Australia’s position on Hicks ‘disingenuous & grossly inaccurate’
Former chief justice Alastair Nicholson has written a scathing rebuttal of Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock’s defence of his government’s abandonment of David Hicks, the Australian citizen still imprisoned by the US at Guantánamo Bay after more than five years. Nicholson’s point, made clearly and authoritatively, is that Hicks cannot get a fair trial by US military commission and should be released without trial.
Ban Ki-moon made use of his first press conference as UN Secretary-General to call on the US to close the prison camp. His predecessor Kofi Annan had done the same.
Thanks to the efforts of civil society and Hicks’ high-profile US defence attorney, Dan Mori, Australians are starting to clamour for Hicks’ human rights. Asked why this has taken so long, Mori replies that he cannot understand Australians’ complacency. In the US, he says, they just would not stand for it.
How long is long enough? How long in solitary confinement without charge or trial before it seems outrageous? Two years? Five years? Ten years? It’s way past outrageous. If you won’t stand for it,
- Join the protests in London, Birmingham, Warsaw, Melbourne — or organise your own.
- Write to your MP or to Philip Ruddock to demand the Australian Government act urgently and honourably.
- Sign this on-line petition to Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer.
