’ labour. To be sure, as in every other political dispute, personal factors like ego come into the equation. However, at bottom, certain business bosses and their avaricious upper-middle class henchmen were acting against the September 24 rally because they feared that the explicitly pro-working class initiators of the action – the Australian Chinese Workers Association and Trotskyist Platform – could gain greater authority and that this could eventually lead to their own workers becoming more assertive of their rights and better connected with the broader Australian trade union movement. Or, to put it another way, a few of the local business bosses feared that the activism of the groups that spearheaded the September 24 rally could eventually threaten the level of profit that they can gain by exploiting their own workers. For in the end, a capitalist in Australia is a capitalist – regardless of whether they have white European, Chinese, Korean or any other ancestry! To be sure, even capitalist Chinese in Australia suffer discrimination as a result of the explosion of anti-Chinese sentiment incited by the Cold War witch-hunt. However, at the same time, the fact that this present socio-economic order upholds their very privileged economic and social position makes them zealously loyal to the current order and suspicious of any protest against the pro-capitalist authorities upholding it. Thus the particular capitalist elements within the Chinese community that attempted to undermine the September 24 rally objected to the “combative” approach to governments of the protest initiators. They counterposed to this their “positive” attitude to governments in dealing with both the Eastwood naming issue and the much more serious attacks faced by the Chinese community. Of course, these forces would be the first to grab for themselves any concessions to the Chinese community that the authorities make in a response to the activism of the likes of those of us who conducted the September 24 protest.
In many ways, the conduct of those upper-class elements within the Chinese community that sought to undermine the September 24 rally can be compared to the attitude that several Indian-Australian community groups took to protests in the late noughties against the wave of violent racist attacks on Indian students that were unleashed in Australia at that time. Although these Indian community groups included people in all classes within them (unlike those who sought to sabotage the September 24 action), it is upper-class and upper-middle class elements who – through their ability to make big donations and the often greater eloquence that flows from their greater opportunities to access high-quality education – have gained a stranglehold on many of these Indian-Australian community groups. As a result, even though the leaders of these groups’ own children may have been subjected to racist bullying at school – and on the streets – as part of the wave of anti-Indian violence, they downplayed the racist attacks on Indian, mainly international, students and condemned the spirited anti-racist protests of these students. They proved that they would rather accept, albeit with a heavy heart, racist attacks on Indian international students and even the threat of such attacks on their own children, than risk any damage to the authority of the social order that upholds their very privileged economic and social status. This attitude of the wealthy leaders of some Australian-Indian community groups provoked understandable outrage back in India. Today, certain of their class compatriots within the Australian-Chinese capitalist class are following in their footsteps with respect to the Cold War stigmatisation and marginalisation of the Chinese community today.
Those who sought to sabotage the September 24 action did have some success. With Australian-Chinese people who considered attending the rally only too aware that they are in the Cold War firing line of the authorities, fear of the likelihood of a police attack on the protest that was deviously spread by the saboteurs did indeed cause some Chinese people who were planning to join the action to decide to stay home. However, the saboteurs’ campaign against the 24 September action only made the core cadre in the ACWA more determined. As a result they, Trotskyist Platform and the other rally supporters were able to successfully conduct the action. The demonstration received much sympathy from onlookers who saw it and others who later heard about it, as well as important coverage in the Australian-Chinese media. Most importantly, the ethnic Chinese people who participated in the September 24 protest were invigorated by the action; as were the many non-Chinese people who took part. A huge step has been taken in conducting the very first action in Australia to directly oppose the Cold War marginalisation of the Australian-Chinese community and broader Cold War repression. Momentum for follow-up actions has inevitably been created. Those who hesitated in participating this time but heard of the successful conduct of the action, will be keen to join next time.
As rally co-chair Sarah Fitzenmeyer stressed in her concluding remarks:
“We must push back against this Cold War repression even though it is not going to be easy. The witch-hunting climate is intense and is accompanied by rabid propaganda by the mainstream media pushing the `China Threat’ and `Chinese Foreign Interference’ hoaxes. But history is made by the brave and not by the cowardly and today’s rally is an important step forward. It is indeed the very first action that has directly opposed the overall McCarthyist witch-hunt in Australia. So well done everyone who has come here to support this action….
“I hope the Chinese community, especially the section sympathetic to the People’s Republic of China, gets the message from today’s action that they are not alone. It is vitally important that those Chinese-Australians with a sympathetic view about socialistic China feel that they are not alone. Because we need you to be able to express your views …. We need you to tell other Australians about what the People’s Republic of China is really like and how much she has achieved in poverty alleviation and in improving the lives of her people. We need this because we know that this will help undercut support for the dangerous anti-China war drive that our rulers are hell-bent on pushing.
“So, with courage and perseverance, let us resist the Cold War repression in Australia and demand: End the Cold War witch-hunt! Free the Cold War political prisoners in Australia! Scrap the authoritarian foreign interference laws! Stop the ASIO raids! Stop the attempts to silence social media users sympathetic to socialistic China! Let’s resist our rulers’ political, military and propaganda campaign against socialistic China that is the root cause of this new Cold War repression!”
Photo Above, 26 June 2020: Some of the dozens of ASIO secret police and Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers that raided the home of then NSW Labor MP, Shaoquett Moselmane. The upper house state MP was witch-hunted because he had weeks earlier made the manifestly true statement that China had responded effectively to the COVID pandemic. Moselmane was politically lynched by the mainstream media after authorities gave the media pre-warning of the raid to enhance the witch-hunt. However, later, after Moselmane’s reputation had been trashed, the AFP finally confirmed that he had no case to answer … and that they never intended to charge him!
OPPOSE THE PERSECUTION OF AUSTRALIAN-CHINESE COMMUNITY ORGANISATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE SYMPATHETIC TO RED CHINA!
RESIST THE COLD WAR REPRESSION!
26 August 2023: Di Sanh Duong is a respected member of Melbourne’s Chinese community. The man in his late 60s, known affectionately as “Sunny”, is the president of the Oceania Federation of Chinese Organisations. The group represents people of Chinese descent that have roots in the Chinese minority communities of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. In June 2020, in front of the then immigration minister Alan Tudge, Duong made a donation of more than $37,000 on behalf of his organisation to the Royal Melbourne Hospital to help the latter treat COVID patients. This big donation to a hospital made by Duong’s organisation during the height of the pandemic would be an act that would win most people in most countries respect for themselves and their organisation. But not for an ethnic Chinese person in present day Australia, during the midst of the anti-China, anti-communist Cold War! And especially not for a prominent member of a Chinese organisation that – as is the case with Duong’s organisation – has “failed” to enlist in the U.S. and Australian ruling classes’ propaganda war against Red China! For his “terrible deed” of making a large public donation to a hospital on behalf of a Chinese community organisation that is mildly sympathetic to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Di Sanh Duong is facing ten years jail for breaching Australia’s draconian “Foreign Interference” laws. Duong is the first person charged under these 2018 laws. He is currently on bail awaiting trial.
How on earth can Australia’s capitalist regime claim that a person making a donation to a public hospital is engaged in “foreign interference” on behalf of the Communist Party of China (CPC)?!! Well, that would be hard to sell. So, the authorities have instead charged Duong with “engaging in conduct with the intention of preparing for, or planning, foreign interference.” If that sounds like a very vague charge that could be used to target any political opponent … it’s because that is precisely what it is! Australia’s capitalist state wants to persecute Duong for daring to lead an organisation that has a somewhat positive view of socialistic China. The Oceania Federation of Chinese Organisations has apparently signed petitions opposing the Western powers’ provocative interference in the South China Sea issues. Not that Sunny Duong and his organisation are any kind of communists. Indeed, Duong was a member of the Liberal Party and only resigned from it after his arrest. Duong’s soft sympathy for China is likely based on a patriotic pride that an ethnic Chinese country that until seven decades ago had been ground down and humiliated by Western imperial powers has, since the foundation of the PRC, become a highly successful country. Moreover, as a businessman whose company’s operation, providing graveyard stone memorials, has a main client base amongst the Chinese community, Duong is no doubt shaped by the reality that having a positive attitude towards the PRC plays well with customers.
Federal prosecutors claim that Duong’s donation to the hospital charity was a means for him to “interfere” with then immigration minister Tudge – presumably by presenting Duong in a good light to the minister. Yet if that logic is followed consistently, there would literally be tens of thousands of other donors being arrested: for every single person who makes a donation to a charity in a public way is doing it to win themselves credibility with others and gain the influence which that brings. Yet the Australian regime is fine with nearly all others who make public donations to charity. Indeed, when a billionaire tycoon publicly donates to a charity a tiny fraction of the wealth that they have leached from the masses, the regime gushes with praise. But when the leader of a Chinese organisation that is somewhat sympathetic to the PRC makes such a donation, Australia’s regime screams that that this is a sinister act of “foreign interference” on behalf of the CPC. Such a claim is a crystal clear example of McCarthyism. McCarthyism, the name given to the 1950s anti-communist witch-hunt in the U.S. and Australia, is based on the premise that those who either support communism or are even mildly sympathetic to a socialistic state should be treated with suspicion and denied the rights accorded to others … in this case even the right to publicly donate to a local public hospital!
Ironically, the “Foreign Interference” laws that Duong is being persecuted under were instituted under the guise of defending Australia’s supposed “democratic system” against the influence of “authoritarian powers” – principally the PRC. Yet the reality is that while China’s authorities have never threatened to jail a single one of her 1.4 billion residents merely for donating to a public hospital charity, their Australian counterparts want to do precisely this merely because the donor has dissenting foreign policy views to their regime! Now that is authoritarian! So is the fact that part of the evidence brief in Di Sanh Duong’s trial has been withheld from him, his lawyers and the media on the supposed grounds of protecting “national security information”. Even more worrying are suggestions that part – or even all – of Di Sanh Duong’s trial will be held in secret. These concerns have been amplified by the fact that there has been no media reporting whatsoever on his trial’s direction hearings that had been scheduled for earlier this year and no reporting on when Duong’s exact trial date is. Moreover, online links to certain more recent media articles on his case have been broken. All this suggests that the courts have placed a partial gag order on more current reporting on the case, including the outcome of directions hearings and the exact trial date.
Melbourne, 2 June 2020: The act of charity that has Di Sanh Duong facing trial on a charge that carries a ten year sentence. In the presence of then acting minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Alan Tudge, Duong made a $37,450 donation to the Royal Melbourne Hospital on behalf of his Oceania Federation of Chinese Organisations. Australia’s capitalist regime has ridiculously branded the donation “conduct with the intention of preparing for, or planning, foreign interference” on behalf of China!
SOCIALISTIC RULE IN CHINA: GREAT FOR THE WORKING CLASS OF AUSTRALIA BUT AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO THE CAPITALIST RULERS
Despite how truly bizarre this persecution of Sunny Duong is, the mainstream Australian media have reported on the case as if the prosecution is perfectly rational. So why is the entire Australian ruling class intent on persecuting a hospital charity donor? A big part of their motivation is to manufacture a fear of China amongst the population. They want to present China as an evil power – a devil that secretly “interferes” in Australia’s internal affairs with sinister motivations. This helps the ruling class to mobilise the population behind its participation in the U.S.-led campaign to strangle socialistic rule in China through all-sided political, military, economic, diplomatic and propaganda pressure. That begs the question of why the hell a ruling class wants to suffocate its biggest trading partner. And why would it want to spend half a trillion dollars of public money acquiring nuclear submarines in order to threaten a country whose huge purchases of Australian exports had, for three decades, single-handedly prevented this country’s economy from spiralling into deep recessions. However, it turns out that although their participation in the new Cold War against socialistic China is very harmful to the overwhelming majority of Australia’s population, it makes sense from the greedy point of view of the capitalist class that rules this country. For socialistic China’s mutually beneficial cooperation with developing countries is allowing these countries to pry out greater independence from the rich capitalist powers that plunder and subjugate them. In the South Pacific, the likes of the Solomon Islands, PNG, East Timor and Vanuatu are able to leverage their cooperation with Red China to either slowly squeeze out the predatory Australian regime and the Australian-owned corporations that the regime serves or force them to offer these countries a fairer deal. As a result, just like their American, British, Japanese, German and French counterparts, Australian capitalists are losing big money as a result of socialistic China’s engagement with Western imperialism’s former colonies! In decaying capitalism’s current stage, the capitalist bigwigs in the richer countries actually face an implosion of their economies unless they can make up for the increasing chaos of their domestic economies by, within the ex-colonial countries, super-exploiting labour, looting natural resources, seizing markets and leaching interest payments on debt. Therefore, to the extent that China’s collaboration with the ex-colonial countries is inadvertently impeding all this, she is indeed a “threat” to the Western capitalist ruling classes.
However, the capitalist powers see still greater threats posed by China’s rise through a system dominated by socialistic public ownership of the strategic sectors of her economy. For one, what if her successes inspire the toiling classes of other developing countries to also grab power and wrest their country onto a socialist path? Then, just like China, these countries would also become genuinely economically independent of the imperial powers. That would cause the Western capitalists to suffer huge losses to their imperialist super-profits. Most worrying for the capitalist powers is the prospect that socialistic China’s rapidly developing economy will see her per capita incomes catch up to those of the richest countries within the next three decades. For the capitalist ruling classes in Australia, the U.S., Britain and France know that with their “own” masses seething over unaffordable rents, falling real wages, inadequate infrastructure and all manner of social malaise, their own working classes will be soon demanding socialism if they see that a socialistic giant like China can deliver her people comparable incomes while ensuring wide access to low-rent public housing, ever-improving infrastructure, freedom from the painful boom-bust economic cycles of capitalism and a happy and largely harmonious society. Therefore, the Western capitalists understand that their quest to crush socialistic rule in China is a necessity for the maintenance of their supremacy over their own countries. This truth is not substantially altered by the reality that China’s course towards full socialism remains unfinished and working class rule there is deformed and weakened by external and internal capitalist pressure. Those realities only give the capitalist powers and the supressed capitalists within China encouragement in their quest to overthrow socialistic rule. However, the ruling classes of the capitalist powers also understand that if they fail to accomplish this task within the next three decades, or at minimum suffocate the PRC enough to prevent her from catching up to the per capita incomes of the richest countries, then they, the capitalists, will be toppled from power by their own resurgent working class masses.
Final inspection line at the electric car workshop of China’s GAC Aion New Energy Automobile company in Guangzhou. Like most of China’s auto manufacturing giants, GAC is state-owned. The Western capitalist rulers fear that the successes of China’s socialistic system based on public ownership of the strategic sectors of the economy – the property system through which working-class people can rule society – will eventually inspire the toiling classes in their own countries to also demand socialism. Photo credit: Deng Hua/Xinhua
So, when the Western ruling classes shout that “Communist China is an existential threat” they are right. But not at all for the reason that the capitalist rulers’ present to their own populations: that China is an “aggressive” power. Red China has absolutely no intention whatsoever of invading Australia or of coercing other countries. Let’s remember that it is not China that invaded and killed hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq. It is not the Chinese military that occupied Afghanistan, executed civilians there and massacred Afghan onion farmers. And it is not the PRC that is today pouring huge amounts of deadly weapons into Ukraine to push Ukrainians to fight to the last drop of Ukrainian blood in a brutal proxy war against Russia. It is not China that orchestrated a bloody late 20th century war against the people of Bougainville in order to defend the huge profits of a ruthless Australian mining company or that twice occupied East Timor in order to create a political order there that would facilitate the plunder of that country’s seabed gas resources by Australian corporations or that invaded Tonga in 2006 to brutally crush a pro-democracy, anti-monarchy uprising. No, all these acts of predatory militarism were the work of the Australian imperialist ruling class and its U.S. senior partner. In stark contrast, the PRC has not fought a single shooting war in the last 45 years and has never fought a war within countries that do not directly border her.
As we explained, the real “existential threat” posed by Red China is the threat to the capitalist order that would arise should the exploited masses in the capitalist world become impressed with socialistic China’s successes in poverty alleviation. Yet it is precisely the capitalist order that is hitting the masses with unaffordable housing costs, ever-more insecure forms of employment, worsening poverty levels and increasing racist persecution of minorities and First Nations peoples. Any encouragement of the struggle for socialism resulting from awareness of the achievements of socialistic rule in China boosts the struggle of the downtrodden of Australia and the world for their liberation from capitalism. On the other hand, if the capitalist powers and capitalist counterrevolutionary forces within China succeed in jointly overthrowing socialistic rule there, workers’ wages in China would drastically plummet. China would be turned into a giant sweatshop for capitalist exploitation that would pull down workers’ rights in every country on the planet in a race to the bottom. That is why the working class of the world have a clear interest to resolutely defend socialistic rule in China. We must fight to: Oppose the U.S./NATO/Australian military build-up targeting Red China! Resist the expansion of military bases in Darwin! Stop the Australian military’s acquisition of long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles! Torpedo the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal! Get the U.S. and Australian navies out of the South China Sea! Resist Western military and political support for the anti-working class Taiwanese regime! Oppose the U.S. and Australian ruling classes’ financial and political support for forces seeking to destroy the Chinese workers state – whether they be lobbyists for greater “rights” for the capitalist private sector, pro-colonial opposition forces in Hong Kong or anti-communist, pseudo-“pro-democracy” activists! Combat the lying anti-communist propaganda attacks against China – whether over COVID or treatment of her Uyghur minority! Repel the Australian regime’s aggressive anti-China diplomatic offensive in the South Pacific! Resist the new McCarthyism in Australia – Don’t let them silence those who advocate against the anti-China Cold War! Drop all charges against Di Sanh Duong!
RIVAL PRO-CAPITALIST FACTIONS STANDING TOGETHER TO PROSECUTE THE NEW MCCARTHYIST CAMPAIGN
Despite the capitalist rulers’ fears about Red China’s “existential threat”, Beijing does not promote socialist revolution internationally. On the contrary, it pledges its respect for the capitalist ruling class of other countries “choosing the system that suits its own country’s needs.” This is another way of Beijing saying that it is happy to see capitalist exploiters continue to maintain their stranglehold over the currently capitalist countries as long as they allow China to practice socialistic rule within her own country. As supporters of the exploited of Australia and the world, this is a policy that we criticise. It is the duty of workers states – especially ones as powerful as the PRC – to support the struggle for workers’ liberation in the currently capitalist countries. The PRC must openly throw its political weight behind the struggles of the oppressed in the capitalist world. She must loudly declare solidarity with strikes for workers rights within Australia, with protest actions here in defence of public housing and with First Nations people’s resistance against racist state terror. The masses of Australia badly need this kind of “Chinese interference”! Taking such a stance is not only a matter of practicing communist internationalism. It is also a question of defending socialistic rule within China itself. For if most of the world remains under capitalist rule and if the workers movements within the capitalist powers do not rise to such a level that they mobilise in defence of the Chinese workers state as part of resisting their own rulers, socialistic rule in China will inevitably crumble under the incessant pressure of the combined West. This will be the case despite China’s gigantic size. Let’s never forget how the seemingly invincible Soviet workers state was destroyed by imperialist pressure.
Yet despite Beijing’s insular policy, Australia’s ruling class still scream of “rampant Chinese foreign interference”. If one examines closely all their accusations of “Chinese interference”, one will see that even these hyped-up allegations are never ones of China trying to alter Australia’s political system. Rather, all their claims are about alleged PRC efforts to nudge Australian politicians to take a less hostile stance towards China and for Australian elites to take a more positive view of the PRC. This alleged kind of “interference” is simply what every diplomatic service of every country openly seeks to do through its embassies! However, when Australia’s ruling class hear of any effort to portray socialistic China in a positive light, they see red! This exploiting class is so frightened about the widespread discontent amongst their own masses that they fear – quite rationally from their point of view – that any spread of sympathy for the biggest socialistic state could set off a pro- communist, left-wing radicalisation within Australia.
As this chart from the Global Wage Report 2022-2023 proves, workers in the People’s Republic of China have enjoyed by far the fastest growth rate in real wages of any large economy in the world – either “Advanced” or “Emerging”. Since 2008, real wages in China have close to tripled. No other G20 country has had even a quarter of this growth rate in real wages (Turkey also had a fast growth rate in real wages for a period but these real wages have since plummeted in recent years as inflation sky-rocketed). Unlike the few capitalist countries that have also had fast economic growth in this period, like India, the benefits of China’s growth have flowed mostly to working-class people and the poor.
Of course, the ruling class also cynically hype up claims of “Chinese interference” to “justify” their Cold War. All the political factions that support their rule have been doing this – from the far-right One Nation and United Australia Parties to the conservative Liberal-National Coalition to the Teal “Independents” to the social-democratic ALP to the progressive-liberal Greens. Although these political forces have many – sometimes bitter – differences with each other, when it comes to crucial questions concerning the basic survival of capitalist rule, they unite as one. And given that the entire capitalist class understand that the growing successes of a socialistic giant in Asia will ultimately inspire a threat to their own rule, all the factions upholding the capitalist “order” have come together to both combat the socialistic power and to whip up the “CPC interference”-scare that they use to justify their anti-PRC campaign. For example, look at the positions taken by the different pro-capitalist factions when Australia’s “Foreign Interference” laws were brought before parliament in 2018 by the former right-wing Turnbull government. The main aim of these “Foreign Interference” laws is to suppress expressions of positive views about the PRC – especially from within Australia’s Chinese community – by criminalising certain means of expressing such views and thereby intimidating those sympathetic to the PRC. Although there was dissent from the Greens and other Senate cross-benchers about certain aspects of the proposed laws, in the end, every single member of both the House of Representatives and the Senate voted for the laws.
To be sure, particular factions have been especially rabid in promoting the new McCarthyism. Leading the charge are people on the hard right of the Liberal Party, like shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson, and shadow defence minister, Andrew Hastie (the latter notorious for having led the white supremacist cause celebre for special “refugee status” for rich, white South African farm bosses). Yet, Labor MPs Deborah O’Neill and Peter Khalil have been just as extreme. And although the Greens have opposed the AUKUS nuclear submarine plans, sections of the Greens have been the most fanatical McCarthyists of all. Thus, it was Greens senator David Shoebridge – when he was a NSW MP – who successfully spearheaded a campaign to drive out the Chinese language-teaching Confucius Institutes from schools. Shrieking that the institute was a tool for Chinese “foreign interference”, Shoebridge even attacked the then NSW Liberal government from the far right, accusing them of being slow to crack down on the Institute.
OPPOSE THE COLD WAR MARGINALISATION OF AUSTRALIA’S CHINESE COMMUNITY!
It is no surprise that the neo-McCarthyist witch-hunt has first targeted the Chinese community. Fears that this White European outpost in Asia would be “over-run” by the hundreds-of-millions-strong Chinese populations to our north runs deep within Australia’s racist mythologies. During Australia’s mid-19th century gold rush, Chinese immigrants were beaten and killed by racist mobs. Then, immediately upon federation in 1901, the new parliament passed the White Australia Policy act. This notorious law restricting non-white immigration was mainly aimed at keeping out Chinese people and Pacific Islanders. Today, such “yellow peril” racism is being slyly used as a fuel by those stoking anti-communist “Red peril” fears. To be sure, the China-bashers would claim that they are only opposed to the CPC and not to Chinese Australians. But they are not stupid. When they promote their Red peril agenda by warning of a Communist “Chinese invasion” or of harmful “Chinese influence”, they know that they are appealing to “yellow peril” racism.
Those who appeal to anti-Chinese racism, necessarily reinforce it. They are causing the upsurge in racist violence against people of Chinese appearance that has accompanied the intensification of the West’s Cold War against the PRC. Even a survey by the conservative Lowy Institute found that last year alone, a staggering one in seven Chinese-Australians were either violently assaulted or physically threatened because of their ethnicity. In one attack on ANZAC Day this year, several Asian Australians in Brisbane were attacked by a man believing that they were Chinese. Screaming anti-Chinese insults, he assaulted the Asian-Australians fishing on a pier with metal crutches used as a weapon.
Other than being a soft target, there is another reason why the ruling class have made the Chinese community the main target of their new McCarthyist witch-hunt. That is because they know that the more astute of the masses will want to verify whether the China-bashing propaganda they have been fed is true and in order to do this they will logically turn to Chinese-Australians for feedback. Given that there are some 1.4 million people in this country of Chinese ancestry, Chinese- Australians can have much impact in shaping the broader population’s views about China. This terrifies the capitalist class. For they know that the majority of Chinese-Australians have a positive view of the PRC, especially the nearly 800,000 first and second generation migrants from mainland China. The ruling class would like to put this down to their conspiracy theory that Beijing’s “influence operations” are “manipulating” Chinese Australians. The truth is a lot simpler. Most Chinese Australians have a far better idea of what the PRC is really like than the rest of the population. This is especially the case for relatively recent migrants from mainland China or for those who regularly visit there or are still in close contact with family and friends. They know how much people have been lifted out of poverty through the PRC and how quickly the country’s infrastructure has improved. Although they are aware of China’s issues too, most migrants from mainland China have an overall positive view of the country – especially working class Chinese-Australians. Therefore, Australia’s ruling class is obsessed with stopping pro-PRC Chinese-Australians from sharing their opinions about China with the broader population. Their “Foreign Interference” laws, their persecution of Di Sanh Duong and their media’s hyped-up propaganda that Beijing is working through the Chinese community to “interfere” in Australia are all aimed at intimidating pro-PRC Chinese-Australians into silence.
The ruling class have still more sinister methods of silencing Chinese people who are sympathetic to the PRC. In June 2020, the ASIO secret police raided the homes of Chinese journalists working in Australia. Australia’s secret police subjected the journalists to heavy-handed interrogations and seized their computers and smart phones. They then demanded that the journalists not report the raids. Since then, very credible reports have emerged from within the Australian-Chinese community that many members of Chinese social organisations have been subjected to intimidating interrogations by ASIO as part of supposed “Foreign Interference” investigations. The number of people said to be interrogated is very large – at least in the dozens but possibly in the hundreds. In true totalitarian fashion, Australia’s secret police demanded that those interrogated keep silent about what was done to them. Therefore, it is not publicly known exactly who has been raided or even to which particular organisations they belong. Nevertheless, the effect of this sinister intimidation combined with the “Foreign Interference” laws and the media witch-hunts has been to cause most of the Chinese organisations that have either a sympathetic or neutral attitude towards the PRC to greatly reduce their activities. If one looks at the website of what was once one of the most popular Chinese community organisation in Australia, the Australian Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China (ACPPRC), one can see that since it held a January 2020 fundraising dinner for the NSW rural fire brigades, the ACPPRC has held no public events whatsoever. Given that the ACPPRC has been a prime target of media red-baiting and was seven months ago coercively hit with an Attorney-General’s Department “transparency notice” declaring it to be “a foreign government related entity”, one can presume that officers of this group have been amongst those interrogated by ASIO.
Given that, reflecting community views, most social organisations based upon mainland Chinese immigrants are either sympathetic to or neutral in their orientation towards the PRC, the Australian regime’s Cold War campaign has decimated Chinese community life. Not only has it silenced the bulk of the Chinese community from publicly expressing their views about the PRC, it has diminished the voice of Chinese community members about other issues. This was evident in a recent local government decision to name a portion of the Sydney suburb of Eastwood as “Koreatown”. Given that people of Korean ancestry make up less than 9% of Eastwood, the decision to name a part of this nearly 50% ethnic Chinese suburb without consulting the suburb’s Chinese residents has provoked anger within the Chinese community. As a joint statement by the Australian-Chinese Workers Association and Trotskyist Platform pointed out:
“… even if the Koreatown project was not itself aimed at sending the provocative message to the Australian-Chinese community that if it does not adhere to the China-bashing agenda it will be further marginalised, it nevertheless reflects the fact that the Australian-Chinese community has already been shoved so far to the margins that mainstream political actors think that its concerns can be simply ignored….
“… The hardening of White Australia racism that has occurred through the Cold War witch-hunt of the Chinese community ultimately targets all people of colour in this country. Therefore, given that ethnic divisions are poison to working class struggle, it is in the interests of working class activists of all ethnicities as well as people of Asian, African, Middle Eastern and Islander backgrounds to oppose the marginalisation and stigmatisation of the Chinese community. As Samuel Kim [a prominent Trotskyist Platform central committee member of Korean descent] stressed: many fellow ethnic Koreans in Australia have been physically attacked and abused by racists assuming that they were Chinese [including two of the Asian people who were attacked on a Brisbane pier while fishing on ANZAC Day].”
ANZAC Day 2023, Brisbane: A racist (wearing the light blue shirt) armed with a weapon violently attacks Asian Australians of Korean and Thai background while screaming racist insults against Chinese people. Those who have appealed to racist “Yellow Peril” racism to boost their “Red Peril” anti-communist agenda have been responsible for fueling an alarming rise in racist attacks on people of Chinese and other East Asian backgrounds.
THE AUSTRALIA RULING CLASS DISTORTS THE VIEWS OF THE AUSTRALIAN-CHINESE COMMUNITY
By silencing through intimidation the pro-PRC voices within the Chinese community, Australia’s capitalist rulers are enabling the ramblings of the smaller, anti-communist section of the Chinese community to be heard louder. This distorted presentation of the views of the Chinese community is evident in the media sphere too. In the past, all peoples of colour were greatly under-represented in the news media. The media is notorious for this colour bar. And given the fact that the Australian media is owned by either big-time capitalists or by the capitalist regime, it is unthinkable for an ethnic Chinese supporter of the PRC to be given a prominent role as an Australian news presenter or even be given serious airtime in an interview. However, given the propaganda value for the ruling class of having ethnic Chinese people speak out against communism, those few Chinese-Australians that either happen to be anti-communist or are willing to sell out any principles to further their own careers (in other words, people of the type who would sell their own grandmothers!) are allowed to not only break through the media colour bar but are even assisted to leap-frog their white counterparts into prominent roles. ABC News, in particular, now has a posse of high-profile ethnic Chinese journalists spewing out anti-communist propaganda. As a result of both this practice and the silencing of the voices of pro-PRC – and even neutral – Chinese organisations, non- Chinese Australians are being deceived into thinking that most Chinese-Australians oppose the PRC and her system. And that is exactly what the capitalist ruling class wants us to think!
With the voices of those whose connections enable them to accurately tell fellow Australians what is happening in China increasingly suppressed, the Australian regime is able to get away with throwing out there ever more fanciful claims about China. Thus, over the last few days, the ABC ran a campaign to convince us that “China’s economy is in deep trouble.” The real fact however is that the PRC economy grew last quarter at the highly impressive rate of 6.3% year on year – the highest growth rate of any major economy in the world – and most crucially did so while continuing to boost her workers’ real wages and keep inflation at literally zero!
China today has one of the fastest economic growth rates of any major economy in the world, with a year-on-year growth rate in the last quarter triple that of Australia’s. Despite this, Australian-regime owned ABC and other mainstream media are somehow trying to claim that China’s economy “is in deep trouble.” The capitalist media’s ability to sell such ridiculous lies is made easier by the silencing of the pro-PRC section of the Australian-Chinese community through repression and intimidation.
COLD WAR REPRESSION KEEPS GETTING MORE INTENSE
The section of the ethnic Chinese population that the Australian ruling class is most determined to silence are Chinese international students. Since the college environment means that these students would interact with many local students – most at the age when they are still forming their political views – Chinese international students could significantly shape local students’ perceptions of the PRC. What horrifies Australia’s rulers is that despite experiencing life in wealthier Australia the overwhelming majority of these students remain sympathetic to Red China and proud of her achievements. So, when in August 2019, in response to anti-PRC riots in Hong Kong, Chinese international students in Sydney organised a 5,000 strong pro-PRC march, ASIO unleashed threatening interrogations of rally organisers. It was not until those student organisers returned to China that they felt safe to even publicise the Australian secret police intimidation. Since then, the Australian regime, via an order of its Federal Court of Australia, has censored Australians from accessing the main website where the activists detailed their frightening experiences (https://news.have8.tv/2636880.html) using the excuse that the site has made a “copyright infringement” (yeah, right!)
In the four years since, the neo-McCarthyist repression has greatly intensified. Earlier this year the Albanese government banned public sector employees from accessing the popular Chinese-based, short-video platform, TikTok, on government devices. At the start of this month, a parliamentary committee recommended imposing the same ban on another Chinese social media platform, WeChat. Moreover, the committee demanded that the platforms be subjected to “transparency requirements”. Imposing such requirements could then be a trigger for completely banning the platforms if the requirements are “not met”. However, as a high-profile report by anti-communist researchers that was submitted to the committee’s inquiry made clear, the main objection of the ruling class and its hacks is not that TikTok could be used for state surveillance [which is a loony conspiracy theory] but that the company would bias algorithms to promote pro-China narratives and “socialist core values.” Even if the latter were true, we say: so what! After all, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube bias their algorithms to promote the agenda of the Western capitalist ruling classes. Facebook is programmed to minimise the views of articles and accounts with a pro-PRC stance, like those of ourselves in Trotskyist Platform. This bias has increased in recent years. Meanwhile, these major Western social media platforms have each banned tens of thousands of accounts expressing pro-PRC political ideas. We say people ought to be free to access platforms that have an opposing slant to these Western capitalist-owned platforms. People must be free to decide for themselves! It is striking how those who say that they are intent on defending Australia’s “democracy” from “authoritarian influence” insist on carrying out censorship of opposing voices using the very same arguments that all “authoritarian” regimes used to justify their censorship: that certain views and biases are not acceptable. In truth it is not overtly political messaging on the likes of TikTok that worries the Australian ruling class. Rather they fear that Australian youth seeing clips of daily life of Chinese people – from viral videos of their interaction with their golden retriever pets, to funny clips of them pranking their friends, to their holiday snapshots – could undermine the efforts of anti-communist propaganda to portray life in Red China as a grey, monotonous and joyless existence.
Above: On New Year’s Eve 2023, actresses perform a dance of the Va ethnic group at a scenic spot in Kunming, capital of southwest China’s Yunnan Province. Below: Students learn taekwondo during an after-class activity in a school in Baotou in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The Australian ruling class wants to restrict Australian people’s access to China-based social media apps like TikTok and WeChat because they fear that if the Australian masses hear depictions of Chinese people’s daily lives, this will undercut the Australian ruling class’ propaganda campaign to denigrate socialistic China. Photo credit (Above photo): Liang Zhiqiang/ Xinhua Photo credit (below photo): Peng Yuan/Xinhua
The same committee that targeted TikTok and WeChat also attacked the Australian Federal Police (AFP) for not prosecuting anyone for alleged “foreign interference” through social media. Although the politicians also mentioned people who made comments defending other states deemed hostile by Australia’s rulers – like Iran and Russia – their main targets were people who made strong social media comments attacking opponents of Red China. Some committee members, like James Paterson and David Shoebridge, were so rabid that they made the AFP Commander being grilled sound half decent. The latter explained that “a self-directed individual who’s a loyalist, let’s say, who is undertaking under their own directive … won’t fit in foreign interference because there’s no actual foreign principal or proxy connection.” He also said that supporters of the targeted states making social media comments often do not meet the “threshold” for prosecution and if their postings are threatening then that is more akin to a hate crime rather than “foreign interference”. However, the Greens David Shoebridge, who despite his strong opposition to AUKUS seems to be bidding to be Australia’s leading McCarthyist witch-hunter, rejected all this. He ranted to ABC News that the AFP’s response was not “up to scratch” claiming that his office receives a “troubling” number of reports of coordinated interference. Shoebridge demanded that “we need the AFP to do its job, take these threats seriously and take some action to let bad actors know that they will be caught and brought to justice.” If the likes of Shoebridge and Paterson have their way, dozens of supporters of socialistic China – amongst Chinese international students, the Australian-Chinese community and the broader Australian Left – would be jailed for passionately expressing their views.
The neo-McCarthyist witch-hunt is only able to become more vicious because there has been inadequate push back against it. Most of Australia’s Left groups, who ought to be spearheading such resistance, have only moderately opposed some aspects of the new McCarthyism, while failing to oppose other aspects at all. The three most active Left groups – Socialist Alternative (SAlt), Socialist Alliance (SA) and Solidarity – have thus far said nothing opposing the prosecution of Di Sanh Duong or the demands to prosecute pro-PRC social media users who sharply criticise opponents of Red China. They all failed to oppose the campaign that drove out the Confucius Institutes from NSW schools.
In part, the tepid response of these groups to the neo-McCarthyist campaign flows from their perspective of seeking a strategic alliance with the Greens – a party that has been fervently pushing most aspects of the witch-hunt. It also stems from the fact that although these groups declare “No War with China”, they simultaneously support the political campaign to overthrow the PRC state – from supporting the lying propaganda that China is “brutally persecuting” her Uyghur minority to hailing the most anti-communist of last year’s anti-COVID-response protests in Shanghai and Beijing. It is thus no surprise that none of these groups condemned ASIO’s threatening interrogation of the Chinese international students that organised the August 2019 Sydney march defending PRC sovereignty over Hong Kong. After all, SAlt, SA and Solidarity were on the opposite side to these students persecuted by ASIO – they were on the side of the anti-communist Hong Kong rioters. Moreover, by supporting the political and propaganda war against Red China, these left social-democrats are strengthening the anti-communism that underpins the neo-McCarthyist witch-hunt.
In contrast, we in Trotskyist Platform have opposed all parts of the regime’s anti-communist, anti-PRC scare campaign and all its attempts to intimidate those with sympathies for the PRC. Yet we understand that we need to put still more energy into this work. We are calling for united-front action of all pro-PRC and neutral-towards-the-PRC leftists to demand: Scrap the “Foreign Interference” laws! Drop all charges against Di Sanh Duong! Down with the restrictions and planned restrictions on people’s access to Chinese social media platforms TikTok and Wechat! Stop the attacks on Chinese community organisations that exercise their right to have a sympathetic or neutral stance towards the PRC! Down with the calls to arrest people who make strong social media comments defending the PRC against anti-communists! We insist that “free speech” must include the right to express a sympathetic stance towards Red China.
EVEN NON-CHINESE AUSTRALIANS WITH PRAGMATIC DEALINGS WITH CHINA ARE BEING TARGETED
The targets of the Cold War witch-hunt have long ago widened beyond the Australian-Chinese community. In the autumn of 2020, NSW state MP, Shaoquett Moselmane, was subjected to an intense media attack after he made the manifestly true statement that China had responded effectively to the COVID pandemic. A few weeks later, the AFP and ASIO unleashed a massive raid on Moselmane’s home to supposedly investigate “foreign interference”. It was only months later, after Moselmane’s reputation had been trashed that the AFP confirmed that Moselmane was not suspected of doing anything illegal, nor had there ever been any plan to charge him. Then his own party, the ALP, followed through on this witch-hunt by refusing to re-nominate Moselmane for his Senate position.
Now the neo-McCarthyist witch-hunt has reached such proportions that even people without the slightest sympathy for China but who have had pragmatic relations with PRC entities are being persecuted. In these cases, the repression is not aimed at silencing particular pro-PRC voices. Rather it seeks to both fuel the general “China threat” hysteria and to scare Australians away from having normal, legal, working relations with PRC institutions. In the latest case, Sydney businessman, Alexander Csergo, was imprisoned after being subjected to a high-profile arrest four months ago, accompanied by AFP ranting in the media about “espionage.” However, the next day it turned out that Csergo was not even charged with espionage but with “reckless foreign interference.” Details of the case are sketchy but it seems that Csergo merely allegedly provided, for a fee, alleged Chinese officials with open source information (that is information from the media and public websites) about “Australia’s national security”. If this is the sum content of the allegations, Csergo is no different to the numerous people in China hired by Western think tanks, government agencies and media organisations to collect open source information about China’s political and security matters.
In one of the most outrageous persecutions of this entire neo-McCarthyist campaign, Australian citizen and former U.S. fighter pilot, Daniel Duggan, is facing extradition to the U.S. simply for training Chinese pilots at a South African training school more than ten years ago when he was still a U.S. citizen. As a result, Duggan has been imprisoned in harsh conditions in NSW prisons over the last ten months. Washington claims that the pilots trained by the “Top Gun” former U.S. marine pilot were military pilots. However, the husband and father of six emphatically insists that he only trained Chinese civilian pilots. He has been backed up by the South African training school where he had worked, which reported that none of its training involved classified methods nor any frontline activities. Moreover, even if military pilots were trained it is absolutely certain that this training would have been at a low level – much below the level of training and sophistication then already reached by China’s People’s Liberation Army Airforce. Thus the U.S. accusation does not even claim that Duggan trained the pilots on actual fighter aircraft. Rather they claimed that a T-2 Buckeye trainer, first produced in 1959, was used. This trainer cannot even reach the speeds of modern passenger airlines … let alone supersonic speeds! At the time Duggan was allegedly training pilots on them, the aircraft was so obsolete that it had been out of production for four decades (!) and had been fully retired from use by the U.S. military in favour of faster trainer aircraft.
Furthermore, it was not and is not illegal under Australian law for Australians to train Chinese military pilots. This means that Duggan should not be extradited since an extradition requires the alleged offence to be illegal in both the requesting country and the requested country. This fact and the reality that the charges related to training that Duggan conducted more than ten years ago – training that the U.S. regime was at the time aware of – shows that the prosecution of the 54 year-old pilot has little to do with upholding the law. Unlike Di Sanh Duong, Duggan does not have any known political sympathy for the PRC. He is just a top notch pilot, who like many others highly-skilled in their field enjoy making a living by imparting their knowledge to others. However, in the context of their crazed Cold War drive against socialistic China, Duggan is a convenient object for the U.S. and Australian rulers to create a show trial around in order to hype up the supposed [actually non-existent] “Chinese military threat.”
Sydney, 25 July 2023: The family of Daniel Duggan and other supporters protest outside his latest court appearance. Duggan is a political prisoner in Australia who is facing extradition to the USA. Both the U.S. and Australian regimes want to turn Duggan into an object of hatred in order to justify their Cold War campaign to crush the Peoples Republic of China. Photo credit: Gaye Gerard/NCA NewsWire
WHAT THE STRUGGLE TO FREE DAN DUGGAN AND STOP HIS EXTRADITION CAN LEARN FROM THE MOVEMENT THAT FREED ANOTHER AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL PRISONER
The facts of Duggan’s case are very much in favour of him staving off extradition to the U.S. and a possibly very long sentence. However, the political streams are flowing strongly in the opposite direction. This was apparent when ASIO boss Mike Burgess delivered his annual “threat assessment” in February. In a clear shot at Duggan and comparison with his case, the secret police chief ranted that former Australian defence personnel “willing to sell their military training and expertise to foreign governments” “… that do not share our values or respect the rule of law” “… are lackeys, more ‘top tools’ than ‘top guns’”. This vicious attack on Daniel Duggan by the ASIO boss showed that the Australian regime is just as committed to persecuting Duggan as their U.S. counterparts. It is not simply a matter of a reluctant Canberra being unwilling to stand up to demands from Washington, as some believe. Moreover, this insult thrown at Duggan and some former Australian defence personnel for conducting activities that are not illegal, show that it is the secret police boss who does not “respect the rule of law”. His statements show that ASIO, far from being a body motivated to uphold the law independent of political bias, is a highly ideological institution that is deeply committed to enforcing the interests of Australia’s capitalist ruling class – a class whose interests mandate joining the combined West’s Cold War against socialistic China and manufacturing the “China threat” hysteria used to justify it. Unfortunately, the courts that will hear Duggan’s extradition case have this very same bias.
Since Duggan is not a political sympathiser of the PRC – unlike the equally unfairly persecuted Di Sanh Duong – and his imprisonment is so blatantly unjust, Duggan has received neutral, or even mildly sympathetic, coverage from some of the mainstream media. Even arch neo-McCarthyist witch-hunter, David Shoebridge, has spoken out in support of Duggan (as have many on the Left). However, the degree of mainstream support that exists for Duggan may not help him much. For as long as the message coming from those demanding freedom for Duggan is that his persecution is an affront to an otherwise “democratic Australian system” “based on the rule of law”, the Australian ruling class will feel that agitation in support of Duggan is not doing much harm to their political reputation. They will judge that at least those calling for his freedom are reinforcing the notion that the system here is in most cases “fair’ and “democratic”. But if the push for Duggan’s freedom is not doing the ruling class any political damage, they will be content to simply ignore it!
This is the exact same problem faced by those fighting to free Julian Assange. There is massive support for Assange in Australia and in other countries. However, the campaign to free him has largely been restricted to the single issue of freeing Assange. The implication behind that message is that the political systems in the U.S., Britain and Australia are otherwise fair but for this one terrible atrocity. Aware that this message is not doing them much political harm, Washington, London and Canberra have been comfortable to largely ignore the pleas.
To see the kind of movement that would be needed to have a chance of freeing Duggan we should look back at the campaign to free another Australian political prisoner, Chan Han Choi. Now Chan Han Choi’s case could not be more different to that of Dan Duggan’s. Whereas Duggan is a non-political figure who very unluckily happened to be a convenient target for building up the anti-China scare campaign, Choi is a highly politically driven person. Choi, a South Korean-born Australian, is a sympathiser of socialistic North Korea who was proud of the latter’s efforts to maintain independence from the imperial powers. What drove him most was opposition to the Western-instigated economic sanctions on North Korea and the suffering that it caused – suffering which he had seen with his own eyes and which deeply moved him. To alleviate this suffering, Choi risked his own freedom to attempt to arrange trade deals between North Korea and other countries in violation of the sanctions. Choi was caught in December 2017 and imprisoned in harsh conditions in Sydney jails. He was for long periods blocked from access to lawyers, language interpreters and visitors and denied medical treatment during a crucial eight and a half-month period during which his diabetes condition reached emergency levels. The authorities refused to give him bail for nearly three years based largely on the McCarthyist notion that Choi’s avowed political sympathy for North Korea made his alleged offending more serious.
The Australian regime grossly exaggerated Choi’s charges. They initially, quite ridiculously, claimed that he had sought to facilitate the export of North Korean weapons of mass destruction – charges which they later dropped. This exaggeration of the charges pointed to one notable similarity between Choi’s plight and Duggan’s – both were being demonised as a means to create fear of socialistic states and, thus, to “justify” the Cold War. Indeed, when Choi was first arrested, then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull launched a tirade against North Korea, which is a neighbour and ally of the PRC. The hype and North Korea scare campaign whipped up around Choi’s arrest was a significant part of what enabled the Turnbull government to create the anti-communist and national security-obsessed political climate that allowed it to push through parliament the Foreign Interference laws six months after Choi’s arrest.
The Australian ruling class thought they could continue to milk Choi’s case to justify a further escalation in their anti-PRC/ anti-North Korea Cold War drive. However, instead, quite unexpectedly for them, a lively solidarity campaign was launched in defence of Choi. Trotskyist Platform – and the smaller grouplets and individuals who also joined the campaign – demanded not only Choi’s freedom but an end to the cruel economic starvation sanctions on the people of North Korea. We said that if Choi is indeed guilty of trying to arrange deals in violations of the sanctions then he is a great humanitarian. Importantly, we did not say that Choi’s imprisonment was a blot on Australia’s otherwise “great democracy.” Instead, we had an almost opposite message: that Choi’s unjust imprisonment showed that the “democracy” in capitalist Australia is only a “democracy” for the capitalist class. We connected the harsh imprisonment of Choi and the McCarthyist denial of bail by the courts to the unjust persecution of war crimes whistleblower David McBride, to the anti-working class prosecutions of construction workers’ union activists by the police and courts and to racist state terror against Aboriginal people. We pointed out that the Australian ruling class had no right to attack the PRC or North Korea over “human rights” issues.
Eventually the campaign reached a level of support that convinced the capitalist class that any remaining boosting of their Cold War campaign by the hype surrounding Choi’s prosecution was more than cancelled out by the political damage and exposure of their “democracy” that they were suffering as a result of the campaign to free Choi. After nearly three years in jail, Choi was finally granted bail and eight months later his legal persecution ended and he was free. The regime which had been expecting to give him a ten to fifteen year jail sentence, ended up only being able to hit him with a three and a half-year sentence that had already mostly been served before trial. To be sure, even after Choi became free there was no guarantee that the regime and its allies would not seek a way to gain revenge on Choi for the lighter sentence that he endured. Nevertheless, the fact that the campaign to free Choi was able to divert what was heading to be a horrifically bad injustice into being just a plain bad injustice shows that the movement had pushed the ruling class back. Indeed, this was the first – and so far only – significant pushback against the neo-McCarthyist campaign. The important lesson of this struggle for supporters of Duggan is that we will only have a chance of pushing back his persecutors if we are able to damage them politically . That means broadcasting the message that Duggan’s terribly unjust persecution shows what the Australian regime is all about and proves that its pretensions of being “democratic” and “committed to the rule of law” are bogus. That the “democracy” here is only a democracy for the ultra-rich capitalists and that the regime has no basis to attack the PRC over “lack of respect for human rights and the rule of law.” If a powerful, Free Duggan movement with this message can be built, the Australian regime will truly be faced with the need to limit political damage to their authority by making a concession to Duggan and his supporters.
Above, 13 April 2019: A sizable crowd of demonstrators march through the streets of Sydney demanding freedom for socialist, then political prisoner in Australia, Chan Han Choi. Below: In the nine street actions held for Choi that eventually resulted in him being freed from incarceration by the Australian regime, his supporters connected his persecution to the broader repression that the capitalist state was unleashing against union activists, whistleblowers, pro-PRC members of the Chinese community, Aboriginal people and leftists. Photo credit (all photos): Trotskyist Platform
DOWN WITH THE NEO-MCCARTHYIST WITCH-HUNT!
Although in Australia, governments are elected on the basis of one person one vote, it is the capitalist class who are able to disproportionately shape public opinion and with it election results. For it is the super-rich capitalists that have the ownership of the media and the financial resources to fund political think tanks, make big donations to political parties and pay for political advertising. As the ASIO boss’ tirade against Duggan shows, the state institutions themselves have been built up, trained and ideologically prepared to enforce the exclusive interests of the capitalist class.
Thus, the democracy that nominally exists in Western capitalist countries is largely a democracy only for the capitalists. When this biased democracy is not enough to enforce the capitalists’ agenda, they use blatant repression instead. Today’s neo-McCarthyist witch-hunt and the persecutions of Di Sanh Duong, Dan Duggan, David McBride and Alexander Csergo all prove this. In the long run, if the capitalist class faces a serious threat to their domination of society from the exploited masses, they will turn to the most hideously brutal methods to maintain their rule. That is what happened when the Italian and German “democratic” capitalists turned to Mussolini and Hitler’s fascism for salvation.
Nevertheless, despite the grossly slanted nature of the “democracy” that currently exists in Australia, this form of capitalist rule is preferable to more repressive forms of capitalist rule. It gives the working class and all the oppressed more space to organise struggles for their rights. Therefore, the workers movement must oppose any repressive measures that curtail its democratic rights. That is why we must mobilise in determined opposition to the Cold War repression that is plaguing Australia. We should understand too that the national security obsession that the neo-McCarthyist repression is creating is being used to repress dissidents making a stand over non-Cold War issues too – from David McBride to activists in support of public housing to environmental activists and to trade unionists taking industrial action. Moreover, if we do not push back against the Cold War witch-hunt it will eventually reach such a level that even people who advocate policies that are being implemented in China with a focus on public housing or publicly owned banks will be accused of “foreign interference.” And the working class masses do need to be able to fight for the policies that the PRC has used to combat poverty. For it is precisely those policies – like a massive increase in public housing, restrictions on housing speculation and public ownership of the banks, electricity, power and energy sectors – that we desperately need implemented here right now. So let us mobilise in action to demand: Down with the “Foreign Interference” laws! Drop the charges against Di Sanh Duong! Free Dan Duggan! Resist the push to arrest pro-PRC social media users! Stop the persecution of Chinese social organisations that choose to have a friendly or neutral attitude towards the PRC! Stop the marginalisation of the Chinese community!
RESIST THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITALIST STATE’S COLD WAR REPRESSION!
FREE LEFT-WING
POLITICAL PRISONER CHAN HAN CHOI!
It is out of deep humanitarian concern for the people of North Korea that Chan Han Choi tried to help her people trade in violation of UN sanctions. He sought no personal gain from these activities.
The sanctions on North Korea are a form of “legal”, mass murder.
Australia’s capitalist rulers persecute and slander Choi to “justify” their Cold War drive against socialistic China and socialistic North Korea.
We must resist the tormenting of Chan Han Choi because by persecuting him for his sympathy for a socialistic state, the Australian regime is attacking the struggle for socialism and is thus attacking the interests of more than 90% of Australia and the world’s population.
Those who are standing by Chan Han Choi are, by doing so, also resisting the Cold War McCarthyism and repression that Choi’s cruel persecution is meant to fuel.
If in the hypothetical case that Choi is sentenced fairly, even in accordance with the unfair sanctions laws that he is prosecuted under, he would just get a small fine. None of the five deals that he tried to broker ever went through. Moreover, in all five “forbidden” trades that Choi had started to broker, Choi himself cancelled the negotiations before he was arrested.
Chan Han Choi will not get a fair sentencing judgement.
Prison authorities endangered Choi’s life by repeatedly knocking back his requests to see a prison doctor as his diabetes severely deteriorated during the first eight months of 2020.
Given growing support for Choi, Australia’s ruling class is suffering considerable damage to their reputation by continuing their persecution of Choi.
We cannot allow compassionate human being, Chan Han Choi, to be thrown back into prison again.
Let’s fight to lift the economic sanctions that are so devastating the people of North Korea!
16 July 2021: Yesterday, the three-day long sentencing hearing of socialist political prisoner in Australia, Chan Han Choi came to an end. The judge has reserved her decision. The judgement is expected within an approximately one to three week period. Choi had been imprisoned in extremely harsh conditions by the Australian capitalist state for three years since his arrest in late 2017. After finally being granted bail last November, Choi has been under strict house arrest for the last eight months. If Choi is sentenced to a jail period less than what he has already endured, he will finally be free. However, if he is hit with a sentence with a non-parole period greater than the imprisonment period that he has already suffered, he will be thrown back into prison.
In February, Choi accepted a plea deal in which the Commonwealth DPP
(Director of Public Prosecutions) dropped some of its blatantly false, hyped-up
charges. Choi in turn accepted that he had tried to help the people of North
Korea organise exports of iron, coal, instrumentation and arms in violation of
crippling UN economic sanctions that ban almost all of North Korea’s exports.
Choi had also tried to help North Korea import petrol which is also restricted
by the murderous sanctions.
The trade that Choi was trying to help organise is very similar to the
trade that Australia engages in. But the people of North Korea are cruelly
prevented from carrying out such trade. The resulting shortages and lack of
hard currency needed to import food, medicine, medical equipment and
agricultural machinery causes immense suffering to North Korea’s people. It is out of deep humanitarian concern for
the people of North Korea that Choi tried to help her people trade. He sought
no personal gain from these activities.Choi is really only “guilty” of doing very understandable acts. Let’s
fight to demand: Free Chan Han Choi!
Lift the brutal sanctions on North Korea now!
At his sentencing hearing, Choi, while making clear that he was totally
committed to, from now on, following all Australian laws, bravely continued to
expose the unjust nature of the sanctions on North Korea. He explained that he
would, from now on, oppose the sanctions through protest and other legal
means.
It is telling that at the sentencing hearing, the Crown Prosecutors were unable to provide one single victim impact
statement. That is because there are
no victims to the “crimes” that Chan Han Choi is being sentenced for! Indeed
if Choi had gone further in his “offences” and actually brokered the deals to
there successful conclusion, then there would have only been beneficiaries –
not victims. How many lives would have been saved in North Korea or made easier
had the people of North Korea been able to receive badly needed hard currency
from the export deals that Choi, for a period, tried to organise?
An independent international report prepared by Western-based medical
and aid workers found that the UN sanctions had caused the deaths of nearly
4,000 North Korean people – mostly children – in 2018 from the obstruction that
the sanctions caused to the work of aid organisations alone. Even more deaths
resulted from the damage that the sanctions did to North Korea’s own provision
of food and other basic needs for her people. This October 2019 report titled, The
Human Costs and Gendered Impact of Sanctions on North Korea, also found that: “Sanctions also interfere with the ability of North
Koreans to develop their economy, earn a livelihood, and attain an adequate
standard of living.” Moreover, the report detailed the particular harsh
suffering that the sanctions caused to North Korean women:
“Sanctions destabilize North Korean society in ways that have a disproportionate impact on women, resonating with patterns observed in other sanctioned countries….
“Sanctions are directly interfering with the livelihood of women by targeting sectors in which they are heavily represented, such as textiles (82 per cent of workers).”
UN economic sanctions imposed on North Korea and successively tightened to extreme levels in 2016 and 2017 has devastated North Korea’s trade and thus caused immense suffering to her people. The following chart was retrieved from the 2019 report, The Human Costs and Gendered Impact of Sanctions on North Korea
Australia’s Capitalist Rulers Persecute and Slander Choi to “Justify” Their Cold War Drive Against Socialistic China and Socialistic North Korea
Sanctions similar to the ones now arrayed against North Korea were imposed
by the UN on the people of Iraq from 1990 onwards. They
caused the premature deaths of half a million infants in just the first decade
of their implementation! In North Korea, the
sanctions are also causing terrible suffering. Fortunately, North Korea’s
socialistic system allows her to better manage the scarcity resulting from the
sanctions and ensure that her people do not suffer to the same degree that
Iraqi children did. Even a year after the UN sanctions on North Korea became
really extreme in 2016, WHO data showed that the proportion of children who are
underweight in North Korea due to malnourishment is considerably lower than in
many capitalist ex-colonial countries in Asia like India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka
and the Philippines. Nevertheless, as the 2019 report referred to above described,
the sanctions are still causing the premature death of thousands of people
every year. Moreover, in the second half of 2017, the very period when Choi
attempted to help the people of North Korea to evade the sanctions, the
imperial powers ratcheted up the sanctions to still more brutal levels.
Yet the existence of that
socialistic system that is protecting her people from suffering to the same
degree that Iraqi people did when hit with similar sanctions, is precisely the
reason why the imperialist powers are so determined to crush North Korea
through sanctions. Although socialistic rule in North Korea is deformed by
bureaucratic privileges and a lack of real workers democracy, North Korea has a
system based on public ownership which her masses won in a brave struggle to
defeat the landlords and capitalist exploiters. This system of collective
ownership of the means of production by all of society has created a warm
community spirit among North Korea’s people and a friendly society. It is this
humanism and egalitarianism of North Korea that has endeared Choi (who came
into political consciousness later in life and is thus not especially ideological
or versed in Marxist theory) to North Korean society and her people. Yet for
the capitalist powers, the existence of any workers state is a huge obstacle to
furthering their interests. Washington and Canberra want to destroy socialistic
rule in North Korea and thereby also strike a blow against socialistic rule in
the world’s largest workers state, the Peoples Republic of China, which is
North Korea’s neighbour and ally. They want to do this so that they can turn
these countries into huge sweatshops where the corporate bosses that they serve
can make fabulous profits from exploiting workers. Capitalist powers also hate
the existence of such socialistic states because their mere existence could
encourage the masses in other ex-colonial countries to think that they too
should give their own Western imperialist overlords and local capitalist
enforcers the boot. That would mean a huge loss in profits for the American,
Australian and Japanese corporations that loot such wealth out of countries
like PNG, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and East Timor.
So when Australia’s capitalist state is so cruelly
persecuting Choi just for trying to help the people of North Korea to trade,
what they are really trying to do is strike blows against socialism by
enforcing sanctions on a socialistic state. Moreover, when Choi was arrested it was accompanied by massive hype
about a supposed North Korean threat from then prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull,
from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and from the mainstream media. As well
as listing the items that Choi actually really did try to help North Korea trade
– like petrol, coal and iron – the regime initially hit Choi with completely bogus
charges that he had tried to assist North Korea to export Weapons of Mass
Destruction (WMD) technology. At various times, the Murdoch and other media
mis-reported this, almost certainly deliberately, claiming that Choi was
charged with trying to help North
Korea’sown WMD program. This
was of course a blatant lie. Choi was never even charged with trying to import such technology into North Korea. However, equally
false was the allegation that Choi had tried to help North Korea export such
technology. As a result, this February, the Prosecution had to drop these bogus
“WMD charges” as part of Choi’s plea deal. However, the Prosecution continued
to claim that Choi had tried to help North Korea export technology for the
production of ballistic missiles right up to ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic
Missiles). Presented with irrefutable evidence to the contrary, the Prosecution
a few months ago retreated to the claim that Choi had tried to broker the
export of North Korean expertise for the production of now, short and medium
range ballistic missiles. However, during Choi’s sentencing hearing, this claim
also crumbled in the face of the evidence. The Crown backed off from their
claim that Choi had been involved with brokering services to assist a ballistic
missile program and instead retreated some distance towards the position that
Choi had admitted all along since he accepted the plea bargain: that he had
tried for a short period to broker North Korea’s export of technology for the
production of MANPADs – which are small, hand-held weapons used for shooting
down military aircraft and helicopter gunships. That is a massive difference from all their earlier hype claiming that Choi
had tried to broker the export of WMD and ICBM technology!
The Crown’s now discredited assertions depended on them carefully cherry-picking their supposed technical and military “experts.” They chose, exclusively, rabid neoconservatives working for warmongering think tanks like the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism and C4ADS. Like Australia’s own Cold War fanatics in ASPI (Australian Strategic Policy Institute) these supposedly “independent” think tanks are in fact largely funded by major Western defence contractors and Western government agencies all of whom have an interest in hyping up the “threat” from socialistic countries and other “disobedient” states. The IISS was in fact the main source of the infamous “evidence” used by then British prime minister Tony Blair and then U.S. president George Bush to dishonestly claim that Iraq was an imminent WMD threat, which they then used to “justify” launching the horrific U.S./British/Australian invasion of Iraq. Therefore, through their promotion of outright lies and exaggerations about Iraq’s military capabilities and intentions, the IISS have much responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians that resulted from this brutal invasion. Over the last three years, the now-discredited IISS and other similar neoconservative “NGOs” have been at it again – this time providing “expert” evidence to support the Crown’s earlier fanciful assertions that Choi had tried to organise a handful of North Korean experts to go to an underdeveloped third country and help a private company build ICBMs and WMDs. In fact had this proposition not been used to demonise Choi and throw him into prison, then it was so ludicrous as to be of serious comic value. Just, think about it: The Crown and AFP were claiming, purely on the basis of their interpretation of code words about pine trees used by Choi in phone conversations with an East Asian-based private trader, that three to five North Korean technicians would turn up with a few drawings and help the company that this relatively small-time trader was representing to establish a factory in Cambodia for making ballistic missiles – one of the most difficult to produce items imaginable which the very few governments able to manufacture have only been able to do so after tens of thousands of their own scientists, engineers and technicians have spent decades working on their development and manufacture; and which not one single non-state entity (not even those closest to powerful states) has ever been able to manufacture! This absurdly almost implies that ballistic missiles are so easy to build that a person could say to one of his friends:
“Hey, I have some mates who know how to make ICBMs. Why don’t I ask three of them to bring a DIY (Do It Yourself) manual about how to make them down to the park on Sunday afternoon and you, me and the gang can meet them there and build us some ICBMs. By the way if I ask my mates to E-mail us a list, can you go down to Bunnings on Sunday morning and buy the parts?”
Yet all these truly fanciful – and now discredited – claims about Choi’s activities had a purpose. Australia’s capitalist ruling class want to manufacture a “North Korea” threat in order to scare us into accepting their ever more aggressive participation in the U.S.-led Cold War drive against North Korea and her giant socialistic neighbour and ally, Red China. Both the Liberals and the ALP want the masses to accept the diversion of hundreds of billions of dollars of public money – public money that should be used for badly needed public housing, public aged care centres, childcare, public transport infrastructure, TAFE, public hospitals and public schools – into the Australian regime’s ever expanding military budget. Indeed, while the Crown now has to concede that Choi was never involved with deals related to long-range missiles, the Morrison government announced a year ago that it would itself be buying large numbers of long-range missiles. Meanwhile, there are maniacs in the government like Peter Dutton and plenty more in influential right-wing think tanks likes ASPI that are actually pushing towards a hot war with China. It is hardly polite, mild-mannered Chan Han Choi that we need to be afraid of! It is Australia’s war-mongering ruling elite that we should be terrified of! The capitalist rulers are willing to drag us into a catastrophic war with China that could kill millions just to protect their mega-profits and their system of exploitation.
But while confronting North Korea and China is good for the big end of
town, such Cold War attacks are harmful to 90% of this country’s – and indeed
the world’s – population. For the interests of all working class people – and
most middle class people too – lies with defending the socialistic rule that
exists in China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam and Laos, however as yet incomplete
and obstructed are their transitions to socialism. The existence of these socialistic
states will inevitably strengthen the struggle here for workers rights and for
a future society based on public ownership – the system that favours working
class people. Only a socialist course can free working class people from the
reality under capitalism of insecure jobs, bullying bosses, casualisation and
unaffordable housing and will finally create the conditions for a society where
women can participate fully in all economic, social and political life and
where Aboriginal people, refugees, Asians, Muslims and other people of colour will
no longer have to worry about the threat of racist cop and/or redneck attacks. And
it is a socialist world that will ensure that the Western imperialist
bombardments and war crimes that the people of Palestine, Afghanistan and the
Middle East have been subjected to will finally be things of the past.
We must resist the tormenting of Chan Han Choi
because by persecuting him for his sympathy for a socialistic state, the
Australian regime is attacking the struggle for socialism and is thus attacking
the interests of more than 90% of Australia and the world’s population. Working
class people, opponents of the imperialist bullying of the former colonies,
fighters against privatisation and supporters of public ownership and public
housing must all stand by Chan Han Choi.
In standing by Chan Han Choi, we should also oppose
the Cold War drive that his witch-hunting is designed to justify. We must defend
the workers states in North Korea and China as well as in Cuba, Vietnam and
Laos. That means that we must resist the propaganda campaign of lies over
“human rights” that is unleashed against these socialistic states.
Escalating Cold War
McCarthyism in Australia
The government, police and media hype about a supposed “North Korea threat” that accompanied Choi’s high-profile arrest was not only aimed at furthering the Australian ruling class’ Cold War drive abroad but at justifying their intensification of McCarthyist repression against supporters of socialistic states at home. Just months after Choi’s arrest, the Australian government instituted draconian laws aimed at crushing expressions of sympathy for China under the guise of opposing “foreign interference.” Meanwhile, since Choi’s arrest and the escalation of the anti-China Cold War, Chinese journalists have been raided by the AFP and ASIO, Chinese international students who organised a Sydney rally in support of Red China’s sovereignty over Hong Kong were subjected to a terrifying interrogation by Australian secret police, a respected member of the Indochinese-Chinese community in Melbourne has been charged under the “foreign interference” laws and the pro-Beijing part of Australia’s Chinese community has been intimidated. Last year, even a NSW upper house MP, Shaoquett Moselmane was witch-hunted by right-wing shock jocks and his own Labor Party for merely stating the simple fact that China responded very effectively to the pandemic. Weeks later, Moselmane was hit with an intimidating 16-hour raid of his family home by the AFP and ASIO and then subjected to months of smear and the suspension of his parliamentary seat … before the AFP finally admitted that he had no case to answer.
Meanwhile, the hysterical rubbish about a supposed “North Korea threat”
that surrounded Choi’s arrest, the witch-hunt against those sympathetic to the
PRC and the generally repressive Cold War climate have all combined to create such
a national security obsession that even dissidents and activists not involved
in Cold War issues have been targeted by Australia’s, increasingly
authoritarian, capitalist regime. It is telling that, while the whistleblower
Witness K – and his lawyer Bernard Collaery – who exposed the Australian
regime’s spying on East Timor (to aid its despicable theft of East Timor’s gas
resources) were first raided by ASIO in 2013, the Commonwealth DPP did not feel
confident that they could actually get away with charging the pair until some
five years later in June 2018, which was just six months after the high-profile
arrest of Chan Han Choi. Then just three months later, David McBride, the former
military lawyer who exposed horrific war crimes by the Australian military in
Afghanistan, was charged for his whistleblowing acts done in 2016. Meanwhile,
the same AFP that targeted these whistleblowers and Chan Han Choi have also
conducted intimidating raids against trade unions like the CFMEU. Those who are standing by Chan Han Choi,
are by doing so, also resisting the new McCarthyism and repression that Choi’s
cruel persecution is meant to fuel.
Chan Han Choi Will
Not Get a Fair Sentencing Judgement
Choi’s sentencing hearing took place by Audio Visual Link as the city
where the hearing took place has been put into lockdown as a result of a
massive COVID spread. Therefore, the Sydney protest rally demanding Chan Han
Choi’s freedom that Choi’s supporters had organised to coincide with the start
of his sentencing hearing had to be put off. Today, literally half of this
country’s population has had to be locked down. This is in good part because of
the shambolic vaccine rollout by the Morrison government. Despite this, the
Liberal government keeps on telling us that Australia’s pandemic response has
been “world-beating”. This is actually a blatant lie! It is true, that
benefitting from Australia’s very low population density and by implementing an
authoritarian fortress strategy that has virtually banned international travel,
Australia so far has a lower death rate from the virus than the U.S. and most
of Europe. However, Australia’s death rate per person is eleven times higher
than socialistic China’s and 65 times higher than in socialistic Laos. Moreover,
the regime here has had to turn to lockdowns far more often than China has,
where none of her 1.4 billion people are currently under any sort of lockdown. Furthermore,
even numerous capitalist countries like Nigeria, the Ivory Coast and Uzbekistan
have much lower death rates than here. In this country, the response is
hampered by the failure of the regime and the system to ensure adequate
protective clothing (PPE) for cleaners, nurses, paramedics and other crucial
frontline workers and enough COVID testing services, especially in the
multi-racial working class suburbs where many frontline workers live. As a
result, on Tuesday, the first day of Choi’s sentencing hearing, residents in
Sydney’s Fairfield Local Government Area, which happens to be where Choi is
staying during his house arrest, had to queue for up to six hours just to get
tested for COVID!
Yet, while the Australian
capitalist regime has failed to provide the masses with adequate vaccines,
COVID testing services and PPE it has succeeded in mobilising massive resources
to persecute Chan Han Choi – from intercepting Choi’s phone calls prior to
his arrest, to unleashing dozens of police in the operation, to the hacking
into of Choi’s E-mails and bank records, to the enlistment of numerous international
and local “experts” to the engagement of a large team of crack barristers,
lawyers and researchers. What all this indicates is that the Australian regime
is far more interested in enforcing the interests of the small capitalist
exploiting class – a class whose immediate interests lie with crushing workers
states through sanctions and Cold War – than it is in protecting the people. In
all capitalist countries, the prisons, the courts, the police, the military and
the bureaucracy were created – and are daily replenished – for the specific
purpose of enforcing the interests of the capitalist business owners against
those of the working class and their supporters. This is the case here whether
it is the Liberals, the ALP or the Greens who are in office. That is why greedy
construction bosses get away with no criminal punishment for getting workers
killed by neglecting workplace safety. Yet representatives from the
construction workers unions, like the CFMEU, get hit with criminal convictions
just for supposedly, “illegally,” inspecting unsafe work sites.
Now it is true that when Australia’s legal system hears say a murder or
assault matter which does not have a political dimension to it, it is quite possible
that the matter will indeed be dealt with under the “rule of law” principle
that the capitalist rulers claim to stand by. However, even in these cases,
this is only provided that the matters don’t intersect with questions of class
and race. In the latter cases, the anti-working class and racist bias of the
system distorts the “rule of law.” That is after all why not one single cop or
prison guard has ever been convicted for killing an Aboriginal person in
custody despite hundreds of such racist killings in Australia over the last several
decades. Moreover, if a case is political, especially where on one side lies
the interests of the working class and on the other the capitalists and their
regime, the political bias of the racist, rich people’s regime becomes overwhelming.
Furthermore, the bigger and higher profile the case, the greater the bias. And
one cannot get a higher profile case where the interests of the capitalists and
those of the working class are clearly on opposite sides, than the one of Chan
Han Choi. Capitalist interests lie with the Crown prosecution and their push to
enforce the killer sanctions on the people of a workers state and to incite
Cold War hostility to socialistic countries, while the side of the working
class and most middle class people lies with Choi. That is why Choi’s sentencing outcome will be decided
at least 90% by politics and at most 10% by the law. That is why there is
no way that Choi will get a fair sentencing result.
Everything that has happened to Choi since his arrest in 2017 confirms that the regime will not sentence him fairly, even under the unfair laws that he is convicted under. The courts repeatedly rebuffed Choi’s bail bids after the Crown opposed the bail applications, in good part, on the basis of Choi’s political sympathy for the DPRK. This is chemically pure McCarthyism, where a person is denied rights on the basis of their support for socialistic states. In jail, authorities placed special restrictions on Choi – obstructing visits to him by lawyers, translators and friends. For large periods, they even outright blocked visits. Even though Choi was not accused of any violent offence, had no prior criminal record and was not even accused of any espionage, he was imprisoned as a National Security Interest (NSI) prisoner. This meant especially brutal conditions of imprisonment. As an affidavit by the Governor of the prison that Choi spent most of his custody in admitted, Choi had no access to amenities, employment opportunities or educational opportunities due to his NSI classification. Moreover, Choi, whose English is poor, could not even speak on the phone in his native Korean unless he got special permission. Yet when he made a written application to speak to his wife in Korean in the first few months of his imprisonment, the regime rejected this. As a result, Choi could not communicate with his wife properly on the phone, even though by December 2018 she became the only family member or friend that the regime would allow him to telephone. Most seriously, authorities endangered Choi’s life by repeatedly knocking back his requests to see a prison doctor as his diabetes severely deteriorated during the first eight months of 2020. During examination at Choi’s sentencing hearing, a doctor under the pay of Justice Health – the NSW government authority charged with providing medical care to prisoners – Jacques Ette, who incredibly claimed in an earlier written submission that Choi was provided proper medical care while imprisoned, admitted that for an eight and a half month period from mid-December 2019 to the end of August 2020, Choi, who by then was on oral diabetic medication, did not have his Blood Sugar Level (BSL) monitored even once. This is despite the fact that on the last date that his BSL was actually monitored before this period, on 12 December 2019, Choi’s BSL by Dr Ette’s admission was already too high. Dr Ette further admitted under oath that the reason that Choi’s diabetes was out of control by late August 2020 was because his diabetes had not been monitored in the earlier period. Indeed, Choi’s situation became so desperate that when he was finally able to see medical staff in late August 2020, he had to be given emergency doses of insulin – medication that he had previously never needed. His BSL then swung wildly for several days from extremely high to very low thus putting him at immediate risk of brain damage, heart failure, strokes and other life threatening conditions.
Choi’s “Offending” is at the Very Low End – Even within the Unfair Laws that He is Prosecuted Under
If in the hypothetical case that Choi is sentenced fairly, even in
accordance with the completely unfair sanctions laws that he is prosecuted
under, he would just get a small fine. And given that he has already done
nearly three years in prison and eight months under strict house arrest, the
fine would not need to be paid. The reason that Choi should only get a small
fine is because all his “offences” were at the very bottom of the range within
the laws that he is prosecuted under. Even the judge who despicably knocked
back Choi’s second bail bid alluded to this in his December 2019 bail judgement.
In the judgement, Justice Harrison conceded that: “… there is a possibly of a
fine as a complete substitute for the s 11 offences, if he were convicted or
pleaded guilty. The same position applies to the other offences with which he
is charged.” Moreover, that was when Choi was facing eight charges. Now he is
being sentenced on just two of the charges with both the totally bogus WMD
charges and a coal export deal to Vietnam charge completely dropped and three
of the other charges rolled into one. Therefore, there is even more reason for
Choi to get a very low penalty than there was when Harrison made his bail
judgment.
Choi’s “offending” is on the very low end of the
sanctions laws because none of the five deals that he tried to broker ever went
through. Nothing was ever traded. Moreover, as became
clear in the sentencing hearing, in four of the five deals, Choi himself
cancelled the negotiations before he was arrested. Although the Prosecution
claims that Choi only “suspended” the trades, Choi in fact quashed the deals
because the imperial powers were policing the sanctions too tightly; and has he
told the court on Wednesday, only intended to try and re-broker the trades once
a partial easing of sanctions made the deals legal again. In the other matter,
that of a navigation system known as an IMU, which can be used for both
civilian ships, planes and drones as well as military applications, Choi’s sum
total of “brokering” consisted of forwarding the rough specifications for the
device from the inquiring trader to North Korean companies along with the
specifications for a much lower quality, civilian-only device that (slipping
through the cracks of the draconian sanctions laws) happened to be one of the very
few products that the DPRK is actually allowed to legally export. Choi then
stopped trying to broker the proscribed type of device and instead sought to
organise for the DPRK to export technology to make the product still
permissible under the sanctions laws (unfortunately due to the highly deceptive
misinterpretation of Choi’s intercepted E-mails and phone calls by the Crown
and completely wrong technical evidence by the Crown’s star “expert” witness
this truth was obscured from the court). In other words, in all five “forbidden” trades that Choi had started to broker, Choi
himself cancelled the negotiations before he was arrested. If one wants an
analogy, consider this. Imagine that you drive to a party where you plan to
drink alcohol at the party and then drive home. However, at the end of the
night, after you get into your car to drive home drunk, you realise that there
will be police everywhere and at the last minute you change your mind and call
a cab instead. Are you then still guilty of drink driving?
Pushing Back Against
the Bias of the Capitalist Legal System
Although Chan Han Choi will not be sentenced fairly, even under the unfair sanctions laws that he is charged under, there are limits as to how much Australia’s authoritarian capitalist regime can persecute him. You see, when the regime first arrested Choi and it and the tycoon and regime-owned media subjected him to a campaign of demonisation, the ruling class expected that most people would hate Choi and he would have no support. Yet nine months later, a protest movement in support of Choi began holding its first actions. Since then the united-front movement demanding freedom for Choi has grown in strength and recognition. Eight further street actions have since been conducted in support of Choi including marches through the city. Although not huge, the street actions in support of Choi have actually been the largest protests in support of any person facing criminal charges in Australia since the movement leading up to the 2008 trial and sentencing of Aboriginal resistance hero Lex Wotton, the leader of the 2004 Palm Island uprising that responded to the horrific racist killing of 36 year-old Mulrunji Doomadgee by a Queensland police officer. Alongside ourselves in Trotskyist Platform, among the groups that have participated in, or supported, the street protests demanding freedom for Choi are Anti-War West Sydney, the Australia-DPRK Friendship Society, the Communist Party of Australia – Western Sydney branch, Communist Party of Australia – Wollongong Branch, Aust-DPRK Solidarity, Social Justice Network and the Irish Republican socialist group, the James Connolly Association. These actions have galvanised others to show solidarity with Choi. When a protest march was conducted by Chan Han Choi’s supporters in Chester Hill last December, right at the very heart of Sydney’s multiracial working class southwest that has been so vilified by the ruling class during this recent COVID upsurge, the overwhelming response from passers by was sympathy. Large numbers of people tooted their horns and waved in support of the protest. Moreover, in recent months, additional groups on the Left have also issued articles expressing their support for Choi including Socialist Alliance through its Green Left Weekly publication. Meanwhile, significant sections of the Korean community in Sydney have swung behind Choi. This has been reflected in the fair coverage of the case by the main Korean language community newspaper in Australia, Hanho Daily, whose online articles have received comments that are mostly in support of Choi. This Korean New Year (which is at the same time as Chinese New Year), Choi was delivered a special New Year’s food gift to his house arrest address from a Korean community cultural association. Meanwhile, sizable chunks of the Chinese community are also behind Choi. The most popular online Chinese language news sites in Sydney, like 今日悉尼 (Sydney Today), have covered protests in support of Choi sympathetically. Meanwhile, support for Choi has spread internationally. From Genoa, Italy, proudly pro-class struggle dock workers asked us to send the design of “Free Chan Han Choi” t-shirts so that they could print out and wear them around Genoa. In Russia, articles and documentaries in support of Choi produced by a Russian-speaking journalist in Australia have gone viral in both online media and social media – with hundreds of thousands of views and tens of thousands of likes and overwhelmingly sympathetic comments. Meanwhile, from New Zealand to Greece to Britain to the U.S., groups have declared their solidarity with Choi and published articles and statements condemning his persecution. Meanwhile, even those not wholly in solidarity with Choi’s pro-DPRK stance have expressed outrage at the violations of his human rights by the Australian regime.
As a result, Australia’s capitalist rulers are paying a significant
political price for their persecution of Chan Han Choi. One way that they are
doing so stems from the fact that this ruling class is seeking to be at the very
forefront of the U.S.-led Cold War against socialistic China and North Korea.
To wage this Cold War – which some fanatics in their ranks even want to be a
hot war – the regime needs complete unity at home behind this anti-working
class campaign. They cannot tolerate even small cracks in this consensus given
that they are trying to wage this campaign against the world’s most populous
country and one which moreover buys some 40% of this country’s exports. Yet
their persecution of Chan Han Choi is already causing cracks in this consensus.
Unexpectedly for the ruling class, people are solidarsing with Choi. And in
standing by a pro-DPRK political prisoner and opposing the economic sanctions
on North Korea, people are implicitly also opposing the entire Cold War against
North Korea and by extension that against her giant neighbour and ally, the
PRC. Secondly, the cruelty of their persecution of Choi has made many question
the claims of the ruling class to stand for “democracy” and “rule of law.” For
others already suspicious of these claims, becoming aware of this persecution
of a left-wing political prisoner has destroyed their last vestiges of hope in Australia’s
state machinery. Thirdly, exposure of the regime’s persecution of Chan Han Choi
has undermined the Australian ruling class’s reputation abroad. This is
especially harmful since, like other Western imperialist powers, the
Australia’s capitalist rulers seek to use “human rights” – invariably in a
bogus way – as a stick with which to strike political blows against their
adversaries. The fact that the political prisoner that they are tormenting
happens to be sympathetic to the DPRK, one of the main targets of Australian
and U.S. “human rights” attacks, makes the exposure of their persecution of
Choi all the more embarrassing.
April 2019: One of the many street marches and rallies held in Sydney demanding freedom for Chan Han Choi.
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In the end the Australian regime will decide whether they should send
Choi back to prison by weighing the political benefits of such a course versus
the political costs. An indication of the regime’s ambivalence on the issue was
seen by the fact that at the sentencing hearing, while the Crown was pushing
very hard and certainly was not saying that Choi had already served his
sentence, nevertheless did not explicitly call for Choi to be thrown back into
prison. Instead they insisted only that his overall sentence (backdated from
the time of his 2017 imprisonment) be a full-time custodial sentence, with a
large proportion of it non-parole.
As different components and factions of the Australian regime debate
what to do about Chan Han Choi’s sentencing they are very much in agreement on
one very crucial point – they all want to discredit Choi and, more crucially
for them, what Choi represents. This is seen by the dramatic about face done by
the Crown on what Choi’s motivations were. For three and half years, the AFP
and Commonwealth DPP pushed the line that Choi was motivated by a “higher
patriotic duty” and by “loyalty to the DPRK.” They said that he was an “economic
agent of the DPRK.” They then opposed bail successfully for nearly three years
in good part on the basis of Choi’s “loyalty to the DPRK.” Yet just over two
weeks ago, the Crown did a 180 degree U-turn. They started claiming that Choi
was instead motivated by personal profit. This is of course ridiculous! If one
was really motivated by personal financial gain, trying to act as a broker for
North Korea, especially for a person living in a country with a rabidly
anti-communist regime like Australia, is the worst course to take. The
sanctions on North Korea are extremely tightly policed by the U.S., Japan,
Australia and other imperialist powers. Moreover, any broker on the North
Korean side could never make much money from such trades because North Korea
can only entice potential buyers to break the sanctions and accept North Korean
produce if they offer buyers a much lower price than the world market price. If
someone in Australia really wanted to make money from brokering illegal trades
they would simply be a drug dealer, which Choi is definitely not. The sudden
attempt by the Crown to paint Choi as someone motivated by personal gain is a
crude, last minute, attempt by the regime to de-politicise a case that they
have politicised from the very beginning. It is a realisation by the regime
that their Cold War imprisonment of pro-DPRK political prisoner Chan Han Choi
has done them a lot of political harm and now they want their best to show that
Choi was never a political prisoner and … his matter was never about politics!
At the sentencing hearing, Choi emphatically stated that none of the commissions that he was slated to receive were going to be used for his own personal benefit. He clearly explained how any commissions that he was to have received were to be put back into helping develop new trade for the DPRK. Choi was able to point to the Crown’s own evidence which included an E-mail detailing how Choi was to use money made from the proposed coal export deal to Indonesia to pay for a delegation from North Korea for another of the planned deals. As a result of the sanctions – and due to over compliance by banks seeking to avoid regulatory punishment –it is very hard for the DPRK to send money out. Moreover foreign hotels and airlines are reluctant to receive payment sent out from North Korea. As a result, foreigners like Choi need to pay for any trade delegations from the DPRK. Moreover, that Choi was not seeking personal profit from his brokering work for North Korea is confirmed by the fact that, although Choi brokered some pretty big, commodities export contracts for North Korea in the period when ever-tightening sanctions had not yet proscribed such trade, Choi lived an austere life. When he was arrested, he lived in a modest rented apartment, owned no property, had no car and had just $6,000 in savings. At the time, Choi was working as a hospital cleaner.
In the face of this truth, the Prosecution came up with a third and most bizarre theory about Choi’s motivations. Speaking about one of the particulars of one of the charges, the prosecution quietly backed away from claiming that Choi was seeking personal gain from the once-planned deal but also insisted that the DPRK would not benefit from the deal either! Instead they claimed that Choi just wanted to deal in arms – implying, but not quite saying, that Choi was akin to an evil villain in a James Bond-type movie who seeks destruction for destruction’s sake. Cross-examining Choi, the lead prosecutor put to Choi that he had no regard for the deaths that would be caused by the arms deal that he had once tried to broker. Choi calmly responded that unfortunately all arms can kill people and it does not matter which country makes them. We should add that it is extremely hypocritical for the Australian regime to complain about people trying to trade arms. In July 2017, Australia’s then defence industry minister announced that he wants Australia to become one of the top arms exporters in the world. By then Australian had already become the world’s 20th largest weapons exporter (https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/defence-industry-minister-christopher-pyne-wants-australia-to-become-major-arms-exporter-20170715-gxbv4m.html) despite only being the world’s 53rd most populous country. Over the last few years, Australian arms manufacturers have been exporting large quantities of weapons to Saudi Arabia and UAE who are both engaged in a bloody war in Yemen that has created the world’s worst humanitarian disaster (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jul/25/australian-weapons-shipped-to-saudi-and-uae-as-war-rages-in-yemen). We could further add that given that the countries causing most of the death and destruction in the world – that is the Western imperialist powers and their proxies, the ones who killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan (including the Australian special forces in Afghanistan who on many occasions tortured and murdered Afghan farmers and prisoners and who shot dead all the Afghan farmers in one neighbourhood just to ensure no witnesses to one of their earlier murders), who regularly unleash terror against the Palestinian people, who destroyed Libya, who are devastating the people of Yemen etc – are always able to get their own sources of weapons, it is possible that arms manufactured by smaller entities may actually find their way into forces fighting genuine liberation struggles. Palestinian liberation fighters, as well as Kashmiri people standing up to India’s murderous occupation of their land, sure do need weapons to defend their people. Had the Palestinian people of Gaza had effective MANPADs, would the Israeli military be so unrestrained in launching air strikes against Gaza’s residential apartment blocks? More importantly, given that the extreme tightening of sanctions against North Korea in 2017 threatens wholesale immisiration of many of her people, it is morally and politically justifiable for North Korea to try and sell almost anything to get the hard currency needed to meet her people’s basic needs. For the actual killing is not being done right now by any weapons that North Korea may manage to sell but by the heinous sanctions against her people. The sanctions on North Korea, like the ones on Iran, are a form of “legal”, mass murder. And the real killers are the imperialist rulers who repeatedly arm twisted much of the world to acquiesce to successively more severe sanctions. The ASIO and AFP officers, prosecutors and judges involved in Choi’s persecution and thus in enforcing these sanctions also bear some responsibility for the death and suffering that these sanctions have caused.
Throughout the sentencing hearing, it seemed that although the Crown was pushing extremely hard to hit Choi with as tough a sentence as possible, they were perhaps even more obsessed with trying to destroy Choi’s reputation. The judge too got in the act. Towards the very end of the hearing, she made an intervention to this effect from left field, after all the witnesses had already given their testimony. Despite Choi never raising mental health as a factor that should influence his sentencing and despite the Prosecution, in this case actually quite correctly, submitting that a psychiatric report performed weeks before the hearing found that Choi had no “mental illness or disorder as contributing to the commission of the offence”, the judge suggested that maybe mental health issues were a factor. She pointed to an old report done by a doctor in April 2020 which assessed that while Choi was fit for trial and even to self-represent at a trial, also claimed that Choi had symptoms of a “delusional disorder.” However, what the doctor described as “delusions” may have more to do with difficulties in translation and the doctors’ own frank admission that he had “difficulty following his [i.e. Choi’s] account due to a combination of cultural factors, language and likely my limited understanding of the political landscape about which I am no expert.” Moreover, that April 2020 report was based on interviews with Choi when he was still in custody under brutal conditions and in a very poor emotional state. Choi was at the time furious about his repeated requests to see a prison doctor being rejected. Unknown to him at the time, Choi’s then physical symptoms which he sought treatment for were caused by his diabetes condition badly deteriorating. Uncontrolled diabetes is known to cause intense mood swings. When the same doctor assessed Choi weeks after he was granted bail and after his diabetes had been brought under control, the doctor concluded that “I would not diagnose him with a psychiatric condition.” Then the report performed by another doctor, weeks prior to Choi’s sentencing, found not only that “Mr Choi does not have any cognitive impairment and does not have a mental illness or mental disorder” but that Choi is “functional intelligent.” So why would the judge then even mention mental health in relation to Choi’s matter? Well it seems like the judge was laying the basis to, in her final judgement, raise the possibility (she will not be able to go any further than this given the overwhelming evidence given by doctors to the contrary) that Choi’s actions were, in part, influenced by a “delusional disorder.” That way the judge – who while being a woman of considerable intellect and no doubt personal integrity too is well-known to be a political conservative, that is a right-winger – can impute that people wanting to help North Korea breach economic sanctions and anyone having solidarity with the DPRK and her system are pushed to such a stance by their own mental illness. That may end up being part of the judge’s means to “solve” an issue that has troubled the ruling class from about 24 hours after they, with great sensationalism and hype, arrested Chan Han Choi in 2017: How do we respond to the inevitable reality that people are going to ask themselves why a person who has lived in both South Korea and Australia would have such sympathy for North Korea and her people that they would want to put their own freedom at great peril to help North Korea trade in violation of economic sanctions? Australia’s capitalist rulers fear that other “functional intelligent” people exploring what could be Choi’s motives will break through the wall of anti-DPRK propaganda and themselves realise that a lot of what capitalist powers say about North Korea is a lie; and that the economic sanctions on North Korea are murderously cruel measures that are not only unjust but are causing enormous suffering to North Korea’s people.
From the Crown’s spectacular, eleventh-hour gymnastic performance of flips and backflips as to Choi’s motivation to the judge’s last minute lobbing of mental health as a factor, the Australian ruling are doing their best to obscure what actually drove Chan Han Choi and – more importantly for them – what he represents. So let’s clarify who is Chan Han Choi and what motivated his “offending” actions. Chan Han Choi is a very compassionate and polite human being. He grew up in capitalist South Korea and then has lived the last 34 years of his life in Australia. At the time of his arrest he was an Australian citizen. Choi has worked as a civil engineer on major construction projects and as an engineering consultant on housing and smaller-scale developments. He has also worked as a cleaner. For most of his life, Choi bought the anti-DPRK propaganda that he was fed from childhood. However, from the mid-noughties, Choi began to do his own research on the question. Then in 2007 he made his first trip to North Korea. Like many people who go to North Korea with a truly open mind and without the expressed aim of themselves adding to anti-DPRK hostility – which is certainly why mainstream Western journalists go to North Korea – he really liked North Korean society. Choi fell in love with the egalitarianism of a society where he found that workers seem to have more rights at work than factory directors, where people’s interrelationships are not driven by money and where the warmth of friendship between ordinary people is very evident. At the same time, Choi saw economic hardships caused by the effects of sanctions, economic blockade and U.S.-led military pressure – the latter forcing North Korea to divert considerable resources to self-defence in order to avoid her people meeting the same fate as Iraq’s people. The suffering seen in one journey to a rural area during Choi’s first trip to North Korea had a particularly profound effect on him. He resolved to do what he could do to help North Korea’s economy and thereby improve the life of her people. Choi volunteered himself as an unofficial trade representative for the DPRK’s public sector enterprises that dominate her economy (note the label thrown around by the AFP, the Crown Prosecutors and the media for three and a half years, that Choi is an “economic agent” of North Korea, is deliberately intended to make something so very benign as being a trade representative sound sinister. After all, are Australia’s own trade representatives and those of her capitalist corporations ever referred to as “economic agents”?). Choi had considerable success in brokering trade deals for North Korea, deals which at the time were legal. Bank records and E-mails hacked into by the police after they arrested Choi showed that in a two-month period in 2008 alone, Choi organised two export deals for the sale of North Korean coal and pig iron respectively that were together worth $US1.3 million. Later Choi helped to put North Korean exporting firms together with contacts in China, South Korea and elsewhere so that the respective parties could themselves arrange deals. He also brokered bartering deals where North Korea coal, iron and other commodities would be directly exchanged for rice and corn from China. Partly through the efforts of people like Choi and even more so through the work of North Korea’s own people and with the help of increased trade with socialistic China’s booming economy, by ten years after Choi’s first trip to North Korea, North Korea was actually able to better feed all her people than the majority of other developing countries in Asia. However, Choi watched with horror in 2016 and 2017 as successively more draconian sanctions were imposed on North Korea. He rightly feared that North Korea’s people would now have to endure even more hardships than that which he saw in his early trips to North Korea in the mid-late noughties. So in the latter half of 2017, Choi made a renewed push to broker trade deals for North Korea’s people. However, the goal posts had moved. The deals that he had brokered previously, which had once been legal, were now proscribed by the sanctions. Worried about the plight of the people and society that he so cared about, Choi pushed through with some brokering efforts. But seeing the stringency of the imperialist policing of sanctions, Choi pulled back and cancelled the deals. This is the sum total of what Choi’s “offending” consists of and what drove it. In a fair society Choi would be given medals and awards for compassion. But here he was demonised and thrown into prison in especially brutal conditions for three years.
We cannot allow this compassionate human being, Chan Han Choi, to be thrown back into prison again. And we cannot allow them to prolong Choi’s suffering by hitting him with a period of parole either. In the last few days before the sentencing judgement is handed down and while the regime weighs up its political benefits versus political costs of prolonging Choi’s suffering, let us do our best to increase those political costs by building more support for Choi and popularising knowledge of the cruel violations of his rights while imprisoned.In doing so, let’s simultaneously resist the anti-working class, Cold War drive that the demonisation of Choi was designed to “justify”! And let’s fight to lift the economic sanctions that are so devastating the people of North Korea!
Above photo: Chan Han Choi thanks supporters waiting at a park to cheer him on as he travels back to his residence of house arrest from his mandatory reporting at a police station. The supporters had gathered following a protest march on 17 December 2020 demanding the dropping of all charges against this socialist political prisoner.
Down With the Cold War Persecution of Chan Han Choi!
Momentum Builds in Campaign to Free Socialist Political Prisoner in Australia
18 December 2020: Support continues to grow for left-wing political prisoner in Australia, Chan Han Choi. Yesterday, braving stormy weather, Choi’s supporters conducted the biggest of our three protests in his defence that we have held during this year of pandemic. Some of the participants were joining an action in defence of Choi for the first time and one group also newly joined the campaign.
Chan Han Choi is now under house arrest after being released on bail last month. He had spent nearly three years in prison in extremely harsh conditions despite not being convicted of any charge. He will finally go to trial this February. Yesterday’s demonstration demanded, “Freedom for Choi – Not House Arrest” and also demanded, “Drop the Charges Against this Left-Wing Political Prisoner.”
Choi is charged with attempting to organise trade
deals to help North Korea export her produce abroad – and in one case attempt
to import petroleum products – in violation of crippling United Nations economic
sanctions on the people of North Korea. However, as the call out for yesterday’s
action stressed:
“Even if the claims against him turn out to be true, he is no criminal from the working class standpoint. Quite the opposite! It would simply prove that he is a great humanitarian aiding people who are being ground down by the most extreme and brutal sanctions ever imposed on the people of any country.
“Choi is also a socialist who sympathises with North Korea because he likes that society’s egalitarianism. Whatever one thinks of North Korea’s leaders, the fact is that her people have built a system based upon socialist public ownership of the key banks, industries, agricultural land and mines. In supporting a socialistic system, Choi is also standing by the more than 90% of this country and the world who would benefit from such a system. To those hurt by the present capitalist system causing such misery and economic insecurity for Australia’s working class people, we say that Choi has stood by you. Working class people must in turn now stand by him! Moreover, by defending Chan Han Choi we will also be opposing the murderously crippling economic sanctions that have so devastated the brave people of North Korea.”
As the chair of yesterday’s rally, Sarah Fitzenmeyer –
who is also the chairwoman of Trotskyist Platform – stressed, although Choi has
been charged with attempting to help the people of North Korea evade the cruel
economic sanctions, “the reason that he was denied bail until recently and
outrageously kept in prison for nearly three years without being convicted of
any charge was because of his pro-North Korea political views.” The rally emcee
further explained:
“Whenever Chan Han Choi applied for bail, the Australian Federal Police and Commonwealth prosecutors openly stated that bail should be opposed because of Choi’s sympathy for the DPRK and because he had made statements from prison condemning the economic sanctions on the people of North Korea as being unjust and unfair. This is blatant political discrimination. They are effectively saying that if you support a socialistic country you should have less rights than others.
“… One of the very worrying things about Choi’s persecution is that it is part of a pattern of repression against those who express sympathy for socialistic countries. Last month, a Chinese Australian man, Sunny Duong, became the first person charged under Australia’s draconian, so-called “foreign interference” laws that are aimed at quashing the voices of those sympathetic to socialistic China. Sunny is a highly respected member of Melbourne’s South-East Asian Chinese community. You can bet that this is another beat up!
“Six months ago, a NSW Labor MP Shaoquett Moselmane was forced out of his elected senate seat for several months after the Australian Federal Police made an extraordinarily heavy-handed raid on his home. Their excuse for the raid was that he belonged to a social media chat group where other people made pro-China comments. Can you believe it? And this regime calls itself a democracy! Two months before being raided, Moselmane was witch-hunted out of his position as deputy president of the NSW upper house just because he told the plain truth that China responded very well to the pandemic. So much for free speech!
“Sisters and brothers, by coming out here with courage to defend the biggest victim of McCarthyist persecution, Chan Han Choi, you are pushing back against this new Cold War witch-hunt.”
Yesterday’s protest was held to mark the third
anniversary of Chan Han Choi’s arrest. The demonstration was addressed by
representatives of Trotskyist Platform, the Australia-DPRK Friendship Society,
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Julian Assange. Other than supporters of these groups, also participating in
the action were representatives of the Communist League as well as individuals
who are members of the Communist Party of Australia and of the Australia-Cuba
Friendship Society. The action saw some thirty people march through the streets
of Chester Hill chanting, “Free Chan Han Choi, Lift the Sanctions Now!” The
march route replicated the journey that Choi has been taking for his mandatory
reporting to a police station. To the delight of demonstrators, we saw Choi
walking just a few metres ahead of us on his way to his evening report to the
police station. Then as demonstrators waited in a park near the police station,
our hero Chan Han Choi walked past us on his way back to his residence, bowing
and waving to supporters. Later back at his residence, Choi expressed his
deepest appreciation to all those who joined the protest.
Western Sydney, 17 December 2020: Demonstrators gather in the multi-racial working class suburb of Chester Hill to demand the dropping of all charges against Chan Han Choi.
Yesterday’s march won much solidarity from Chester
Hill residents. Many people walking or driving past the protest waved in
solidarity, yelled out encouragement or tooted their horns in sympathy. Most
people in multi-racial, working class Chester Hill are all too aware of the
bias against low-income people and those from racial minorities of Australia’s
legal and prison system. Thus their natural instinct is to solidarise with
someone like Choi who is in the cross-hairs of the regime. Moreover, many of
those expressing their appreciation for yesterday’s protest come from
backgrounds from the Middle East and other former colonial countries –
experiences that have thought them to both hate Western imperialism and to understand
the suffering caused by UN economic sanctions, sanctions which when imposed on the
people of Iraq between 1990 and 2003 caused the premature deaths of 1.7 million
people! Thus these people feel a warm connection with a supporter of the DPRK
(i.e. North Korea), a state which they associate with staunch defiance of
predatory imperialism. That connection is doubly strong when that person happens
to be persecuted for his opposition to murderous economic sanctions.
Yet, when Chan Han Choi was first arrested, Australia’s capitalist rulers expected that he would have no support. They wanted to demonise Choi in order to create an irrational fear amongst Australia’s population of North Korea and her socialistic Chinese neighbour and ally. The entire mainstream media demonised Choi and then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull hysterically denounced him. The witch-hunt of Chan Han Choi was to be one of the means that the capitalist regime would use to “justify” intensifying their Cold War drive against the socialistic countries. It was to help rationalise their massive Cold War military build up. It was to aid their push to both give even greater powers to Australia’s ASIO secret police and to introduce draconian so-called “foreign interference” laws. The hype against Choi was also one of the regime’s means to “rationalise” their planned state repression against sympathisers of North Korea’s socialistic neighbour, the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). They didn’t count on people supporting Choi! They are very worried about this support. You see by standing by a political prisoner who has been harshly imprisoned for his sympathy for North Korea, we blow to smithereens the credibility of Australia’s capitalist ruling class when they attack North Korea and the PRC over supposed “human rights abuses.” The capitalist rulers thus hate this exposure of their political persecution of Chan Han Choi in the same way that they went apoplectic when a Chinese official tweeted a political cartoon that called out the true horror of the Australian military’s war crimes in Afghanistan.
In the end that is why Australia’s capitalist regime
finally had to grant bail to Chan Han Choi last month. They wanted to minimise
the political damage to themselves by making this concession. So well done to
all those who have participated in the campaign to free Chan Han Choi. Today,
the Australian regime made a further very minor concession. Although rebuffing
Choi’s plea to be freed from house arrest, they agreed to allow Choi to visit
Chester Hill shopping centre on his way from daily reporting at the police
station and to reduce his required number of police station reporting from two per
day to one per day and with Sunday now made a day off from reporting.
However as Trotskyist Platform spokesman, Samuel Kim
stressed at yesterday’s action:
“… let’s remember that our work is far from over. Even today Choi is not free as he is under house arrest. Come February [when Choi faces trial] Choi possibly might be locked up in prison again. For him there is no rule of law but a gangster like rule of the exploiting class ….
“It is not just the laws serving the exploiters that are unfair but the entire legal system that put him [Choi] there is also unfair. The military, the courts, the police, the prisons in Australia form part of a capitalist state that exists to enforce the interests of the corporate exploiters against those of the working class masses and their supporters. This is the case whether it is the Liberals or ALP or Greens who take power. They all have deeply entwined servitude to the sheer domination of the exploiting class. The capitalist system with its drive for profits, its war against workers, cannot be trusted to give Choi a fair hearing. So therefore, that is why we are mobilised here today. And in the future we need more mobilisations, more like-minded souls, more workers, poor, unemployed, students [as] part of our struggle in order to help free Choi….
“We demand: Drop all charges against Chan Han Choi! Down with the barbaric sanctions on the people of North Korea! Resist the Cold War drive against socialistic China and socialistic North Korea!”
Above: Chan Han Choi at his residence of house arrest shortly after his release from prison on bail on the evening of 12 November 2020. Choi is here reading a copy of the main Korean language community newspaper in Sydney, Hanho Daily. The then current issue of Hanho Daily contained an article on the campaign to free this socialist political prisoner. Photo Credit: Trotskyist Platform
Free Chan Han Choi – Drop All Charges Now!
Australian Regime Releases Socialist Political Prisoner into House
Arrest
13 November 2020 –
After nearly three years in prison without being convicted of any charge, Chan
Han Choi was yesterday finally released on bail. However, the bail conditions
imposed on him are so strict that they amount to house arrest. Choi is not
allowed to leave his bail residence except for his twice daily reporting to a
nearby police station or for essential medical care. Apart from being subjected
to a strict curfew, his use of the internet is greatly restricted. Moreover,
Choi “must, on request, disclose to the officer in charge any caller or phone
number appearing on his accounts.” This is a blatant attempt to assist the police
to carry out intimidation and surveillance of Choi’s many friends and
supporters.
Despite the harsh bail conditions imposed on him, Choi is certainly happy to be out of prison. He spent most of his nearly three years in prison in one of the Australian regime’s most notorious prison camps. Moreover, the capitalist regime imposed extra severe conditions on this socialist political prisoner. They obstructed visits to Choi by lawyers, translators and friends. They banned him from making any telephone calls to his friends whatsoever – a right accorded to other prisoners. More recently, they failed to monitor his diabetes and repeatedly knocked back his requests to see a prison doctor over an eight and a half month period as his diabetes significantly worsened. Choi was finally allowed medical care again only after sending off a strong August 15 letter to prison health authorities stating “that they are trying indirectly to murder me” by rebuffing his repeated written requests to be seen by a prison doctor. By the time that Choi was seen by prison medical staff on August 27, his blood sugar levels had reached alarmingly dangerous levels. He required emergency doses of insulin. Later he was put on a program of daily insulin injections and thrice daily sugar level monitoring. It turned out that, unbeknownst to Choi at the time, most of the symptoms that he was desperately seeking medical attention for – severe unintended weight loss, rashes all over his body, very itchy fungal infections etc – were the result of his diabetes going out of control. The fact is that Choi should have been receiving daily insulin up to eight months before he was finally treated in this way. The regime’s delay in treating his diabetes not only caused the symptoms that he suffered from but put Choi at greatly increased risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke. Apart from being potentially deadly, the Australian regime’s refusal of medical care to this left-wing political prisoner caused him extreme stress that for a period affected his mental health.
Even on his very last day in jail prior to being released on bail, the callous neglect of Choi’s health needs continued. Yesterday, Choi asked to see the nurse on duty so that he could get a certificate about the medication that he is taking in order to give it to a doctor once he is released. However, senior guards blocked him from accessing a nurse. Thus prevented from having any official record of the medication that he has been prescribed, today Choi and his supporters spent the afternoon in a panic as they feverishly attempted to deduce – with the help of his new GP and pharmacist – what daily insulin dose he was being prescribed and what other diabetes and high cholesterol medication he requires.
16 November 2020: Chan Han Choi with some of his supporters at his own COVID-safe birthday party held at his residence of house arrest. Choi was coincidentally released from bail just four days before his 62nd birthday. Photo Credit: Trotskyist Platform
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Chan Han Choi is accused of trying to help North Korea’s people conduct trade with entities abroad in violation of UN economic sanctions. He is scheduled to face trial next February. All the eight charges against Choi relate to alleged brokering of the export of produce from North Korea to entities in third countries, except for one of the charges. That latter charge alleges that Choi attempted to broker the import of petroleum products from Iran to the DPRK. Choi has pleaded not guilty to all the eight charges. However, as asserted by the chair of a united front rally held in Choi’s defence on the Saturday prior to his November 10 bail hearing:
“We say that whether the charges are true or not, Choi should be freed and all the charges dropped. Because even if they are true, he has committed no crime from the standpoint of working class people. On the contrary he would have carried out a great act of humanitarianism. Because these sanctions are cruel and brutal. Similar sanctions imposed on the people of Iraq, in just their first eight years of implementation, from 1990 to 1998, killed half a million Iraqi babies. They caused a half a million babies to die prematurely through a lack of food and medicine – this is according to the United Nations, the body that imposed the sanctions. In the end about 1.7 million people in Iraq died as a result of those sanctions. Now, North Korea has a socialistic system so they’re better able to protect their people from these sanctions. But still it causes enormous suffering. Choi has been to rural areas of North Korea and he has seen that suffering caused by the sanctions. And that is why he is opposed to these sanctions and wants to help the people of North Korea.
“But Chan Han Choi is also a socialist. He likes North Korea’s egalitarianism. He likes the society’s community spirit. Now people can have different ideas about North Korea’s leadership. But the fact is that the people of North Korea have built a socialistic system based on public ownership of the banks, the mines, the factories and the agricultural land. Now that system is a system that favours working class people. So by standing by such a system, Chan Han Choi has stood by all the people in Australia and around the world hurt by the capitalist system. He has stood by the millions of workers, many young and women workers, who’ve been forced into insecure casual labour. He has stood by the hundreds of thousands of workers who have been thrown out of their jobs over the last few months after their toil made their bosses huge profits… He has stood by the people who are struggling with rent or mortgage repayments because there is so little public housing. He has stood by the people hurt by privatisation. So by standing by a system of public ownership, he has stood by 90% of Australia’s population. We must now stand by him!”
An Australian SAS soldier murders an unarmed Afghan person in cold blood. A report by the Australian regime itself – only partly made public – reveals that the Australian military killed at least 39 civilians or unarmed prisoners. Among those that they murdered were children. The racist troops also tortured a large number of prisoners, often just for sport. Yet despite some of these crimes having occurred eight or more years ago and being exposed by courageous whistleblowers years ago, not a single soldier committing a war crime has thus far been charged with any crime. By contrast, Chan Han Choi who is not charged with killing anyone, assaulting anyone, sexually assaulting anyone, stealing from anyone or even with espionage was imprisoned for nearly three years without facing trial.
Resist the Rise of Cold War McCarthysim!
Although Choi was initially charged for allegedly trying to break the sanctions on the people of North Korea, the reason he was imprisoned and denied bail until now was largely because of his sympathy for socialistic North Korea. In their submissions opposing each of Choi’s bail applications, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) insisted on each occasion that Choi’s stated sympathy for the DPRK was a strong reason to reject bail. Meanwhile, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) claimed that Choi’s statements from prison that he is a political prisoner and attacking the economic sanctions on the DPRK as unfair and unjust are also reasons to deny bail. In other words, because of Choi’s sympathy for a socialistic country and his avowed opposition to the cruel sanctions on the people of that country, the Australian regime is insisting that Choi should have less rights than others. This is blatant political discrimination! It is what Cold War McCarthyism is all about – where people’s sympathy for a socialistic country or advocacy of communism is equated with criminal acts. It makes a mockery of the Australian regime’s claims to run a “democratic system” where “everyone has the same rights regardless of their political stance.” Such discrimination against sympathisers of socialistic states is all the more disgusting because those standing by such systems based on public ownership and working class rule – in however a bureaucratically deformed manner that it may currently exist in North Korea and the Peoples Republic China – are standing by the interests of the entire working class of Australia and the world; and most of the middle class as well.
Meanwhile, the CDPP and AFP also opposed Choi’s bail on the grounds that his supporters providing bail surety and bail residence to him are associated with groups like Trotskyist Platform, “that make statements undermining the Australian legal system and showing a lack of respect for the processes associated with adjudicating criminal guilt.” Thus, people expressing distrust in Australia’s capitalist legal system – a system that is both racist and biased towards the rich business owning class – are branded as being necessarily more likely to commit criminal acts than others. Indeed, the regime went even further. They made a big deal about the people offering bail surety having, on certain days, worn t-shirts containing the flag of the DPRK! Shock horror! Their Cold War anti-communism is so intense that they even deem people wearing t-shirts with the flag of a socialistic country as would-be criminals.
Alongside such fanatical anti-communist arguments, the CDPP and AFP also resorted to other spurious “grounds” for opposing bail. For one they constructed a completelybonkers conspiracy theory that Chinese, North Korean or even Russian agents would assist Choi to flee Australia – despite the COVID ban on travel out of this country – should Choi be granted bail. Then, they made a huge song and dance about Choi’s family’s supposed minimal contact with him since his arrest. However, as Choi’s legal team noted, his family members were themselves raided at the time that Choi was arrested and there “is an irresistible inference that the lack of contact between the Applicant [Choi] and his family, and vice versa, may be prompted out of fear for the safety” of family members “as opposed to a permanent state of degradation in their familial relationship, and hence the diminishment of the Applicant’s community ties.” Moreover, until well into 2019, Choi had regularly been speaking to his wife on the phone. This communication only ceased after two members of the Corrections Intelligence Group visited Choi in prison and made the chilling threat that should he ever speak on the phone in Korean again, he would be sent to Goulburn Supermax prison. Soon, Choi found that he could not adequately communicate with his wife since both are far from fluent in English. Moreover, there was a danger that either one of them could unthinkingly break into Korean during a phone conversation which could cause Choi to be sent to Goulburn Supermax and out of easy reach of the friends who have been visiting him in custody. As a result he stopped calling his wife. However, making a mockery of the prosecution’s emphasis on his supposed “minimal contact with family members,” the first thing that Choi did this morning – after having been given an approved phone late last night – was to make phone contact with his family… and a lengthy conversation followed!
Upon his release from prison into house arrest, Choi expressed his deepest appreciation to all the people who have supported him. He said that without their support and actions there is no way that he would have been released on bail. When Choi was arrested in December 2017, then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, Australian Federal Police leaders and the mainstream media launched vicious verbal attacks on him. They sought to use the case to create a hysterical fear of North Korea. Choi was a bogeyman for the Australian capitalist regime to justify increased McCarthyist repression at home and a greatly intensified military build up against the DPRK and her socialistic PRC neighbour and ally. However, soon, the regime and the capitalist class that it serves found that many people did not buy their propaganda. Many sympathized with Choi and a vibrant movement mobilising street protests in defence of this socialist political prisoner emerged. The regime realised that the Choi case, rather than being a propaganda bonanza, has turned into a headache for them. In particular, the efforts of Choi’s supporters to expose the regime’s cruel treatment of this political prisoner and the resulting sympathy for Choi emerging from within a sizeable section of Australia’s Korean community (see: http://www.hanhodaily.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=64867) – and part of the Chinese community too – was threatening to lay bare to many the fraudulent nature of the ruling class’ claims to stand for “rule of law” and “human rights.” Thus, the exposure of the Australian regime’s profoundly unjust persecution of Choi is also undermining its attempts to attack the PRC, DPRK and other socialistic countries over supposed “human rights abuses.” It seems that decisive sections of the Australian ruling class have hence calculated that its interests would be better served by releasing Choi into house arrest until his trial.
7 November 2020: Supporters of Chan Han Choi rally in Sydney’s Chinatown to demand his freedom and to assert their opposition to the return of Cold War McCarthyism. The protesters then marched to Sydney Town Hall.
Congratulations to all those who have joined the street protests in defense of Chan Han Choi and supported him in other ways. You made a real difference! Alongside Trotskyist Platform, many other groups joined this united front campaign. Among the organisations that have either participated in or supported the various rallies supporting Choi are Trotskyist Platform, Anti-War West Sydney, Social Justice Network, Australia-DPRK Friendship Society, Communist Party of Australia – Wollongong branch, Communist Party of Australia –Western Sydney branch, Aust-DPRK Solidarity, Lebanese Communist Party and the Irish Republican socialist group James Connolly Association.
However, we supporters of Choi cannot rest on our laurels. His trial is approaching fast. Moreover, there is a lot at stake. For, although Choi is the biggest victim of Cold War McCarthyism in this country he is far from the only target. Just a week before Choi was released from prison, a Chinese Australian man, Sunny Duong, became the first person charged under Australia’s draconian so-called “foreign interference” laws – laws that are aimed at quashing the voice of those sympathetic to socialistic China and the other workers states. Sunny is a highly respected member of Melbourne’s South-East Asian Chinese community. The Australian regime have given scant details about the charges. But you can bet that this is another beat up! They say that he was conspiring to interfere in Australia’s political affairs. What do they mean by that: was he was planning to merely issue some social media posts sympathetic to China?
Five months ago, a NSW Labor MP Shaoquett Moselmane was forced out of his elected senate seat for several months after the Australian Federal Police made a heavy-handed and intimidating raid on his home. It turns out that he never had any case to answer. Their excuse for the raid was that he belonged to a social media chat group where other people made pro-China comments. Can you believe that? And the regime here calls itself a democracy! Two months before being raided, Moselmane was witch-hunted out of his position as deputy president of the NSW upper house just because he told the truth and said that China responded very well to the pandemic. So much for free speech!
Meanwhile, last year, Chinese international students were subjected to an intimidating interrogation by Australia’s ASIO secret police. The students were targeted because they organised a large march in Sydney opposing the pro-colonial, anti-China rioters in Hong Kong. Then this year, ASIO and the Federal police staged a Gestapo-style raid on Chinese journalists working in Australia, seizing their computers and phones and terrifying their children.
Like all bullies, those leading the Cold War McCarthyist drive in Australia depend on their potential victims being intimidated. That is after all how witch-hunts work. First the witch-hunters target one person and hope that others who would support that target are intimidated and stay silent to avoid being targeted themselves. Then the persecutors move on to the next victim who often could be one of the people who decided to stay silent. That is why we must not stay silent when anyone is being persecuted for their sympathy for socialistic states; or in Moselmane’s case for having merely said a few words in praise of China. Now is the time to put our heads up – not duck for cover! The way to defeat witch-hunts is through courage! We must say an injury to one is an injury to all! By working harder to defend the biggest victim of McCarthyist persecution in Australia, Chan Han Choi, we are pushing back against this Cold War witch-hunt on all fronts.
The struggle to win freedom for Choi and to oppose the broader McCarthyist witch-hunt will need to be waged through mass street actions and political exposure. We can have no illusions in justice originating from the Australian regime’s legal system. As Trotskyist Platform spokesman, Samuel Kim, concluded in a speech made at the 7 November “Free Chan Han Choi” protest:
“The prisons, the courts, the police and the state bureaucracy in this capitalist country exist to enforce the interests of the corporate owners against those of the working class masses and their supporters. This is the case whether it is the Liberals, the ALP or the Greens who are in office as the capitalists also heavily influence these political parties. That is why greedy construction industry bosses get away with industrial manslaughter and murder – where on average 30 construction industry workers are killed on the job every year. Yet representatives from the construction workers unions get hit with criminal convictions for inspecting unsafe work sites.
“This system is geared towards the rich and powerful – and Choi, a hospital cleaner and someone charged with standing up for a workers state will receive discrimination from this system. So that is why we have mobilised on the streets with our physical bodies and we are loudly voicing these injustices. The only way we can bring true justice for Choi or any working class struggle – like for higher wages, struggles against police brutality or for affordable housing – is through street actions and protest actions of the good people. We need future mass actions of politically aware working class people and our allies. This, comrades and friends, is the most powerful way to oppose the decaying capitalist system of increasing inequality. We demand:
“Freedom for Chan Han Choi!
“Down with the barbaric sanctions, military threats, and trade war on the people of North Korea!
“Down with the Cold War witch-hunt against supporters of socialistic states!
Chan Han Choi Pleads: “They Are Indirectly Trying to Murder Me”
Left-Wing Political Prisoner in Australia Had Serious Diabetic Condition Left Untreated for Months
11 October 2020 – Socialist political prisoner Chan Han Choi had a serious and worsening diabetic condition left untreated for over eight and a half months. This greatly endangered his health. Prison authorities refused Choi’s repeated written requests to be seen by a prison doctor. The anguish at seeing his health rapidly deteriorate and the horror of being repeatedly denied treatment caused Choi such severe emotional stress that for a while it caused him serious long-term memory loss. Fortunately Choi’s memory has gradually recovered since.
Chan Han Choi has been imprisoned by the Australian regime since December 2017 on charges of trying to organise trade deals to help the people of North Korea bypass crippling United Nations economic sanctions. He is currently imprisoned without being convicted. By the time that Choi finally goes to trial next February, he would have spent three years and two months in prison! All the charges against Choi refer to his alleged attempts to help North Korea export its produce abroad except for one charge of allegedly attempting to help North Korea import petroleum products. All opponents of imperialism, supporters of socialism and partisans of workers rights should stand by Chan Han Choi regardless of whether the allegations against him are true or not. As Trotskyist Platform spokesman, Samuel Kim, stated at a March 9 united front rally to demand freedom for Choi:
“If Choi turns out to be `guilty’ as charged that means that he sacrificed his freedom to help the people of North Korea bypass these killer sanctions. That would make him a great humanitarian. A humanitarian who should be freed from prison immediately. And if he is found not guilty, he should never have been imprisoned in the first place.”
For over five months in the mid-part of this year, Choi had been pleading to be seen by a prison doctor at the jail where he is incarcerated: Long Bay Prison Hospital. As well as housing inmates on remand like Choi, Long Bay Prison Hospital holds prisoners with medical conditions. Therefore, there are actually more doctors assigned to treat inmates at that particular prison. Yet, the authorities repeatedly refused to allow Choi to see a prison doctor. This is despite health records showing that he submitted at least five written applications to have a doctor’s consultation in that five month period: on March 27, March 31, May 25, June 26 and August 12. Choi maintains that he also submitted additional written requests on at least two other occasions as well: June 30 and July 12.
It would have been visually obvious to prison authorities that Choi was unwell. His friends who had Audio-Visual Link (AVL) “visits” with him during that period reported that Choi had lost much weight and that his face looked gaunt. Furthermore, most of the symptoms that Choi was complaining about – severe weight loss, rashes all over his body, serious stomach problems and very itchy fungal infections – are classic symptoms of diabetes, a condition that prison authorities knew that Choi was already afflicted with. On 31 October of last year, prison doctors prescribed him the oral diabetic medication Metformin. Moreover, 61 year-old Choi was prescribed medication for his high cholesterol.
It was only after Choi sent a protest letter to the director of Justice Health in August stating that “they are indirectly trying to murder me” by denying him medical treatment, that the authorities finally allowed Choi to see a prison doctor. That consultation occurred on August 31. The doctor found that his diabetes condition that previously did not require insulin injections had deteriorated seriously, reporting “declining glycaemic control.” Mr Choi now requires daily insulin injections. However, given that he was suffering from the very same symptoms for months and was not provided with insulin during that time (because he was prevented from even being able to see a doctor) that meant that his diabetes had not been adequately treated for a lengthy period. Untreated diabetes can cause damage to the eyes, kidneys and nerves, increases the risk of strokes and heart attacks and can cause diabetic emergencies involving a serious reduction of a person’s consciousness. Meanwhile, the sudden onset of treatment after it has not been provided in due time can cause unconsciousness or even permanent brain damage.
The top part of the record of a prison doctor’s consultation with Choi. The record shows that when Choi was finally allowed to see a doctor after over eight months of repeated requests, the doctor found that he had Type 2 diabetes with “declining glycaemic control” and now required treatment with insulin. The failure to have treated Choi’s worsening diabetic condition for several months could have had disastrous consequences.
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That August 31 consultation was the first time that Choi had been seen by a doctor in ten months, despite Choi submitting at least seven (and possibly up to ten) written requests to see a doctor from 23 December last year. Indeed health records show that when Choi was attended to by a nurse just four days prior to this late August consultation, this was the first time the known diabetic sufferer had had his blood sugar level checked in eight and a half months! What makes this all the more appalling is that when authorities had previously checked his blood sugar on 12 December last year, the level had been too high and on an increasing trajectory. A person’s blood sugar levels are meant to be between 4 and 8 mmol/L. However, by 12 December 2019 Choi’s levels had reached 11.1 mmol/L rising from 8.4 mmol/L on 15 November 2019 and then 10.5 mmol/L on 28 November 2019. When a nurse finally checked Choi’s blood sugar levels again eight and a half months later it had risen to 13.4 mmol/L and a few days later it was at an alarming 20.6 mmol/L. It was around this time, that the doctor prescribed Choi emergency doses of rapid acting insulin. The situation had become so critical that on 28 August, Justice Health (the government prison agency responsible for providing health care to prisoners) was compelled to put a health problem notification alert to prison guards warning them that Chan Han Choi had “Unstable Type 2 diabetes” with potential symptoms that included confusion, excessive sweating and unconsciousness.
The notification form that medical staff at Long Bay Prison Hospital issued to prison officers in late August warning them of the serious symptoms that Choi could suffer due to his then uncontrolled diabetes. By leaving his worsening diabetes condition unmonitored for eight and a half months, Justice Health caused Choi’s diabetic condition to reach emergency levels before it was finally brought under control.
All-Sided “Maximum Pressure” Campaign to Break the Spirit of this Political Prisoner
Fortunately, Choi’s blood sugar levels have finally been brought under control and he now takes regular insulin injections and has his blood sugar levels monitored three times daily. However, the question remains why was his diabetes left unmonitored for so long, why were Choi’s obvious symptoms of a worsening diabetes condition ignored and why were his desperate pleas to be seen by a doctor repeatedly rebuffed?
To help answer these questions, we need to point out that Choi’s diabetes was once well managed in prison. Indeed, in the ten week period leading up to 12 December last year, Choi’s blood sugar levels were monitored on nine different occasions. Yet when this blood sugar reached unacceptably high levels in the last two recordings in that period and on a steeply increasing trajectory – they stopped checking Choi’s blood sugar for eight and a half months! This, even as Choi repeatedly complained of symptoms that trained medical staff would know are diabetic induced problems!
Choi’s health records show that from the start of October 2019 to 12 December 2019, Choi’s Blood Glucose [Sugar] Levels (“BGL”) was monitored nine times. However once the levels rose to unacceptable high levels at the last two recordings, Justice Health abruptly stopped monitoring Choi’s Blood Glucose Levels for a further eight and a half months, when they “realised” that Choi’s BGL had reached emergency levels.
Moreover, Choi’s prison medical records show that during a four a half month period during the early days of his incarceration from mid-January 2018 to early May 2018, Justice Health monitored Choi’s blood sugar levels on 30 separate days. This was furthermore during the period when Choi’s diabetes was well under control and nowhere near as serious as it is now. So why the change in attitude? Well that early part of the period of Choi’s incarceration was at a time when the Australian regime thought that Choi would be totally isolated and intimidated and would roll over and plead guilty to all charges and show “remorse”. The situation has changed a lot since then. The regime has found that this political prisoner is defiant and proud. Far from rolling over he has spoken out bravely from prison against the denial of his human rights and what’s more has denounced the economic sanctions, that he is alleged to have tried to help North Korea to evade, as being “unjust” and “unfair.” By late November last year, Choi was in court pushing a motion for a Permanent Stay in the proceedings against him on the grounds that his rights as a prisoner and defendant were being violated and was openly telling the court that “he is a political prisoner incarcerated because of his socialist political beliefs.” Moreover, this period at the end of last year was a time when Choi was just weeks from going to trial which had at that time been scheduled for February this year. The denial of medical treatment to Choi thus has a distinct smell of being an attempt to apply “maximum pressure” to this political prisoner in the lead up to his trial. Perhaps it was an attempt to pressure Choi into acquiescing to a prosecution plea bargain “offer” that was unacceptable to him. Whatever may be the exact reason behind the denial of medical care to Choi, it needs to be seen in the context of the all-sided “maximum pressure” campaign that has been waged against this political prisoner – from the taking away of his right to telephone friends to the repeated obstructions placed on family, friends and even lawyers and their interpreters gaining access to him.
To be sure on 29 September, Justice Health sent off a letter to Choi apologising for the “delay in care.” But that was after Choi had sent a desperate, strongly worded letter the previous month stating that:
“I’ve put in request form after request form and receive no care for my illnesses. I have rashes all over me and have issues going to the toilet and put medical forms in with no reply. Whatever I ask for gets no reply. I have no human rights here so I am [of the] strong belief that they are trying indirectly to murder me.”
And Justice Heath also likely only sent the apology letter to Choi after they realised that Choi’s supporters had exposed online their repeated refusal to respond to this post 60, known diabetic with high cholesterol’s desperate requests for medical treatment.
Letter to Chan Han Choi from Justice Health, with typical bureaucratic understatement of failings, apologises for their “delay in care” to Choi. The letter from a senior Justice Health official puts the responsibility on the “Nursing Unit Manager.” However, the blatant and repeated nature of the denial of care to Choi over a more than eight month period suggests a more conscious effort to exert “maximum pressure” on Choi, likely prescribed by high level officials.
The Australian regime knows full well the growing support for Choi that there is amongst pro-working class and anti-imperialist activists. They had better realise that should Choi’s health needs again be denied in the future because of their “maximum pressure” campaign against this political prisoner, Choi’s supporters in both Australia and abroad would surely take their revenge out on Australia’s authoritarian capitalist regime. We would do so by quadrupling our efforts to expose the unjust persecution of Chan Han Choi; and by working still harder to lay bare the connection between the regime’s persecution of this political prisoner and the other crimes that it commits in its relentless drive to further the interests of the exploiting class. Choi’s supporters would be energised to struggle all the more feverishly to unmask the deception behind the regime’s claims to stand for “human rights” and the “rule of law.” We would with renewed vehemence expose to the masses, both here and abroad, the Australian regime’s persecution in the courts of scores of staunch trade union activists (especially those working in the construction industry), their brutal racist killings of Aboriginal people in state custody, their prosecution of whistleblowers and journalists, their McCarthyist repression of those sympathetic to socialistic states, their arrogant trampling of the peoples of the South Pacific and the horrific execution-style murders of unarmed civilians and children that their Nazi and Confederate-flag waving, special forces troops commit in Afghanistan.
Australia’s Authoritarian Capitalist Regime Has Been Torturing This Socialist Political Prisoner
The repeated denial of medical care to Choi was a blatant violation of Rule 25 of the UN’s Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which states that: “The medical officer shall have the care of the physical and mental health of the prisoners and should daily see all sick prisoners, all who complain of illness, and any prisoner to whom his attention is specially directed” (https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/TreatmentOfPrisoners.aspx). Let’s remember that the UN is a capitalist-dominated agency that the Australian regime claims to uphold and that it is in the very name of enforcing UN sanctions that the regime here is persecuting Choi. Yet Australia’s authoritarian capitalist regime violates the UN’s own rules. The UN further states that: “The intentional withholding of medical treatment from persons in places of detention or in other State institutions such as orphanages or from persons injured by an act attributable to public officials falls within the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on torture” (https://www.bak.gv.at/en/Downloads/files/UNO/UNO_Folter_Konvention.pdf). In other words, under the UN definition of torture,by repeatedly withholding medical care to Chan Han Choi over a lengthy period, the Australian regime had been torturing this political prisoner.
The withholding of medical care is hardly the only violation of Choi’s rights that the Australian regime has been guilty of. They have made it extremely difficult for Choi’s friends and family to speak to him. The few people able to visit Choi report that it originally took them four to five months to gain approval to visit him and that they then need to get re-approved each year which takes a further couple of months each time. However, the authorities have still banned Choi from making telephone calls to these friends. Moreover, Choi has been prevented from speaking to his infant grand-daughters because Corrective Services NSW blocked his application to make telephone calls to his daughter-in-law. All this is a gross violation of Rule 92 of the UN’s Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which states that: “An untried prisoner shall be allowed to inform immediately his family of his detention and shall be given all reasonable facilities for communicating with his family and friends, and for receiving visits from them, subject only to restrictions and supervision as are necessary in the interests of the administration of justice and of the security and good order of the institution.” This rule should obviously apply to the authorities detaining Choi. He is clearly an untried prisoner – indeed he has already spent two and three quarter years in custody without being tried. And Choi is definitely no threat to the “security and good order” of the prison: not only does he have no criminal record he is not even charged with committing or attempting to commit any sort of violent act or indeed any sort of act against a victim full stop.
The
Australian regime has also violated Rule 90 of the UN’s rules on prisoners,
which states that: “An untried prisoner shall be allowed to procure at his own
expense or at the expense of a third party such books, newspapers, writing
materials and other means of occupation as are compatible with the interests of
the administration of justice and the security and good order of the
institution.” In particular, the regime blocked repeated attempts by Choi’s
friends to pass through the prison system to him issues of the popular
Australian Korean-language community newspapers, Hanho Daily and Korean Today,
some of which contained articles about Choi’s own case.
One of the most striking violations of Australian citizen Choi’s rights has been the Australian regime’s obstruction of his access to lawyers. They do this, in part, by requiring lawyers to go through a months-long special approval process before they can again access to Choi. As a result, Choi’s new lawyers, who were engaged at his instructions by his friends were for two months not only not able to visit Choi but have even been prevented from speaking to him over the telephone! Moreover, in a 3 November 2019 letter to Choi’s previous lawyers, the Commissioner of Corrective Services NSW (CSNSW), Peter Severin, admitted that his officers had been listening in on their privileged communications (see: https://www.trotskyistplatform.com/socialist-political-prisoner-cannot-get-a-fair-trial-in-australia/). He stated that: “phone calls with `national security interest’ (NSI) inmates, such as Choi, are monitored by CSNSW officers to ensure that they are in English and are with approved contacts.” Such monitoring of phone calls are a blatant violation of Rule 93 of the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners which states that: “Interviews between the prisoner and his legal adviser may be within sight but not within the hearing of a police or institution official.”
Chan
Han Choi: A Victim of the New McCarthyist Witch-Hunt
The withholding of medical care to Chan Han Choi recalls the Australian regime’s record of very frequently refusing to grant Aboriginal prisoners timely medical care. Many Aboriginal people have died in state custody after police or prison guards fatally delayed granting them access to urgently needed medical care. Kamilaroi man, Eric Whittaker, died of a ruptured brain aneurysm on 2 July 2017 after guards at Parklea Correctional Centre refused to give him medical care for some three and a half hours after he first started making desperate appeals to get access to care. Thirty-six year-old Whittaker made 20 emergency calls begging for help from 4.52am but guards murderously ignored his pleas. When staff finally attended to Whittaker at 8.08am, he was found crouched in the rear of his cell shouting “please help me” and having urinated, vomited and defecated on himself (https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/please-help-me-eric-whittaker-made-20-emergency-calls-before-he-died-in-custody-20191014-p530gg.html). Fifteen months later, another thirty-six year-old Aboriginal man, Nathan Reynolds, also died after authorities again fatally delayed giving him medical care. A diagnosed serious asthmatic, Reynolds had repeatedly buzzed for help and screamed out, “I can’t breathe.” Other distressed inmates started buzzing for help as they could see Reynolds deteriorating before their very eyes and turning blue in the face. It took forty minutes for help to arrive. One hour and twenty minutes after crying out for help the Anaiwan father of one was dead (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/25/why-does-it-take-so-long-the-desperate-wait-for-answers-after-a-death-in-custody). Earlier in August 2014, 22 year-old Aboriginal woman, Julieka Dhu, died in police custody in WA of a bacterial infection because police criminally prevented her from getting the medical care that she so desperately cried out for. The night before she died, Ms Dhu had cried out in pain all night but police refused her pleas to see a doctor. They continued to murderously obstruct her getting medical care the next morning even after she vomited repeatedly for over an hour. Instead, a cop threateningly told her, “you will f_cking sit this out.”
Aboriginal people suffer the most intense racist state oppression in Australia. As a person of Asian background, racism is no doubt a factor in Choi’s ill-treatment too. However, there is another more over-riding reason why Choi is suffering the same intense brutality that the racist, rich people’s regime unleashes against Aboriginal people. That is because he is being persecuted for his sympathy for a socialistic state – in this case the DPRK (the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, i.e. “North Korea”). The last few years has seen an escalating anti-communist witch hunt in Australia. This persecution of supporters of the DPRK and more often those sympathetic to the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) is part of the Australian rulers’ role in the U.S.-led Cold War drive against the socialistic PRC and her socialistic neighbour and ally, the DPRK. This witch hunt mirrors the 1950s campaign in the U.S. and Australia against communists and others who expressed even the slightest sympathy towards the then Soviet Union – and to a lesser extent back then also the PRC and the DPRK. A large number of communists, trade unionists, artists and intellectuals, including those who had merely not been “condemnatory enough” of communism, ended up being jailed or purged from their jobs. The ideology of the witch hunt became known as McCarthysim, after the U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy who helped drive the witch hunt with smear tactics and unsubstantiated accusations (extreme right wing federal Liberal MP and Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security, Andrew Hastie, is a modern day Australian equivalent of Joseph McCarthy).
The McCarthyist nature of Chan Han Choi’s all-sided persecution has been most evident during his bail applications. In their submissions opposing each of Choi’s bail applications last year, the Crown made Choi’s stated sympathy for the DPRK a central point of their argument. Indeed, they listed as the very second point of their argument on why they claim that, “the Applicant’s alleged offending is objectively serious,” “the Applicant’s repeated statements that he is a loyal subject of the DPRK ….” In other words, because of this Australian citizen’s political sympathy for a socialistic state, the Australian regime insists that he should have less rights – in this case the right to bail – than other people. That is simply an expression of the very basic premise of McCarthyism. And that very same McCarthyist premise was very evident in the judges’ rejection of his bail applications. Two different judges rejected Choi’s two bail bids even though he is not even accused of killing anyone, sexually assaulting anyone, bashing anyone, stealing from anyone, any terrorist acts, espionage or even planning any of these things. By contrast, accused murderers and pedophile high-ranking priests are readily granted bail in Australia.
Chan Han Choi is not the only victim of the new McCarthyist witch hunt. International students from China who organised a thousands-strong demonstration in Sydney in August 17 last year that opposed the anti-PRC forces in Hong Kong were interrogated and intimidated by Australian security agencies (https://news.have8.tv/2636880.html). Australian regime agents told a key female organizer of the march that her actions may have violated Australia’s foreign interference laws and threatened that she could face visa problems. When the Australian secret police intrusively asked her about her family and she responded, “You all know a lot!” the cops menacingly retorted, “Yes, so you have to be careful” and settle down [and stay out of politics!]. Then, four months ago, Australia’s ASIO secret police and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) – the very agencies spearheading the persecution of Chan Han Choi – raided the homes of four PRC journalists based in Sydney (http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-09/12/c_139361950.htm). They interrogated the reporters, seized their computers and smartphones and even demanded that they not report the raids.
Most infamously, the Australian ruling class and its media have launched a witch hunting campaign against NSW upper house MP, Shaoquett Moselmane. Moselmane was pilloried by the mainstream media, Liberal politicians and leaders of his own Labor Party for having the temerity to praise China’s highly successful response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, on April 6, Moselmane was forced to step down from his position as assistant president of the NSW Legislative Council. Then, just seven weeks later, ASIO and the AFP raided Moselmane’s home and parliamentary office. The more than 12 hour-long operation was unleashed under the pretext that “Chinese government agents” had infiltrated his office and were using him as part of a “foreign interference” operation. It has now been revealed who these “agents” are and what their supposed “foreign interference operation” was. The “agents” – the Chinese media reporters who were raided in Sydney and a part-time staffer for Moselmane, John Zhang – supposedly “interfered” because they were in the same social media chat group as Moselmane and had had contact with China’s Sydney Consul. How utterly ridiculous is it to portray that as some sort of sinister “foreign interference”! Yet the Australian media and regime depicted Moselmane as a traitor even though he was not even a suspect in the authoritarian raid. NSW politicians forced him to take leave from his elected position as a state senator and, to this very day, those NSW voters who elected Moselmane remain disenfranchised from their voice in parliament.
Let’s
Work Harder to Demand Freedom for Chan Han Choi
The McCarthyist witch hunting is all about silencing the voices of anyone who speaks favourably, however mildly in the case of Moselmane, about a socialistic country. That is, after all, why the Australian regime had denied Choi medical care for a lengthy period, refuses him bail and has stripped him of many of his rights as a defendant and prisoner. Because Choi has stood by his political beliefs and even from prison bravely spoke out about his love for the egalitarianism of North Korean society and against the unfairness of the UN economic sanctions on North Korea, the Australian authoritarian regime wants to punish him, isolate him and demoralise him into submission. They also don’t want him getting bail as they know that this would enable him to speak more easily to the world about the injustice of the UN sanctions and the cruelty of his treatment while in prison.
Yet behind the capitalist ruling class’ strong state repression is, actually, fear. However, it is not Chan Han Choi, PRC journalists, international students from China, Moselmane or Chinese social organisations that they are ultimately most scared of. No, who they are ultimately scared of are the entire working class masses that they exploit. Australia’s capitalists know all too well that on average for every $100,000 of value that a worker adds to an enterprise, they, the capitalists, steal a full $50,000 out of that amount in profit. They know that young workers are frustrated that more than half of them do not have a stable job – and are, instead, consigned to being either unemployed, having less work hours than they want or to working as insecure casuals, gig workers or employees on short-term contract. The capitalist rulers know too that low-income people are angry at the lack of affordable low-rent accommodation. The regime is nervous that Aboriginal people and other anti-racists are furious at ever worsening racist state brutality. They know too that politically aware workers are seething at the job cuts and reduced work hours that workers have copped during the pandemic even as corporate profits surge through the roof. So, the capitalist exploiters are terrified that anyone speaking positively about the world’s largest socialistic country, that is the PRC – or even about her much maligned, small but staunch DPRK neighbour – could make the masses here realise that there is an alternative to capitalism. The capitalist rulers are fearful that this would, in turn, cause an explosion in mass resistance against them. Therefore, the lances that the capitalist regime is stabbing Choi and others with in their Cold War witch hunts are actually meant to pierce right through their immediate victims and onto the rebellious hearts of the broader oppressed masses. That is why it is very much a matter of self defence for the working class and oppressed in Australia to oppose the McCarthyist repression. Let us mobilise in action to demand: Free Chan Han Choi – Drop all the charges now! Down with the persecution of Chinese journalists, pro-PRC international students and parliamentary staffer, John Zhang! Repeal Australia’s draconian “Foreign Interference” laws! Stop the witch hunt of Shaoquett Moselmane – allow this elected MP to resume his seat in parliament immediately!
Chan Han Choi is not merely a victim of Cold War persecution. His arrest, then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s fanatical tirade against Choi at the time of his arrest and the media hysteria surrounding this supposed “North Korean economic agent” were meant to help propel the new McCarthyist witch hunt throughout broader society. And it has! Just six months after Choi’s arrest, the Australian government rammed through its authoritarian “foreign interference” laws. These laws will not only attack those with sympathies for the PRC and the DPRK – its main immediate targets – but also dissident journalists as well as leftists and trade unionists with international connections. And that is a crucial point. The Cold War witch hunt is creating such an obsession with “national security” that its victims are already starting to be much broader than simply those who speak positively about the PRC and DPRK. It is notable that while ASIO first raided the homes of remorseful former Australian spy, Witness K, and his lawyer Bernard Collaery in 2013 – for revealing to the media and the East Timorese government that Australia’s ASIS spy agency had planted listening devices in Timorese government buildings to give the Australian government the advantage in negotiations over an oil and gas dispute with East Timor – the Australian regime did not feel that they could actually lay charges against the two until June 2018, that is in the months following the red scare hysteria that surrounded Choi’s arrest and after the China-bashing campaign had reached new heights. Similarly, military lawyer, David McBride, who faces up to 50 years in jail for informing the media of horrific war crimes by Australian elite forces in Afghanistan and the ABC journalist, Dan Oakes, who broke the story – whom the AFP have called to be charged – are indirect victims of the “national security” obsession that the Cold War witch hunt has created, even though they are not themselves accused of any sympathy for a socialistic state. We should add that the “national security”-obsessed climate created by the new McCarthyist campaign has made it easier, too, for the Australian regime to brush off its despicable complicity in Washington and London’s persecution of Australian Wikileaks journalist, Julian Assange.
That is why those within the political Left who think that they do not need to defend Choi and oppose the new McCarthyism, just because they are not amongst the sections of the Left courageous enough to stand by the socialistic PRC and DPRK, had better think again. Just like the original 1950s McCarthyist witch hunt, its contemporary version is creating such a stifling, repressive political climate that it will eventually target all sections of the Left. Already in the U.S., Trump and his fascistic hard-core supporters brand staunch supporters of black liberation or proponents of universal public health care as China-loving communists. If the new Cold War repression is not resisted, inevitably in Australia, in the future, supporters of public housing, nationalisation of the banks and public ownership of industry will be attacked as “agents of Red China-like and North Korea-like policies.”
The ruling class’ fear-mongering surrounding Chan Han Choi and their railings against “Communist Chinese influence” are meant to also justify their foreign policy agenda. And top of that agenda is to increase military and political pressure on socialistic China and her socialistic North Korean ally and neighbour. Three and a half months ago, the right wing Australian government announced a massive $270 billion defence upgrade targeting the PRC and DPRK. The military build up would see Australia acquire long-range missiles. Why is the Australian ruling class doing this? Crushing socialistic rule in China and North Korea would, by dashing hopes that there is a viable alternative to capitalism, help secure the rule of exploitation by Australia’s capitalist class. However, such a victory for capitalism would be disastrous for working class people. For although socialistic rule in both China and North Korea is fragile and bureaucratically deformed, the PRC and DPRK are, nevertheless, workers states formed through the overturn of capitalist rule by the toiling classes and with economies based on the dominant role of socialist public ownership. Seventy years of socialist rule have brought immense benefits to China’s masses and are an inspiration to every downtrodden person around the world who aspires for justice and a better life. When it comes to uplifting people out of poverty, providing decent health care to all and advancing social equality for women, Red China has far surpassed the other populous countries that were also raped by colonialism but which have remained under capitalist rule (such as India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Egypt, Brazil and Peru) – whether these capitalist developing countries be nominal “democracies” or ones administered by notoriously strong state regimes. Today, the PRC and even the sanctions-ravaged DPRK, along with the other workers states in Cuba, Vietnam and Laos, have been far more effective in protecting their people from the deadly COVID-19 pandemic than most of the capitalist world. The continued existence of these workers states gives hope to the most politically aware activists – amongst the 90% of Australia’s people who would benefit from the overturn of capitalist rule – that we can eventually achieve such a revolutionary victory. In standing by one of these workers states, Chan Han Choi has, thus, bravely stood by 90% of Australia’s people. We must now in turn stand by him!
The Australian regime’s torture of Choi (through their withholding of medical care) proves that there is no way that he can get a fair trial – not even a fair trial under the unjust laws that he is charged under. And the capitalist regime’s violation of many of Choi’s rights as a defendant and untried prisoner prove the very same thing too. Like all capitalist states, the Australian state is a state biased towards the interests of the rich exploiting class and biased against the interests of the working class and those like Choi who stand by the socialist system that favours the working class masses. And if someone like Choi could never get a fair trial in capitalist Australia this is triply so during the current atmosphere of intense anti-communist witch hunting. That is why it is up to class conscious workers, anti-imperialists and opponents of increasing state repression in Australia to stand by Chan Han Choi. In the lead up to Choi’s trial next February, let us work ever harder to build the campaign to demand freedom for this political prisoner – a prisoner who has suffered so much cruelty for his pro-socialist beliefs.
Photo Above: More than 40 people marched through the streets of Sydney on 13 April 2019 demanding freedom for Chan Han Choi and an end to the brutal sanctions on North Korea.
Australia’s Authoritarian Regime Denies Chan Han Choi Medical Care
Socialist Political Prisoner’s Health Deteriorating at Long Bay Prison
September 6, 2020 – Recently, left-wing political prisoner Chan Han Choi’s health has severely deteriorated after he was repeatedly denied medical care by the Australian regime. The Australian regime has jailed Chan Han Choi since December 2017 on charges of trying to help the people of North Korea to evade UN economic sanctions. Even if the claims against him turn out to be true, he is no criminal from the working class standpoint. Quite the opposite! It would simply prove that he is a great humanitarian aiding people who are being ground down by the most severe sanctions ever imposed on any country. Two and three quarter years after his arrest, Choi is imprisoned without conviction. He is yet to go to trial and Australia’s “legal system” has denied him bail.
On several times since May, Choi submitted written forms to request to see a doctor at Long Bay Prison. However, authorities at the prison refused the requests. Desperate, last month, 61 year-old Choi, with the assistance of fellow prisoners (his English is limited), sent a protest letter to the director of Justice Health noting that his health is deteriorating rapidly and that he is suffering from severe weight loss. This political prisoner also stated that:
“I’ve put in request form after request form and receive no care for my
illnesses. I have rashes all over me and have issues going to the toilet and
put medical forms in with no reply. Whatever I ask for gets no reply. I have no
human rights here so I am [of the] strong belief that they are trying
indirectly to murder me.”
It was only after authorities received that letter that, finally, on the very last day of last month, Choi was allowed to see a doctor. The doctor found that Choi’s diabetes had worsened greatly and he now needed to be injected daily with insulin. Choi had been a diabetic prior to being imprisoned but was only a mild case requiring no insulin treatment. The symptoms that he had complained about while being denied treatment – severe weight loss, rashes all over his body, skin infections – are all classic symptoms of diabetes. The fact that this was left untreated for months and he was not given insulin when he needed it months earlier is deadly dangerous and, indeed, potentially fatal. It is possible that the insulin treatment he is finally receiving may be too little, too late. At last report his blood sugar levels had still not stabilized. It is still touch and go whether or not the serious delay in giving Choi insulin treatment will cause permanent serious damage to his health … or even worse!
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Excerpts from the letter that political prisoner in Australia, Chan Han Choi, sent protesting against the authorities’ refusal to allow him to be treated by a doctor
We should add that the part of Long Bay where Chan Han Choi is imprisoned, Long Bay Prison Hospital, was the scene of the gruesome December 2015 murder of Aboriginal man, David Dungay. David Dungay was suffocated to death after being crushed in the facedown position by five big burly prison guards. The guards ignored Dungay’s desperate pleas that he shouted out over 12 times, “I can’t breathe.” The infamous police murder of George Floyd in the U.S. in May has drawn more attention to the very similar killing of 26 year-old Dungay. Like Chan Han Choi, Dungay was also a diabetic. It is ironic that Dungay was killed by guards claiming to be trying to “protect” him from diabetic-induced complications when they stopped him eating biscuits by suffocating him to death while today the very same prison authorities have endangered Choi’s life by for months denying Choi urgently needed treatment for his own worsening diabetic condition.
What Chan Han Choi is today being subjected to is a cruel saga of a political prisoner simply being denied his legal and human rights in Australia. Chan Han Choi has been detained as a “National Security Interest” prisoner, which means that he is treated as a “High Risk”, “High Security” inmate. This despite Choi having no criminal record and despite not even being accused of killing anyone, bashing anyone, sexually assaulting anyone or even stealing from anyone. Assisted by this “National Security Interest” pretext, the Australian ruling classes’ state has obstructed Choi’s lawyers access to him, denied him further Legal Aid coverage for legal representation and even obstructed his right to speak to family members. Then they effectively even took away Choi’s right to see a doctor when ill, which amounts to a form of torture. Meanwhile, the restricted visitation rights to his family/friends/lawyers, the curbing of his right to make phone calls to his family, the outright denial of his right to make phone calls to his friends, now mixed in with the COVID-19 ban on all prison visits have added further to his social isolation and to the decay of his well-being.
Choi at the time of his arrest was a humble hospital cleaner living in the migrant working-class suburb of Eastwood. Choi was born in South Korea where he obtained a technical engineering qualification. He is an Australian citizen. Despite the political influences he has been subjected to in both South Korea and Australia – most notably the barrage of Cold-War propaganda against North Korea – Choi felt compelled to help the people of North Korea. Prior to the toughening of U.N. sanctions over recent years proscribing many exports from North Korea, Choi organized many legal deals to assist North Korea to export commodities like iron ore. He was motivated by both humanitarian concern and by sympathy for North Korea’s socialistic system. Notably, according to the very words of the Australian Federal Police, Choi was helping North Korea for personally profitless motives and out of loyal sympathy for the North Korean state.
What Choi has done is truly remarkable and heroic not only for the sanctions-crushed people of North Korea but from the standpoint of the oppressed working class of Australia. For by standing by the DPRK (the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea – i.e. North Korea), which for all of its bureaucratic deformities is a workers state, Choi is standing by the interests of the working class and most middle class people of Australia. The Australian and American capitalist-imperialists’ hostility to the DPRK is part of their Cold War drive against the world’s most powerful socialistic country, the Peoples Republic of China, which is the DPRK’s ally and neighbour. This Cold War drive is aimed at securing the capitalist order at home at the expense of 90% of Australia’s population. The more that their system is unable to meet the needs of the masses, the more that the capitalist rulers here attack the socialistic countries so that working class people here do not see any alternative to the capitalist order. The U.S. and Australian rulers have another reason for targeting the DPRK. They are still today angry about the fact that they were not able to defeat the DPRK in the Korean War and that the DPRK remains unbowed in the face of all their subsequent threats and diktats. So by standing by the defiant, ex-colonial DPRK, Choi is surely also on the side of all the underdog masses in the post-colonial countries that are still so ravaged by Western imperialist crusades – the crusades that murderously kill and subjugate people for the ambitions of empire and capitalism (as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia etc).
Today, as the pandemic globally gathers more victims at the hands of careless capitalist governments, as greedy bosses throw workers out of jobs even as their profits and stock prices soar, as inequality increases during the pandemic and as poverty and unemployment rises, the need for a socialist solution to society’s problems – that is, a solution based on public ownership of the economy and working class state power – becomes clearer and clearer. By standing by the DPRK’s system based on such public ownership and working class state power – despite the imperfections that must necessarily exist in a country like North Korea that is so cruelly sanctioned and strangulated and so threatened by nuclear armed U.S. bombers and by the over 70,000 American troops that surround her – Choi is in effect aiding the struggle for that badly needed socialist solution to the masses’ problems here in Australia as well as in the rest of the capitalist world. In doing so Chan Han Choi is standing by 90% of Australia’s people. We and, in particular, our most politically conscious core – including working class radicals, trade unionists, socialist political dissidents, black rights activists, anti-imperialist activists, public housing advocates and anti-racist activists – must now in our turn stand by Chan Han Choi. We must demand his immediate freedom and the dropping of all charges against him.
Capitalist Court Rejects Chan Han Choi’s Permanent Stay Application
Socialist Political Prisoner Cannot Get a Fair Trial in Australia
6 December 2019 – Yesterday, a judge in the NSW Supreme
Court knocked back a motion by socialist political prisoner, Chan Han Choi, for
a Permanent Stay in the proceedings against him. Since his arrest, Australia’s racist,
rich people’s regime has violated many of the rights that Choi should be
entitled to as a prisoner and defendant. As a result, Choi submitted a motion
for a Permanent Stay which was heard last Friday. If the motion had succeeded,
Choi’s trial would have been put off indefinitely on the grounds that he cannot
get a fair trial and he would have been released from custody having been found
neither innocent nor guilty. Curiously, not only did the judge give no reasons
in court for dismissing Choi’s application but the court later announced that
the judge’s detailed statement outlining his decision will not be published on
the court’s website until after the trial. That will, all too conveniently, shield
the blatantly unfair judgement from some of the detailed public scrutiny that
it deserves.
Chan Han Choi has spent nearly two years in prison now,
jailed largely because of his political sympathy for socialistic North Korea. Choi
is an Australian citizen who migrated here from South Korea 32 years ago. At
the time of his arrest, Choi was working as a cleaner in a public hospital.
This working class man was living in a modest rented unit in Eastwood. Choi is a
worldly, knowledgeable person who loves Japanese food and Western classical
music. He is also a husband, a proud father of a son in his mid-30s and the
proud grandfather to two infant granddaughters below the age of five. Nineteen
days ago, Choi marked his 61st birthday locked up in harsh
conditions in a maximum security prison in Sydney.
Choi was arrested in December 2017 on charges of attempting
to help the people of the DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, i.e.
“North Korea”) circumvent crippling UN economic sanctions by brokering trade
deals to help the DPRK export its produce abroad. An additional charge was
later added that Choi allegedly attempted to broker a deal to enable the DPRK
to import petroleum products, which she is cruelly prohibited from doing under
the sanctions. Choi has pleaded Not Guilty to all charges. Indeed, the
“evidence” in the charges brought against him is rather thin. Even the
Australian Federal Police (AFP) acknowledge that none of the alleged deals that
he is charged with brokering actually went through. Indeed, the AFP’s Statement of Facts on the case has to
concede, when speaking about many of the individual alleged deals, that those
alleged deals were cancelled by Choi himself or canned by the DPRK months
before his arrest.
However, as Choi’s supporters insisted in the call out for
a protest held just prior to the Permanent Stay hearing:
Even if the claims against him turn out to be true, he is no criminal from the working class standpoint. Quite the opposite! It would simply prove that he was aiding people who are being ground down by the most severe sanctions ever imposed.
Choi is a humanitarian who has seen the suffering that the sanctions have caused to North Korea’s people. He is also a socialist who sympathises with North Korea because he likes the society’s egalitarianism. Whatever one thinks of North Korea’s leaders, the fact is that her people have built a system based upon public ownership of the key banks, industries, agricultural land and mines. It is a state that was won by the masses in brave struggle to defeat the former capitalists and landlords. In supporting such a socialistic system, Choi is also standing by the interests of those in Australia hurt by privatisation, casualisation of employment, job slashing by bosses, bullying by banks and rising rents. Choi can be considered an anti-privatisation warrior and a champion of public ownership – that is of the system that would favour the working class majority of this country and the world. Working class people must now in turn stand by him!
Even within the context of the pro-imperialist sanctions laws that Choi has been charged under, Choi cannot get a fair trial. The reason is very simple: political prejudice. The Australian capitalist regime is determined to persecute Choi because of his resolute sympathy for a socialistic country. Thus, in response to Choi’s bail application, which was rejected by a Supreme Court judge two months ago, a major part of the Prosecution’s 10 October written submission opposing bail was the claim that Choi’s alleged offending is “objectively serious” because of his loyalty to the DPRK. In other words, the Australian regime is insisting that not simply because of his alleged actions but because of his political views – of strong sympathy for a socialistic country – Choi should be accorded less rights than he otherwise would be. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) Statement of Facts on the case carries the same line. In this Statement of Facts, the AFP give as a reason for opposing bail Choi’s statements from prison (subsequently posted to YouTube) identifying the economic sanctions on North Korea as being unjust and unfair. So, for expressing his views and his opposition to the cruel imperialist sanctions on North Korea, Choi is being persecuted. This is blatant anti-communist discrimination very reminiscent of the McCarthy era, Cold War witch hunts. And it is because of this political discrimination that Choi was denied bail even though he is not accused of killing anyone, bashing anyone, sexually assaulting anyone, stealing from anyone or even of espionage. By contrast, the racist Northern Territory policeman charged with the shooting murder two weeks ago of Aboriginal teenager, Kumanjayi Walker, was given bail straight away. So was former Archbishop George Pell after he was charged with sexually assaulting children.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) in its 10 October 2019 “Statement of Facts” includes among its reasons for opposing bail the fact that Chan Han Choi has made statements from prison opposing the economic sanctions on the DPRK and protesting the violation of his rights. To oppose bail on such grounds is blatant persecution of a person for expressing their political views.
It is not only in response to his bail application that
Choi has endured political discrimination. He and his family have been
subjected to it from the time of his very arrest. In prison, Choi has had
special restrictions imposed on him far in excess of those imposed on convicted
murderers and rapists. For the last year, Choi has been banned from making any
telephone calls to his friends. The only person that he is nominally allowed to
call is his wife. However, the authorities insist that any communication on the
phone that Choi makes must be in English. This makes communication between Choi
and his wife practically impossible given that her English is very limited and
his own English is far from fluent. Earlier this year, two officers from the
Corrections Intelligence Group “visited” Choi and threatened that should he speak
in Korean on the phone he would be sent to Goulburn Supermax prison. Choi soon
found out that he could not communicate with his wife in any meaningful way now
and it was risky too – an inadvertent break into Korean could see him isolated
in Goulburn Supermax. So that line of communication became completely cut.
To break Choi’s spirit the authorities have gone to great
lengths to isolate Choi from his entire family. When Choi was arrested, his
adult son’s house was also raided and his son and daughter-in-law subjected to threatening
interrogations. Although police did not charge his son they made it clear that
any support for, or association with, his father could see him in trouble.
Thus, his son has been effectively barred from communication with Choi. Meanwhile,
prison authorities also refused permission for Choi to even telephone his
daughter-in-law. As a result, since his arrest nearly two years ago, Choi has
not been able to speak to, let alone see, his own son, daughter-in law and
infant granddaughters. To further try and break Choi’s resolve, Australian
regime agencies have had Choi’s son sacked from a senior, skilled role at a
reputed IT infrastructure company. The AFP told Choi’s son that he would not be
able to work in a professional role again.
Meanwhile, even as he was preparing to enter a plea and
then to prepare for his upcoming trial, Australian authorities restricted
Choi’s access to his lawyers. Thus, for over a whole year since their initial
visit on 11 September last year, Choi’s current lawyers were only able to visit
him twice in jail and only on one of those visits were they able to be
accompanied by an interpreter. By contrast, Choi’s previous regime-appointed
lawyer, who was pressuring him to plead guilty, was able to visit him with an
interpreter once a week. It seems that once the regime realised that Choi’s
current lawyers were not going to pressure him to plead guilty, they started
curbing their access to Choi. So, after not having any problem getting an
initial visit to Choi, these lawyers and any interpreters were suddenly
required to be vetted for special approval to visit an NSI (National Security
Interest) inmate. This approval finally came through less than three months ago
– a whole year after they had first visited Choi. The timing of that approval
is also rather “interesting” – it happened to be around the time that Choi
submitted his motion for a Permanent Stay!
Australian Regime Intercepts Choi’s Communications with His Lawyers
Given the blatant Cold War discrimination that Australian
state institutions have subjected Choi to, it is obvious that these same
institutions are not going to give Choi a fair trial. Therefore, the grounds
that Choi has for a Permanent Stay are both compelling and very numerous. In
the hearing last Friday, Choi’s barrister chose to focus on two key grounds. Firstly,
he detailed how Choi can have no confidence that his communications with his
legal representatives are not being intercepted by state agencies. With such
well-founded fears, not only can he not properly plan his own trial defence
with his legal representatives, Choi can have little confidence that privileged
communication between him and his legal representatives are not being passed on
to the Prosecution. Concerned about this, Choi’s lawyers wrote to various
government agencies seeking assurances that they have not been intercepting
communications between Choi and his legal representatives. However, by the time
of the Permanent Stay hearing, ASIO had failed to respond. Meanwhile, the AFP’s
response refused to give any assurance, only stating in a non-committal manner
that: “The Australian Federal Police (AFP) does not comment on operational
matters before the court.”
When asked by Choi’s lawyers to give a guarantee that they had not and will not engage in any interception of Choi’s privileged communications with his lawyers, the AFP notably refused to give such a guarantee.
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Of all the responses received by Choi’s lawyers from government agencies, the most striking was the 7 November response of the Commissioner of Corrective Services NSW, Peter Severin. In his letter to Choi’s lawyers, which the lawyers submitted as part of their affidavit to the court, the Commissioner of Corrective Services NSW admits that prison officers are indeed intercepting phone calls between Choi and his legal representatives. Severin claims that this is necessary because Choi is an NSI inmate. He tries to divert from this admission by stating that: “correspondence, including faxes and emails from a legal practitioner to a NSI inmate must be delivered to the inmate without opening, inspecting or reading the contents.” However, one can have little confidence that the prisons are actually following even this policy. This is especially the case when one considers what occurred when Choi’s lawyers sent him, by post, several months ago crucial legal documents and evidence. Choi did not receive these documents as they were likely intercepted too!
The Commissioner of Corrective Services NSW (CSNSW)
attempts to minimise the significance of their interception of communications
between Choi and his legal representatives by claiming that “it is the practice
of CSNSW that officers periodically ‘drop in’ to the line, listen for long
enough to check that English is being spoken and that the call is with the
approved recipient ….” However, even if CSNSW officers were actually confining
themselves to such a procedure, they would still be on line long enough to
potentially listen in on important legal tactics being discussed between Choi
and his legal representatives.
The Commissioner of Corrective Services NSW (CSNSW) admits that CSNSW officers have been intercepting privileged communications between Chan Han Choi and his lawyers. Not surprisingly, he tried to downplay the significance of these interceptions.
Of course, one would have to be extremely naive to think
that state personnel assigned to listen in on communications between Choi and
his legal representatives are confining themselves to short bursts of snooping.
This is especially when one knows that Australian state agencies have a sordid
history of spying on privileged communications between others in order to suit
the interests of the capitalist masters that they serve. During Australia’s
2004 negotiations with East Timor over oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea,
the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) planted huge numbers of
listening devices in order to listen to the negotiation strategy discussions of
East Timorese ministers and negotiators and thus give the Australian government
– and the filthy rich corporate bigwigs of Woodside Petroleum and BHP whose
interests they were representing – the advantage in the negotiations. If that
is what Australian state agencies do to gain an unfair advantage in a dispute
with what it calls a “close friend”, they will surely have no hesitation in snooping
in on the discussions between a person accused of aiding what they deem to be a
“criminal state” and his lawyers in order to gain the advantage in their
prosecution of him.
The other important aspect of the Australian state spying on East Timorese negotiation strategy discussions is the extent to which they went to cover up this snooping. In 2013, as the remorseful ASIS officer (“Witness K”) who led the bugging was set to travel to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague to expose the operation and to act as a witness for the East Timorese government in its case against the Australian government over the spying, ASIO raided the home of this Witness K and seized his passport thus preventing him from testifying at The Hague. They also raided Witness K’s lawyer, Bernard Collaery. Five years later, the same AFP and Commonwealth DPP that are prosecuting Choi hit up Witness K and Collaery with charges of revealing to the media and the East Timorese government the 2004 bugging operation. Both face charges that could see them imprisoned for years. If Australian regime agencies are capable of such extreme measures to cover up their spying of those that they are in dispute with, they would not blink an eyelid to simply lie to cover up the extent of their spying on the privileged communications between Choi and his lawyer.
12 September 2018, Canberra: People protest the Australian state’s persecution of “Witness K” and his lawyer Bernard Collaery for revealing to the world that Australia’s ASIS spy agency had spied on East Timorese ministers and negotiators to give the Australian government an unfair advantage in oil negotiations with East Timor. If Australian regime agencies are capable of such extreme measures to cover up their spying on supposed “friends” that they are in dispute with, they would not blink an eyelid to simply lie to cover up the extent of their spying on the privileged communications between Choi and his lawyer.
The second main ground that Choi’s barrister focussed on in last Friday’s hearing is the difficulty that his legal representatives face in preparing his defence because of restrictions blocking interpreters communicating with Choi. Choi can roughly speak some colloquial English. However, his English is far from adequate to understand complex legal concepts and legal evidence when presented in English. He needs Korean-English interpreters to communicate with his lawyers and barristers. However, CSNSW have determined that any interpreter visiting Choi or even interpreting in an Audio-Visual Link (AVL) connection with him must have special clearance for contact with NSI inmates. The problem is that none of the Korean-English interpreters available have NSI clearance and none of the regular interpreters want to go through the process of getting approval (it is time consuming and intrusive). Although a non-regular interpreter with clearance was later found, when she was used for a 21 November conference between Choi and his lawyer and barrister, she was unable to communicate chunks of what was being communicated to Choi from English to Korean. There were many English words that she simply did not understand. Midway, through the conference, the interpreter said, “I will contact the agency as I do not understand this. This is too serious and hard for me. I am only Level 2. I will let the agency know next time they should send someone more advanced in English for this matter.” Except the agency has no one else with NSI clearance or willing to seek it! We will not name the interpreter involved as she is an innocent thrown in the deep end as a result of a draconian system to keep Choi and others like him isolated. However, the long and short of the matter is that Choi and his legal representatives are unable to properly prepare his legal defence because they cannot access the interpreters needed to adequately communicate with each other.
Affidavit from Choi’s lawyers detailed how the only Korean-English interpreter with the required special clearance to translate discussions between Choi and his lawyers/barristers does not have the required translation capacity (we have blacked out her name so as to not cause any embarrassment to this interpreter who is an innocent in this episode). No interpreters with the required capacity have clearance to interpret for Choi as few want to go through the intrusive and time-consuming process of getting the required clearance.
All this is compounded by the fact that funding granted by
Legal Aid for interpreters in Choi’s matter has been extremely limited. This is
almost certainly no accident. It bears an eerie resemblance to what is going on
in another case of political persecution – that of Witness K. In late August,
Witness K’s counsel angrily announced that his client had received almost no
funding from Legal Aid despite having applied for it more than a year
previously! Witness K’s counsel, Haydn Carmichael, accused Legal Aid of an
“extraordinary unexplained roadblock.”
Even If Choi Gets Bail in the Future He Still Can’t Get a Fair Trial
During last Friday’s hearing, the sitting judge intimated that should Choi be able to get bail in the future following a fresh application, the issues raised in his Permanent Stay application would be resolved. However, this is definitely not the case. The issue of getting interpreters to speak to Choi would be partially resolved in that they would no longer be obstructed from contacting him. However, the problem of inadequate Legal Aid funding to hire interpreters would not go away one bit. More importantly, Choi would still face the threat of having his communications with his legal representatives intercepted. Let’s recall that ASIO and the AFP have both refused to give assurances that they are not even now intercepting Choi’s communications with his lawyers and barristers. And given that Corrective Services NSW is openly admitting to intercepting Choi’s communications with his legal representatives, one can have little confidence that other government agencies would not do this even if Choi is granted bail. After all, the Australian capitalist regime’s perception of Choi would not change one iota if he is granted bail in the future.Given that they believe that his communications with his legal representatives should be intercepted now, they would still believe that they should be intercepted in the future. It is instructive to again recall what an Australian state agency did in East Timor a few years ago. They did not merely bug phone calls amongst East Timorese politicians and negotiators. Instead, under the cover of an aid project to refurbish government buildings, the Australian regime planted hundreds of listening devices in East Timorese ministerial and government buildings. If they are prepared to undertake such a massive, complex and expensive operation abroad against a “friendly country”, they would not hesitate, even in the least, to plant a couple of listening bugs and phone wiretaps in the future bail residence of a person who they believe is politically loyal to a country they deem a “criminal state.”
Moreover, we already know for certain that Australian state
agencies have placed Choi’s supporters under intensive surveillance. Point
124.J of the AFP’s Statement of Facts
states that:
several members who attended the rally specified in (i) [the 13 April 2019 Free Chan Han Choi rally that the AFP report on – actually complain about – in their previous point], have visited and been in regular telephone contact with the Accused while in NSW Corrective Services custody. Several of these member [sic] have attended NSW Central Court on dates where the Accused appeared for mention. On one occasion (4 July 2018), one of the Accused’s associates removed their business shirt while in Court to reveal a t-shirt containing the words “See You in Pyongyang”, positioning themselves to feature on a video-uplink with the Accused.
There are three key points apparent from this statement. Firstly, to be able to determine that amongst the dozens of people attending the 13 April 2019 united front rally in defence of Choi are the three people visiting Choi in custody, the AFP and/or ASIO and/or other regime agencies must have placed the 13 April 2019 protest under surveillance and must also have specifically honed in on the people allowed to visit Choi. Secondly, to be able to determine that some of these people have “been in regular phone contact with the Accused” (actually they should have said “had been” since for the last year Choi has been barred from phone contact with these friends), regime agencies must have been monitoring Choi’s calls to them. Thirdly, given the position that Choi’s supporter (who we spoke to) was sitting in the court room on 4 July 2018, there was no way that any AFP/ASIO officers present at the court room that day could have by their own eyes determined that, “one of the Accused’s associates removed their business shirt while in Court to reveal a t-shirt containing the words `See You in Pyongyang’, positioning themselves to feature on a videouplink with the Accused.” They could only have determined what “one of the Accused’s associates” was trying to do by listening in on phone communications amongst Choi’s supporters.
The AFP’s own Statement of Facts on Choi’s case reveals the extent to which Australian regime agencies have been stalking and monitoring Choi’s supporters. Some of the information contained in this document (that one of Choi’s supporters positioned “themselves to feature on a video-uplink with the Accused” during one of Choi’s court mentions) could only have been obtained by intercepting communications between Choi’s supporters.
The level of surveillance of Choi’s supporters by the
Australian regime is further emphasised in Point 20 of the Crown’s 10 October
2019 submissions opposing Choi’s bail application. It states that:
On two occasions when the Applicant’s matter has been before Central Local Court for mention, supporters have attended with one of them wearing a t-shirt bearing the flag of the DPRK above the words “See you in Pyongyang” which was displayed prominently (the first time, in the foyer of the court; the second time, in the body of the court during the mention of the matter) and then covered up. On the first occasion, those supporters also photographed the outside of the court including members of the Prosecution who were walking down the steps and then immediately attending an internet café before splitting up.
Choi’s supporters who were involved in this highly “subversive” act of “wearing a t-shirt bearing the flag of the DPRK” and then “attending an internet cafe” immediately after attending court said that they were in the Internet cafe and then talked together outside for a combined period of over an hour before “splitting up.” That means that the AFP/ASIO officers who stalked them not only tailed them the hundreds of metres from the court to the internet cafe but also carried out surveillance on them for over an hour!
The Commonwealth DPP’s written submission opposing bail for Choi in his October 2019 bail hearing revealed that the Australian regime agencies had stalked Choi’s supporters from a court house to an internet cafe and then maintained surveillance on them until they split up. The supporters who were stalked said they did not split up until over an hour after they first entered the internet cafe – meaning that the relevant regime agency spent at least that long on tracking Choi’s supporters that day.
So, we can draw from these two statements by the AFP and
the Commonwealth DPP the following conclusions about the level of Australian
regime surveillance of Choi’s supporters:
Australian regime
agencies have stalked Choi’s supporters and on at least one occasion monitored them
for over an hour.
Regime agencies carried
out surveillance on at least one solidarity rally with Chan Han Choi and honed
in on those supporters of Choi visiting him in custody.
Regime agencies have
monitored the phone calls between Choi and his friends.
Regime agencies have
listened in on phone communications amongst Choi’s supporters.
If this is the level of surveillance that the regime is placing on Choi’s supporters, what would they be doing to Choi himself should he get bail? They would certainly be intercepting all his communications – including with his lawyers and barristers.
There is another crucial point that should be made here. Because of the obstruction of access to Choi for lawyers and language interpreters, Choi has had to rely on his supporters visiting him in prison to act as go-betweens with his lawyers. Indeed, his access to lawyers and the necessary interpreters became so constricted that on 28 July of this year, Choi formally wrote a signed document to make one of his supporters (who we will refer to as Comrade P) his Power of Attorney. This Comrade P is one of the people referred to in the AFP’s Statement of Facts who both attended the 13 April 2019 Free Chan Han Choi rally and has been visiting Choi in custody. He is also the person the AFP refer to who on 4 July 2018, “removed their business shirt while in Court to reveal a t-shirt containing the words `See You in Pyongyang’, positioning themselves to feature on a videouplink with the Accused” and is also one of Choi’s supporters who the Prosecution’s 10 October 2019 submission reveals was stalked [by Australian/spy agencies] to an internet cafe. The key point is that since, as is evident from the AFP and Commonwealth DPP’s own submissions, Australia’s state agencies are intercepting the communications of – and putting under surveillance – Comrade P and other Choi supporters, these regime agencies are effectively intercepting Choi’s indirect communications with his lawyers. This is especially the case since 28 July when in legal terms the person that Choi made his Power of Attorney, Comrade P, effectively became Choi as far as consultations and instructions to lawyers are concerned. By intercepting this Power of Attorney’s communications, which no doubt means his communications with Choi’s lawyers too, the Australian regime are again intercepting communications between Choi and his lawyer.
Due to the obstacles placed by prison authorities on Choi’s access to his lawyers and to suitably qualified language interpreters, Choi made one of his supporters his Power of Attorney. However this person is among the people who (as revealed by the AFP’s “Statement of Fact’s itself and by the Commonwealth DPP’s submissions to Choi’s October bail hearing) the Australian regime has stalked and monitored and who has apparently also had his phone communications intercepted. Australian regime agencies intercepting phone communications between Choi’s Power of Attorney and his lawyers is equivalent to them intercepting communications between Choi and his lawyers.
In summary, whether it is Choi’s direct communications or his indirect ones via his supporters – and in particular the person he made his Power of Attorney – communications between Choi and his lawyers, that are meant to be privileged, have been intercepted by the agencies of the very state that is prosecuting him.There is thus no way Chan Han Choi can get a fair trial! Even if he was in the future finally granted bail and through some miracle the Australian regime stopped spying on him, they may well have already determined enough information about his intended legal strategy to compromise his defence. As an analogy, consider the Australian intelligence agencies spying on East Timorese officials. The key point that the Australian regime wanted to find out in order to gain the advantage in the oil and gas negotiations, is what East Timor’s bottom line was, i.e. how low they were prepared to settle for. Once they had this information then it would not matter if the spying stopped; Australia would already have a huge unfair advantage in the negotiations. Similarly, once key aspects of Choi’s legal strategy have been determined by the Australian regime through spying, the damage is already done: any (quite hypothetical) ceasing of the spying is not going to reverse the unfair advantage already gained by the prosecution.
But Wait … There’s More!
The main affidavit submitted by
Choi’s lawyers to his Permanent Stay hearing included a copy of a 1 November
2018 letter by Legal Aid to Choi threatening that should Choi sack his current
lawyers, his “grant of legal aid will be terminated.” Except, as the affidavit
stated, “at no stage did he [Choi] communicate with legal aid about wishing for
the grant to be assigned to another lawyer.” Although the affidavit itself does
not draw any conclusions from this, this fact has much significance. For, since
it was not Choi that tried to sack his lawyers and given that Legal Aid was
against Choi supposedly sacking his lawyers, it is apparent that a shadowy third
party masquerading as Choi sent Legal Aid a phoney communication sacking
Choi’s lawyers. Who could this third party be? We cannot be sure. However, to
pull off something like that and fool Legal Aid those responsible would almost
certainly have been a state actor. It is obvious that they were trying to
ensure that Choi would not be represented by his current lawyers. They no doubt
hoped that given that Choi was so isolated in prison and communication with him
so impeded, a mere forged letter to Legal Aid in Choi’s name would have been
sufficient to end these lawyers’ representation of him. So, what would their
motivation be for doing this? Prior to Choi retaining his current lawyers, Choi
had a government-appointed lawyer who was pressuring him to plead Guilty. In
contrast, Choi’s current lawyers were intent on allowing Choi to make the
ultimate decision on how he should plead and leant towards recommending that he
fight the charges. So, whoever tried to get Choi’s lawyers sacked were
obviously enemies of Choi and the DPRK who wanted to see him plead Guilty. That
as good as narrows it down to either Australian regime agencies like ASIO or
the AFP or to the CIA or the South Korean intelligence agency, the KCIA.
November 1, 2018 letter by Legal Aid to Choi threatening that should Choi go ahead and sack his current lawyers, his “grant of legal aid will be terminated.” Except, at no stage did Choi ask to sack these lawyers! Since it was not Choi that tried to sack his lawyers and given that Legal Aid was against Choi supposedly sacking his lawyers, it is apparent that a shadowy third party masquerading as Choi sent Legal Aid a communication sacking Choi’s lawyers.
This is hardly the only time that Choi’s adversaries have used dirty tricks methods to try and isolate him. Take the way that CSNSW have attempted to obstruct visits from Choi’s friends. When the three friends visiting Choi in prison first applied to visit him in early March last year – a detailed application was required as the authorities had classified Choi in the most stringent prisoner category (EHR-R/NSI) – CSNSW told them that it would take four to five weeks to process their applications. When they did not receive any feedback by the end of this period, they called CSNSW’s Visits Restrictions Unit on two occasions over the following weeks to find out the status of their applications. On each occasion they were told that their applications were being processed and a decision would be forthcoming soon. However, when they called a third time, now some seven weeks after their applications were lodged, the CSNSW unit now told them that … there was no record whatsoever in the CSNSW system that any of them had made any applications! Fortunately, Choi’s friends each had copies of their own applications and each of these was witness signed by a CSNSW officer. Nevertheless, the supposed “loss” of their applications was used to slow down the processing of these applications. Indeed, these supporters of Choi were not informed that they had been approved to visit Choi until four and a half months after their initial applications! Moreover, CSNSW only began to inform them that their applications had been successful after one of them sent an E-mail inquiring about the status of their applications. CSNSW responded to that E-mail by E-mailing a copy of a postal letter, dated three weeks earlier, informing the applicant that his application to visit Choi had been successful. However, the address on this letter was wrong: the unit number in the address was written as 1 instead of 11. As a result, the letter sent in the post was never received. Meanwhile, another one of the applicants also never received any letter in the post informing him that his application had been successful. If all that is not enough, after two of these friends in April simultaneously applied to have their visits to Choi extended for a further year (after all the hassle to get approved CSNSW only grants successful applicants a one year period of visitation!) one of them (Comrade P) was again told, when he inquired with the relevant CSNSW unit a month after his application was lodged, that “we have not received any paperwork from LBH [Long Bay Hospital]”! This is despite the other friend of Choi who applied together with this friend – and whose application was indeed witness signed by the same CSNSW officer at the very same time – not having his application lost. Now, one could possibly put one of these “errors,” that delayed Choi’s supporters from getting access to him, down to bureaucratic incompetence. But for all these “mistakes” to occur is simply not possible unless there was a conscious effort by relevant units of CSNSW to use dirty tricks to impede visits to Choi by his supporters.
The fact that dirty tricks were apparently used by an Australian regime institution to try and keep Choi isolated from his supporters adds further weight to the conclusion that forces hostile to Choi had used dirty tricks to try and have his current lawyers sacked. This has much significance for assessing whether Choi can get a fair trial. For, if Australian state agencies – and possibly allied foreign intelligence agencies – are prepared to violate their own stated rules to isolate Choi from both supporters and legal representation, then how can this same state conduct a fair trial of Choi? It can’t! Moreover, the fact that this capitalist state – and possibly allied foreign intelligence agencies – are prepared to use under-handed methods against Choi reinforces the notion that the direct and indirect communications between Choi and his lawyers that are being intercepted by regime agencies could be used to greatly disadvantage Choi in his upcoming trial.
Also included in the main affidavit submitted to Choi’s
Permanent Stay hearing is a media report that includes the public statements
made by then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull at the time of Choi’s arrest.
Turnbull as good as pronounced Choi guilty, threatening anyone thinking of
assisting North Korea that “the AFP [Australian Federal Police] will find
you” and then ranting hysterically in connection with Choi’s arrest that,
“North Korea is a dangerous, reckless, criminal regime threatening the peace of
the region. It supports itself by breaching UN sanctions, not simply by selling
commodities like coal and other goods, but also by selling weapons, by selling
drugs, by engaging in cyber crime.” Needless to say, when the then chief
political officer of the country makes such highly publicised, extreme
statements against Choi it is going to prejudice any jury that will sit on
Choi’s trial.
There were also many additional reasons why Choi cannot get
a fair trial that were not included in the formal Permanent Stay application.
One of these is that the AFP or their sources (which could be ASIO, the
Australian Signals Directorate, the CIA or the KCIA) apparently tampered with
evidence submitted in the case. The apparent tampering of submitted documents
does not directly affect the case against Choi. Rather, it covers up
information that is extremely politically damaging to the Australian and U.S.
regimes and even more destructive to the credibility of their South Korean
allies (see below for further details). However, it shows that the evidence
supplied in the case cannot be relied on. After all, if the AFP or their
sources have secretly deleted politically embarrassing information (without
putting any note stating that the information is redacted) from documentary
evidence in one area, what other evidence have they tampered with? How can Choi
get a fair trial if one can have little confidence in the authenticity of the
evidence supplied in the case against him? In the next few weeks, we hope to be
able to confirm with absolute certainty if there has been under-handed tampering
of documents in the prosecution’s supplied evidence as almost certainly seems
to be the case. Watch this space!
When one puts the numerous grounds for a Permanent Stay in the proceedings against Choi together, one gets a unified picture of why Chan Han Choi cannot get a fair trial. And this is because, from the prejudicing of any jury by the extremely hostile public statements against him made by the then prime minister at the time of his arrest, to the impeding of Choi’s access to lawyers, to the restriction of access to this very day of competent Korean-English interpreters, to the very limited and tardy legal aid funding for interpreters, to the efforts to break his spirit by blocking communication with his family, to the interception of Choi’s privileged direct and indirect communications with his legal representatives, to the apparent dirty tricks used to try and isolate Choi from both his lawyers and his supporters, to the denial of his bail application based on his political sympathy for the socialistic DPRK, Chan Han Choi has, because of his political loyalty to a socialistic state, faced blatant discrimination from the agencies of Australia’s capitalist state – the very state that is supposed to “fairly” adjudicate his case. If Choi’s Permanent Stay application was indeed adjudicated on fairly it would surely have succeeded.
However, the legal system that adjudicated on Choi’s
Permanent Stay application is itself biased. As Trotskyist Platform spokesman,
Samuel Kim, put it at a 23 November march through the centre of Sydney
demanding freedom for Chan Han Choi:
“… this so-called justice system, is not just, it is unjust. The legal system at its core, is part of the ruling class’ machinery that works against the interests of the working class masses and their supporters. The state exists for the corporate bosses and capitalist investors… Whether it is the Liberals, the ALP or the Greens who are in office, it will always be a state for the capitalist rich ruling class.”
That is why business owners, from corporate bigwigs to restaurant and cafe owners – big and small alike – are able to get away with illegally underpaying their workers without facing any criminal punishments (and at most being hit with minor fines), while trade unionists who stand up staunchly for workers rights get hit with criminal convictions and exorbitant fines. This legal system that attacks those who stand up for the rights of workers is even more implacably hostile to those like Choi who stand up for workers states like the DPRK and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). Meanwhile, since the courts are united with the other agencies of Australia’s state – the police, the military, the AFP, ASIS, ASIO, the DPP, the Australian Signals Directorate and the prisons – by a common subservience to the same wealthy capitalist class they also act as apologists for these other state organs. This was evident in a high-profile coroner’s report handed down exactly a week before Choi’s Permanent Stay application was held. The coroner’s report was into the death of 26 year-old Aboriginal prisoner, David Dungay. Dungay was killed by six prison guards four years ago at the very jail and the same wing of that jail where Choi is currently being held: the Hospital wing (which also serves as a remand jail) of Long Bay Prison. The guards caused Dungay’s death by crushing him with their combined weight and then continuing to choke him in this prone position as he cried out desperately more than a dozen times, “I can’t breathe!” Outrageously, the coroner recommended no criminal charges or any other sanction against any of the CSNSW officers who caused Dungay’s death. Similarly, the NSW Supreme Court judge who heard Choi’s Permanent Stay application grossly downplayed the harm done by the actions of CSNSW and the other regime agencies that have been violating the rights of Chan Han Choi.
Chan Han Choi’s Fate Will Be Decided by the Outcome of the Clash of Political Forces
Like the other enforcement personnel of the capitalist
state, magistrates and judges are tied by thousands of threads to the wealthy
capitalist class. Magistrates and judges are themselves on very high salaries.
Many of them no doubt invest part of these salaries in large shareholdings, in wealth
management products indirectly investing in shares and in multiple investment
properties. That means that their own economic interests lie very much with the
interests of capital and against those like trade unionists who militantly
stand up for workers rights. Having such interests would also make them
especially hostile to states – like the DPRK – formed through the overthrow of
capitalist rule. Moreover, a person could not rise to become a judge –
especially a Supreme Court judge – unless they had already proven their loyalty
to the capitalist order countless times on their way up. Then there are all the
personal connections that tie the judiciary to the capitalist elite. Judges’
and magistrates’ connections to corporate bigwigs, ruling class politicians and
the leaders of other state agencies are cemented through private school old
boys networks, common membership of exclusive social and sports clubs, marriage,
neighbourly relations in expensive suburbs and, in some cases, even through
shared patronage of the same high-priced prostitutes.
We must add that in such high-stakes, high-profile,
political cases like the one of Chan Han Choi’s, any judge sitting on the case
is hardly going to make any key decisions by themselves. You can bet that
influential capitalist billionaires, government leaders, heads of repressive
agencies and other judges will be banging in their ears. Such interference in
the case might take place casually during the course of, say, an extravagant
dinner at an expensive restaurant. Or it might occur in a more deliberate
manner through members of the ruling class elite specifically calling up the
relevant judges or taking them “aside for a chat.” Think of how prime minister
Scott Morrison rang up his mate – and former neighbour – NSW Police
Commissioner, Mick Fuller to “enquire” about the police investigation into the
alleged forging of documents by his energy minister, Angus Taylor … and
multiply that by about a hundred!
Since the Australian ruling class is determined to
persecute Chan Han Choi, the pressure on the judge – and his own class
instincts – will be toward ensuring that this occurs. However, that does not
mean that Choi’s cause is hopeless. Choi has his support. When the Australian authorities arrested Chan
Han Choi nearly two years ago, Australian ruling circles expected that Choi’s
imprisonment would meet with universal approval and that they could break
Choi’s spirit by cruelly impeding his access to family, friends, lawyers and
Korean-English interpreters. Instead, Chan Han Choi has defiantly spoken out
from prison against the Australian regime’s violation of his human rights and
has stuck by his political opposition to the cruel economic sanctions on the people
of North Korea. What has really caught the Australian regime by surprise is the
significant and growing support for Choi that has arisen both in Australia and
around the world. Here in Sydney, Trotskyist Platform has been joined in the united
front rallies to free Chan Han Choi and oppose the economic sanctions by a
growing number of people. Among the organisations endorsing the street protests
are groups as diverse as the Irish republican socialist group the James
Connolly Association, Australia-DPRK Friendship Society, the Lebanese Communist
Party, Communist Party of Australia – Western Sydney Branch, Aust-DPRK
Solidarity, Young Communists – Western Sydney and most recently the Social
Justice Network, a multi-racial progressive group with a strong base amongst
refugees and migrants from the Middle East and South Asia. Alongside the street
protests in defence of Choi, his supporters, from Australia to as far away as
Genoa, Italy have been making and wearing T-shirts calling to “Free Chan Han
Choi – A Socialist Political Prisoner in Australia.” Other individuals and
groups have expressed their solidarity with Choi on social media. Despite Choi’s
supporters in Sydney facing intimidation and surveillance from the repressive
agencies of the Australian regime, just prior to Choi’s Permanent Stay hearing we
held our fourth street demonstration in solidarity with Choi. Six days earlier,
we boisterously marched through the streets of Sydney city chanting, “Chan Han
Choi – Free This Hero Now!” and “Free Chan Choi – Lift the Sanctions Now!”
23 November 2019, Sydney: Supporters of Chan Han Choi gather for a united-front protest march to demand his freedom and the lifting of the UN sanctions on North Korea.
What this solidarity movement means is that the more the
Australian regime continues with its persecution of Choi, the greater the
political cost it will suffer. Its pretensions of being “democratic” will be
exposed, the cruelty of the sanctions regime on the DPRK that it supports will
be highlighted and the nature of the Australian regime as a dictatorship of
the big end of town will be bared for all to see. In the end, influential
members of the capitalist ruling elite will have to decide whether their
hostility to Choi and what they gain in persecuting him is worth the political
cost of conducting this persecution. In other words, Chan Han Choi’s fate will
mostly not be decided by points of law and evidence presented in the courtroom
but by the clash of forces in the political arena. The more that we can
increase the political cost of attacking Choi for Australia’s racist rich
people’s regime the more chance we have in forcing them to back off from their
completely unjust persecution.
Why the Ruling Class Is So Hell Bent on Persecuting Chan Han Choi
As Choi has himself told his supporters, the ferocity of
the Australian rulers’ persecution of him represents a channelling of all their
hostility to the DPRK onto Choi. So why is the Australian regime so hostile to
the DPRK? To the imperialist ruling classes of the likes of the U.S., Australia
and Japan the existence of states created by anti-capitalist revolutions in the
DPRK and in its massive neighbour and ally China (as well as in Cuba, Vietnam
and Laos) are simply unbearable. For the existence of these socialistic states
means that there is a chunk of the world where these imperialists cannot
exploit workers, plunder natural resources and dominate markets the way that
they do in most of the rest of the world. Moreover, the imperialists fear that
the existence of independent, socialistic countries in the Asia-Pacific could embolden
the masses of the countries in this region bullied by capitalist powers to
think that they too should give the imperialists the boot and take up the
socialist path. The Australian imperialists fear that if the PRC continues to
grow stronger and if the DPRK is allowed to do so, the masses of PNG, East
Timor, Fiji, the Philippines and Indonesia will be encouraged to defy their
Australian neocolonial oppressors. Furthermore, the mere presence of workers
states sets off the most mortal fear of capitalist rulers: that their own
working class will be inspired by this to one day sweep them away from power.
The capitalist rulers have specific reasons for wanting to
persecute Chan Han Choi. For one, by prosecuting Choi on charges of violating
the sanctions on the DPRK, the Australian rulers hope to intimidate anyone
thinking of assisting the people of North Korea. Alongside its U.S. senior
partner, the Australian imperialists have been amongst the most rabid supporters
of the sanctions. Australian ships and maritime surveillance aircraft are
currently deployed in the waters off Korea helping the U.S. to enforce these
sanctions. These sanctions are aimed at arm-twisting the people of North Korea
to kowtow to the imperialist powers, abandon their socialistic system and allow
Western, Japanese and South Korean speculators, bankers and sweatshop bosses to
take over her economy, plunder her natural resources and turn her well educated
workforce into a big labour pool to be exploited. For the capitalist ruling
classes of the U.S., Australia and Japan, the terrible hardships and shortages
of medicine and food that the sanctions inflict on the people of “North Korea”
are just “collateral damage” in the pursuit of their “higher” purpose of …
greater profits!
The Australian regime’s arrest and demonisation of Choi was also aimed at fuelling the launch of their new Cold War witch hunt against supporters of socialistic states. Choi’s arrest came just as the main weapons in this latest Cold War were being set for blast off. The number one target of this Cold War – which has seen the mainstream media and government launch one anti-China attack after another – are supporters of socialistic China. Any Chinese international student who speaks out in support of the PRC and any prominent Chinese immigrant who refuses to condemn the PRC could get witch-hunted. However, supporters of the DPRK – which is the PRC’s ally and neighbour – like Choi are also naturally targeted. The persecution of Choi has both added to the anti-communist hysteria targeting supporters of Red China and has been in turn bolstered by this anti-PRC Cold War. Just four days ago, the Morrison government announced the granting of yet more tens of millions of dollars for ASIO so that this sinister spy agency could establish a new taskforce against supposed [mythical] “foreign interference” by China. Pro-communist activists, pro-PRC Chinese international students and other supporters of Red China will be the real target.
The purposes behind this anti-communist witch hunting are
to justify to the public increased military mobilisation behind the U.S.-led
war drive against the PRC and DPRK, to justify support for anti-communist
forces within China – like the pro-colonial, rich kid rioters in Hong Kong – and
to crush opposition at home to the Australian regime’s anti-PRC policies. The
effect of this Cold War drive has been to whip up a national security obsession
so intense that it has ended up targeting people who are in no way supporters
of socialistic states. Thus, although Witness K is certainly no red, the Cold War-derived
national security fixation has certainly rebounded against him. So even though
Witness K was first raided by ASIO in 2013, the Commonwealth DPP only actually decided
to charge him in mid-2018, six months after the arrest of Choi and as the witch
hunt against supporters of Red China was quickly intensifying. Many others have
also been submerged in the national security tide. These including David
McBride, the military lawyer who exposed horrific war crimes by Australian
special forces troops in Afghanistan. Even mainstream journalists, who have
done so much to whip up the anti-China hysteria, have been subjected to AFP
raids on the rare occasions that they actually do a decent investigative report
that holds Australian regime institutions to account.
Parallel with the Cold War witch hunt that has targeted Chan Han Choi and pro-Red China Chinese students and migrants has been increased persecution of trade unionists. Anti-union laws have curtailed the right to strike and have led to repeated fines and prosecutions of scores of representatives of construction workers’ unions. Despite a recent parliamentary setback, the right-wing Coalition government continues to try and push through its Ensuring Integrity Bill, extreme legislation that will make it easier for the government to deregister militant trade unions and drive out staunch unionists from leadership positions. It is little surprise that Cold War witch-hunting and union-busting are going hand in hand. That is what happened in the last Cold War against the Soviet Union too. Both attacks on workers’ economic defence organisations – like our trade unions – and attacks on workers states are driven by the interests of the capitalist ruling class. And the more that the capitalist system is unable to ensure secure, permanent jobs for workers, the more that it can’t provide affordable rental accommodation and rising wages, the more we see that the ruling class fears the presence of both militant unions and socialistic states. That is why it is in the interests of the entire workers movement to oppose the Cold War anti-communist witch-hunting. Let us demand: Down with the attacks on our unions, down with the attacks on supporters of socialistic states! Stop the persecution of pro-Red China Chinese immigrants and international students! Stop the persecution of Chan Han Choi – free him now! Dump the anti-“foreign interference” laws and taskforces!
Fraudulent Nature of “Rule of Law” in “Liberal-Democratic” Australia Gets Exposed
In pursuing their persecution of Chan Han Choi, Australia’s capitalist rulers are paying a considerable political price. Due to his own defiant statements from prison (see for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTlumqtaguo) and the efforts of his growing band of supporters, more and more people are hearing about the harsh conditions of Choi’s imprisonment. As a result, an increasing number of people are seeing the hypocrisy of the ruling class’ claims to run a “liberal-democracy” committed to “human rights.” Meanwhile, the fact that the Prosecution successfully opposed his bail in good part based on his stated political sympathies for the DPRK – as opposed to just his alleged deeds – has helped to shatter the myth that Australia is a country where everyone is treated equally before the law regardless of their political allegiances.
All this hurts the ruling class’ predatory machinations
abroad. Like its U.S. senior partner, the Australian ruling class often uses
the guise of defending “human rights” to intervene in countries abroad. In
particular, they cynically wield the club of “human rights” to attack
socialistic China and the DPRK itself. Right now Australia’s rulers, including
prime minister Scott Morrison, are berating China for allegedly violating the
rights of an Australian detained in China on espionage charges, Yang Hengjun. Recently,
Yang’s supporters have made many unsubstantiated claims that have been reported
as fact by the mainstream media. Yet, the truth is that Chan Han Choi has faced
far harsher conditions than what is actually confirmed about the detention of Yang
Hengjun. Yang has been restricted by China’s authorities for the last 11
months, while Chan Han Choi has been imprisoned for the last 24 months without
going to trial. Notably, while Yang Hengjun spent the first six months that he
was held in the comparatively comfortable conditions of house arrest (he was
only moved to a detention facility in mid July), Choi has spent the entire 24
months imprisoned in harsh conditions in various Sydney prisons, the last 20
months of which has been in one of the Australian regime’s most notorious
prison camps, Long Bay jail. Australia’s foreign minister, Marise Payne, has
accused China’s authorities of restricting Yang Hengjun’s access to lawyers and
family. Yet Yang Hengjun has at least been allowed regular visits by Australian
embassy officials and his court appointed lawyer. However, Chan Han Choi,
following an initial visit from a lawyer soon after his arrest, underwent an
approximately 50 day period when he was prevented from having visits from
anyone at all – whether they be lawyers, family or friends. And until just
three months ago, Choi’s access to his lawyers was largely obstructed and his
access to competent language interpreters remains effectively blocked to this
very day. Of course, we should note that there is no equivalence in the political
essence of the cases of Yang and Choi. Yang is accused of espionage against the
Peoples Republic of China, which if true is a crime against a workers state
that deserves stiff punishment. Even if he turns out to be innocent of the
accusations he is no hero whatsoever. In contrast, even if the accusations
against Choi turn out to be true, this would only make Choi an even greater
hero. For it would mean that he has taken great risks to both help a people
battered by cruel sanctions and to stand by a workers state based on public
ownership – thus standing by the interests of the more than 90% of Australia’s
and the world’s population whose interests lie in the success of socialistic
states.
Choi’s continued opposition to the UN sanctions on North
Korea in his brave statements from prison and the solidarity movement defending
him have combined to invigorate opposition to these sanctions within Australia.
Thus, although the Australian regime hoped to use the arrest and demonisation
of Choi to justify these imperialist sanctions, the movement against this
persecution has actually resulted in there now being more understanding of the
cruelty and injustice of these sanctions amongst politically aware working
class activists than there was previously. Indeed, as a result of discussions
with Choi, who is known affectionately as “Uncle Choi” amongst fellow
prisoners, even some inmates at Long Bay jail now see the unfairness of these
sanctions.
Moreover, Choi’s persecution, his statements from prison
and the impact of the movement defending him have all combined to give some
leftist and union activists a better understanding of the DPRK. This, actually,
began to take place when Choi was first arrested. Politically astute people who
had previously been swayed by the intense media propaganda against North Korea
asked themselves, why would a person who grew up in capitalist South Korea and
who has then lived for three decades in relatively wealthy Australia want to
volunteer his time and risk his freedom to help North Korea? Later people
pondering this question heard Choi’s own statements from prison about why he
likes North Korea: in other countries that
he has lived in – like South Korea, Australia and Singapore – it is “money
first and if you have money you can do everything”, whereas in North Korea it
is “not about money”, “money is not important” it is “humans and humanism that
is first” (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro3RkGojbgY). He also speaks of how the genuineness of North Korea’s
people gives him a “heart-warming feeling.” Conditioned by the natural empathy
that warm-hearted humans have for those doing it hard – and especially for
those stripped of their rights – some people who heard these statements from
prison were profoundly affected by them. Then these people heard the points
raised by activists in the campaign to free Choi. We in Trotskyist Platform,
for instance, stressed that while the DPRK is not the “ideal” form of a workers
state (nor could a workers state strangled by extreme sanctions and intense
military pressure exist for long in any kind of “ideal” form) – in that the basic
socialist system there is deformed by a level of material privileges for state
officials, a personality cult around the Kim family and a lack of genuine
workers councils-based democracy – the entire basis of Western regimes’
hostility to the DPRK is that her system is based on the toiling classes having
seized state power from the capitalists and landlords. We emphasised that the
fact that the North Korean masses have built a society based on public
ownership – an
ownership form that favours working class people – is a victory for working
class people all around the world. So today, several astute leftists who had been agnostic in their attitude to
the DPRK prior to Choi’s arrest have now become sympathetic to this socialistic
state.
Meanwhile, a significant chunk of the Korean community in
Australia has become sympathetic to Choi. This, of course, includes the section
of the Korean community already supportive of the DPRK. But it also includes
others. Those working-class Korean migrants who have copped the racism of
capitalist Australia, discrimination in employment and the general hardships of
the migrant experience feel a natural sympathy for a working class
Korean-Australian compatriot who has been languishing in prison for two years
and who has been denied basic rights. Many Koreans too remember or have heard
about the horrors of the military dictatorships that ran capitalist South Korea
in the not too distant past and understand all too well how hostility to North
Korea was a key rationale for these murderous dictatorships. So, when they see
a person thrown in jail for supporting North Korea it sets alarm bells ringing.
For politically aware Koreans it is obvious too that enmity to North Korea is
the justification used for the presence of tens of thousands of U.S. troops in
South Korea. For the many migrants from South Korea hostile to the presence of
the U.S. troops and who don’t want Washington, Seoul and Canberra to unleash a
new war with their compatriots in the North, any demonisation of North Korea
and its supporters is met with hostility. As a result we have been contacted by
Korean migrants sympathetic to Choi. Many are scared to too openly take a stand
out of fear of deportation from Australia or persecution by authorities in
South Korea when they return there to see family and friends. Nevertheless, the significant support that
exists for Choi in the Korean community is confirmed by the reality that while
the English language mainstream media have been hostile to Choi – to more or
lesser degrees – the main Korean-language community paper in Australia, Hanho Daily, has reported on the case
fairly and with compassion for Choi (see: http://www.hanhodaily.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=61930). Meanwhile, sections
of the Chinese language media are also moving to cover Choi’s case in an accurate
way (see for example: https://www.sydneytoday.com/content-101948458527050). This reflects the understanding of some in the pro-PRC
section of the Chinese community that the persecution of Choi is an extreme
form of the Cold War-style hostility that they are enduring in greater and
greater amounts every day.
Facing suspicion about their prosecution of Chan Han Choi from the Australian Korean and Chinese communities, exposure of the hypocrisy of their claims to stand for “human rights” and growing opposition to their hostile policy against the DPRK – and, in particular, their enforcement of cruel sanctions on North Korea’s people – the Australian ruling class could also be hit by an X-factor that could take the political damage that they suffer from their persecution of Choi to a new level. This X-factor has appeared in the case in a partly accidental manner. For amongst the documents that have been provided as evidence by the Prosecution – obtained through spying on Choi’s communications – are E-mails that show that a company acting for the South Korean government once agreed to buy coal at inflated prices from North Korea. This was as compensation for falsely blaming North Korea for the sinking of a South Korean warship in 2010. To understand the gigantic significance of this we need to go back to 26 March 2010 when the ROKS Cheonan sunk in contested waters near North Korea during the course of joint military exercises between the U.S., South Korea and other allied countries. Forty-six South Korean naval personnel were killed as a result. The South Korean Ministry of Defense stated in the first press briefings after the sinking that there was “no indication of North Korean involvement.” Yet, before long a joint investigation carried out by a hand-picked team from South Korea, the U.S., Australia, the U.K. and Canada “concluded” that the warship was sunk by a North Korean torpedo. However, those findings were highly controversial and most South Koreans at the time saw the findings as a crazy conspiracy theory. One of the South Korean investigators on the panel, Shin Sang-cheol even asserted that “evidence linking the North to the torpedo was tampered with.” Chemical and seismic data studies conducted by separate teams of international scientists also concluded that a torpedo could not have been responsible for the sinking of the Cheonan. North Korea itself vehemently denied the accusation. It offered to aid an open investigation but was knocked back. China also rejected the Western-South Korean account as lacking factual basis. Nevertheless, the accusation that North Korea sunk the Cheonan brought the Korean Peninsula to the very brink of a full-scale war. It also led to the increased isolation of North Korea and the heightening of economic sanctions against her by many countries.
The remains of the South Korean warship the ROKS Cheonan which sunk in contested waters near North Korea during the course of joint military exercises between the U.S., South Korea and other allied countries. After initially saying that North Korea was not responsible, the South Korean military backed up by the U.S. and Australian rulers blamed North Korea for the ship sinking. However, documents submitted by the prosecution in Choi’s case happen to show that South Korea once agreed to buy coal at inflated prices from North Korea, in a deal that was apparently compensation for the harm to North Korea done by falsely blaming her for the Cheonan sinking.
Fast forward five years and the then South Korean government of Park Geun-hye finally makes an overture to ease tense relations between the two Koreas. However, North Korea demands compensation from the South for falsely blaming her for the Cheonan sinking and for all the resulting harm and intensification of sanctions that this brought her. In a deal that was actually brokered by Chan Han Choi, himself, South Korea was to buy coal from North Korea at substantially higher than market price as their means of providing compensation. Initially, a private company acting for the South Korean government, G Hanshin Pty Ltd, actually did agree to buy North Korean coal at inflated prices. Although the deal was later cancelled after South Korea suddenly insisted on the market price, the fact that South Korea once agreed to buy North Korean coal at inflated prices is strong evidence backing claims that Seoul knew that the North did not sink the Cheonan and, therefore, that North Korea was entitled to compensation for the false accusation.
Things get still more interesting. Although Choi was not
charged by the AFP for that April 2015 attempted coal deal with the South Korean
government, the AFP decided to use this attempted deal as part of their
evidence. They submit it as part of showing how Choi is a “Loyal Agent of the
DPRK” and asserting his role as a “DPRK Broker.” This evidence that they submit
includes draft contracts sent to Choi by the South Korean company that was
assigned to conduct the deal with North Korea. Yet there is a strange thing
about this evidence submitted by the AFP. In the section of the contracts (written
in Korean) where the price is to be listed, there is a “US$” written but then a
blank space. The price is not there! We are pouring through documents to be
absolutely sure of this but at this stage it appears almost certain that either
the AFP or their source (which could be any number of Australian or U.S. or
South Korean intelligence agencies) deleted this price from the contracts that
they submitted as evidence in the case against Choi. Choi’s supporters maintain
that if the initial agreement by South Korea to buy coal at an inflated price
from North Korea amounts to smoking gun proof that South Korea knew that North
Korea did not sink the Cheonan and was
entitled to compensation for the false accusation against her, any secret deletion
of the [inflated] price from the evidence presented by the Prosecution
represents North Korea’s enemies being caught trying to wipe their dirty
fingers off the smoking gun!
Just as the revelation that the claim that “Iraq has weapons of massive destruction” – that was used to justify the 2003 U.S./British/Australia invasion of Iraq – was false hurt the political credibility of the U.S., British and Australian regimes, irrefutable evidence that North Korea was blamed falsely for the sinking of the Cheonan will also hurt the U.S. and Australian ruling classes. This is particularly the case since not only the U.S. imperialists but their Australian junior partner were involved in the bogus “investigation” into the Cheonan sinking. However, should it be irrefutably proven that not only did North Korea not sink the warship but South Korea knew that it did not, the impact on South Korean political life would be on an entirely other level. Here the X in the X-factor would stand for X-plosive! For the false assertion that North Korea sunk the Cheonan has shaped South Korean political life almost to the same degree that the September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre shaped American politics. It helped condition the greatly increased hostility to the DPRK within South Korea over the ensuing years, the heightening of sanctions and the growth of hard right political forces within South Korea. If it comes out irrefutably that this is based entirely on lies and that the masses of South Korea have been blatantly lied to this could cause a huge political earthquake there that could shake the very foundations of the South Korean capitalist regime. And ironically, the Australian regime’s persecution of Choi would be blamed for triggering this crisis by their allies in Seoul!
Whatever transpires regarding revelations about the truth about the Cheonan sinking, one thing is clear: the more that the campaign to free Chan Han Choi grows in strength the greater the political price that the Australian capitalist regime that is persecuting him will pay. And we in Trotskyist Platform – and we dare say many of the others involved in the campaign to free Choi – are determined to maximise that political cost. For we understand that we cannot expect Choi to get a fair trial from the racist, rich people’s legal system – even under the unfair laws that Choi has been charged with. Only by mobilising mass actions in defence of Choi and against the sanctions on North Korea can we create an environment where it will be against the political interests of the capitalist regime and its various agencies to continue their persecution of Choi. Moreover, a key part of the struggle to advance the interests of the working class and downtrodden is to expose to the masses the truth that the repressive agencies in this country are not “democratic” institutions that treat everyone equally but exist for the very purpose of maintaining a capitalist “order” that subjugates the working class masses. All supporters of the working class and downtrodden: Let us work harder to free Chan Han Choi! Oppose the Cold War witch-hunt against supporters of socialistic North Korea and socialistic China! Say NO to the new McCarthyism! Struggle against the starvation UN sanctions on the people of North Korea! Expose the truth about the Cheonan sinking! Stand by the DPRK and PRC workers states!
