Hope for David Hicks?
Will the American election have any impact on the future of prisoners of Guantanamo Bay and so far as Australia is concerned, on David Hicks in particular?
The September vote by the Republican-dominated Congress to set up special tribunals to question and try suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay was strongly opposed in the senate by the Democrats who “accused the administration of tearing up 200 years of legal standards by removing detainees’ rights such as habeas corpus – the right to challenge their own detention,” BBC News reported at the time.
“This longstanding tradition of our country about to be abandoned here is one of the great, great mistakes that I think history will record.” Democrat senator Chris Dodd told the house
When the Democrats take over both houses in December are they likely to revisit this issue? Will they bring pressure to bear on President Bush to have Guantanamo Bay closed? Will they reassert the American ideal and support the Rule of Law and the presumption of innocence for all people?
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It is becoming increasingly obvious that the US Government, both its Executive and Legislative branches, is not thoroughly committed to defending the rights of detainees such as Hicks. Thus the onus of protecting his rights now rests with the Australian government. The time for talk is long gone. He deserves action.
One can only hope that when the Democrats do take over both houses in December they do force Bush to shut down this “Hellhole of Torture” that the Howard Government endorses by their inaction to ensure David Hicks his democratic right to Rule of Law.
David Hicks should be brought home immediately!!
All Australians Democratic and Human Rights have been deminished under Howards Government not David Hicks.
We are on very dangerous ground at the moment.
We should not leave this to the Democrats in America to resolve, we must Demand an immediate return to our Democratic principles and our God given Human Rights for all Australian!!
Good people have to maintain hope for the release of David Hicks. I have (thru. Senator Fiona Nash, asked the Federal Government to provide ONE independent/authoratative person/body who supports this Govt.’s position on the Military Commission process. While this question was submitted to Mr Gary Hardgrave on June 15 2006 and pursued 2 further times, I have had no answer.
Little wonder that organisations such as yours gains the cross-sectional support as identified in “The Group” page.
I don’t know if freedom or 20 years prison would be justice for David Hicks.
I do know he is being denied it.
Australia’s shameful unwillingness to demand David’s basic rights devalues Australian citizenship for all.
Bring David Hicks home.
We have all seen, interminably it seems, the photo of David Hicks as a young man. Only when Australians see David Hicks today will we truly understand how we have allowed this fellow Aussie to be treated. [As photos allow us to understand the horrors of Japanese POW camps.] It is extremely important to pressure the government to bring Hicks back for his sake but also so we all may fully understand the horror of torture and unjust imprisonment so distant but yet so close to our way of life.
I am ashamed to be an Australian at a time when our Government so easily gives in to foreign pressure once again and allows the rights of a citizen and the processes of law to be trampled on so easily. We are constantly shamed by the mighty efforts of a courageous American Marine legal officer, Major Michael Mori, to obtain justice for an Australian citizen held in a trumped-up “jail” which is nothing more than another “gulag”. This “gulag” belongs to us all if we do not fight for the common rights of this citizen.
For Goodness sakes, whats the big deal, why don’t they just bring him home. I guess they would be in a lot of trouble if they did.
I am proud of the number of Australians who do stand up for what is true and right.
I feel sick in the stomach when I think of what is happening to David Hicks and the others. We are supposed to help lead the World out of darkness. What are our political leaders thinking? What is their motivation?
Please close Guantanamo Bay and bring David home, now.
The issue of David Hick’s innocence or guilt is no longer of great importance. What NOW stands as the major issue, both for David & for ALL Australians, is the blatant abandonment of our rights as Citizens. Under democratic laws & as human beings under the Geneva Convention, to which both the USA & Australia are signatories, we have been crucified. The current Federal Government has betrayed us all, & David (along with Corby & others) is paying the price for their deceptions & total lack of compassion.
Howard, Ruddock and Downer have refused to acknowledge the obvious criminal action that has befallen David in G-Bay, just as they have refused to acknowledge our right to demand his repatriation to Australia to face an impartial trial. Our government calls him a liar for daring to claim he has been tortured, because Bush says it is not so. How dare they? I know who I believe, how about you?
“BRING DAVID HICKS HOME”
23 Dec 2000 my husband was abducted by police and I was detained later. Held hostage in a communist prison, cut off from outsiders, tortured, enduring mock executions, interrogations and fearing we’d never seeing family again, we resisted signing false statements. I empathise with David Hick’s predicament. We were detained under different circumstances, and unlike David, we received overwhelming support from ours & other foreign Governments but I know what it’s like to be stripped of your dignity and rights, imprisoned at the government’s discretion without charge, convicted without defence, simply allowing a corrupt government to save face. We cannot afford to take our freedoms for granted; bad things do happen to good people, our civil rights are important but not always defended when we travel abroad. Join the National Rally Dec 9 2006 BRING DAVID HICKS HOME Contact:fairgofordavid@internode.on.net
Kay Danes
www.foreignprisoners.com
www.kaydanes.com
If we were shown film of loud speakers blaring out the doctrines of Nazi Germany in the late 30s early 40s on street corners in Berlin, we would ‘know’ it was propaganda even if we didn’t speak a word of German.Propaganda is now used in the derogatory sense, connoting deception or distortion.
Today nice polite people read the news to us in well moderated tones and tell us that this David Hicks person is among the ‘Worst of the worst.’
Many of ‘The worst of the worst’ have been found to be guilty of nothing more than having been of some annoyance to a rival and were ‘fingered’ to the authorities and labled terrorists.
What has David Hicks actually done? It all seems so vague. Surely we are grown up enough to be told what ‘unspeakable’ crime he has commited.
Justice denied to any of us is justice denied to all. If this is allowed to continue, the terrorists have won. Noel Wyndom
It no longer matters what David Hicks did wrong five years ago. Our democratic principles and processes means that the accused has rights, including the right to a speedy trial. The only fair thing to happen now would be for Hicks to be freed. If we continue to ignore what it is we are (supposedly) fighting for in this (supposed) ‘war on terror’, we would have alreadly lost. Denial of human rights for any one of our citizens means that we have become the very thing we are fighting against.
Historically I could never be classed as an admirer of your political views. Since Googling Australians All my position is rapidly changing. Never give up the fight for the minorities, the under-privileged or the victimised of this world.