‘Not proportionate’: Australian government urged to axe extraordinary terror powers amid low threat level

Australian Human Rights Commission says preventive detention regime is now harder to justify

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The Australian Human Rights Commission is urging the government to use the current low terror-threat level to end its extraordinary preventive detention regime for potential offenders, criticising its “significant impact on human rights”.

In 2005, after the London terror attacks, the Australian government introduced laws to give what were meant to be temporary, extraordinary powers to police to hold people in “incommunicado” detention, without charge, for 48 hours to prevent a future terror offence.

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