On the 4th anniversary of September 11, more than 200 detainees at the US concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay are continuing a hunger strike to protest their ongoing treatment.
Among the Guantanamo Bay inmates is Australian, David Hicks, who has been held by the US for nearly 4 years: tortured; denied his legal & human rights & abandoned by his own government.
In the face of strenuous opposition from Bush administration lawyers, 3 federal appellate judges yesterday expressed doubts about the US government's assertion that hundreds of foreign nationals imprisoned indefinitely in Cuba have no right to challenge their detention in US courts.
The remarks from all three judges on a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit came during oral arguments in the high-stakes dispute over whether the Bush administration is properly detaining prisoners at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and whether special tribunals it established are sufficient to determine the detainees' guilt or innocence.
Judges Question Lack of Prisoner Rights
At home, a small group of Australian politicians continued their efforts to ensure justice for David Hicks.
Their efforts last week were recounted Alan Ramsey in yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald.
“At 3.37 on Wednesday afternoon, the Democrats' Lyn Allison, her party's latest federal leader, formally asked the Senate to adopt a cross-party proposal sponsored by the Democrats' Natasha Stott Despoja (South Australia), Labor's Linda Kirk (South Australia) and the Greens' Bob Brown (Tasmania). The wording, though lengthy, should be read in full.
It said: "That the Senate – (a) notes (1) the right of all Australians, regardless of their alleged crime, to a fair and reasonable trial; (2) the number of serious doubts raised by legal and military experts, including retired High Court justices Mary Gaudron and Sir Ninian Stephen, the presidents of the Law Council of Australia and the 14 law societies and bar associations of the states and territories of Australia, independent Law Council of Australia observer Lex Lasry, QC, head of the Australian Military bar Captain Paul Willee, QC, Mr Geoffrey Robertson, QC, the American Bar Association, three United States military commission prosecutors, and sitting High Court of Australia justice Michael Kirby, who regard US military commissions as unjust; (3) that Spain, France and the United Kingdom have all refused to allow their citizens to be tried before US military commission, and; (4) the comments by the UK Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, that 'the United Kingdom have been unable to accept that US military tribunals offer sufficient guarantees of a fair trial in accordance with internationals standards'; and
"(b) calls on the Government to advocate for Mr David Hicks's trial to be conducted in a properly constituted court with rules of procedure and evidence that meet Australian and international standards of fairness." The Government's Senate majority threw it out without debate. Not a word. The reading of the motion and its defeat, on the voices, lasted one minute. That is the only right the Howard Government accords Hicks - the right of his country's national legislature to spend 60 seconds in trashing, without argument, a request he get a fair trial.
Hicks, a convert to the Islamic faith, was "captured" with Taliban "fighters" in Afghanistan on December 9, 2001, by "forces" of the so-called Northern Alliance, who handed him over to "US authorities", according to Amnesty International. He was incarcerated at the US military's camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in January 2002. He has been there ever since, mostly in isolation. Total: three years and nine months. Whatever he has done - and there is no detail - he is an Australian citizen whom his Government denies all rights under Australian law. It has abandoned him to the US military to do as it wishes. Such is Howard's Australia.
It happened in your Parliament this week without, as far as I am aware, a flicker of either media interest or general knowledge. However, although the Howard Government cares nothing for Hicks's rights, overnight Thursday Australian time, a panel of three judges of the US Court of Appeals, for the District of Columbia, again began hearing argument in the continuing legal battle over whether 505 Guantanamo "detainees", including Hicks, have legal right to "due process." It is an unresolved battle, going on since June last year.
so lucky .....
The Editor,
Sydney Morning Herald. November 1, 2005.
So, Alexander Downer is sceptical about claims that David Hicks has been tortured. (‘Hicks didn’t tell us about abuse: Downer’, Herald, November 1)
According to the US Department of Justice, “physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of body function, or even death. For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture ... it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, eg: lasting for months or even years....
waiting on the rule of law .....
‘In a new report published on Monday, Amnesty International revealed how the US detention centre at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba is condemning thousands across the world to a life of suffering, torment and stigmatization.
The report “Guantánamo: Lives torn apart – The impact of indefinite detention on detainees and their families”, contains testimonies of a number of former detainees and their relatives and assesses the current state of those who continue to be imprisoned at Guantánamo, including developments in relation to the ongoing hunger strike and suicide attempts.
Five hundred men from around 35 nationalities are detained in Guantánamo. Dozens are currently on hunger strike and there have been numerous suicide attempts. None of them have had the lawfulness of their detention reviewed in a court of law. Nine continue to be held despite no longer being defined by the US government as “enemy combatants”
Guantánamo: A Life Sentence Of Suffering & Stigmatization
A few days before, on February 3, Connie Hegland, of the National Journal Group Inc, provided a detailed profile of the Guantanamo Detainees …….
‘Many of them are not accused of hostilities against the United States or its allies. Most, when captured, were innocent of any terrorist activity, were Taliban foot soldiers at worst, and were often far less than that. And some, perhaps many, are guilty only of being foreigners in Afghanistan or Pakistan at the wrong time. And much of the evidence - even the classified evidence - gathered by the Defense Department against these men is flimsy, second-, third-, fourth- or 12th-hand. It's based largely on admissions by the detainees themselves or on coerced, or worse, interrogations of their fellow inmates, some of whom have been proved to be liars.’
Empty Evidence