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Hicks a victim of a rotten system .....’In a previous article in "The Independent Australian", Issue 5, 2005, I compared the Eureka Stockade of 1854 and showed how the death of many of the miners at the Stockade at least led in the long run to democratic reforms. I also showed that now, in this year of 2005, the democratic gains of the Stockade, including such rights, which the Eurekans and their democratic heirs, expected would remain in place, such as trial by jury, innocent until proven guilty, the duty of the State to prove guilt, freedom for arbitrary arrest, and the accountability of government to the citizen, to mention but some of these rights, had now been destroyed. In a mood of Doublethink politicians still use the word "democratic", but it has become an empty, hypocritical symbol used to lull the sheeple into capitulation to the rise of globalism and the extinction of personal freedom. That move towards personal slavery, of which David Hicks, is only one symbol, is continuing to mount, and shows little sign of stopping. As a proponent of civil liberty, naturally I am concerned, as all citizens should be, unless they have been hypnotized into a mood of apathy.
One writer on the Internet, John Wilson, has been very active in seeking to restore the democratic right of trial by jury and expose the collusion of judges in Australia to suppressing what few freedoms citizens may still possess (jhwilson@acay.com.au). He has been subjected to continual act of legal harassment and insult. John Wilson has maintained that rights and freedoms, including to trial by jury, were granted in perpetuity by Magna Carta. In like manner, it could be claimed that the American Founding Fathers established inalienable rights and freedoms when they created the United States, but of course these "inalienable rights" are constantly being "alienated". Wilson is one of the few who have had the persistence and integrity to pursue these measures through courts that make no attempt to protect the citizen by such proclamations as the English Bill of Rights, Magna Charta, or by protections under common law.
On December 3,2004, David Hicks’ father spoke at the 150th Anniversary of the Eureka Stockade, and pointed out that his son had been held without trail by the U.S. Government at Guantanamo Bay and that the Australian government had made no effective attempt to represent one of their citizens and, if he was guilty, repatriate him to Australia for trial. Since then, there has been no improvement in the situation of David Hicks but, as if that were not enough, events have transpired that make him a symbol of the society we are fast becoming: an autocratic society, manipulated by the government call for "anti-terrorist" measures into becoming a Terrorist State, in which the government determines for us what terrorism is and seeks to eliminate the rights of terrorists.
David Hicks now has a website devoted to him ( http://www.fairgofordavid.org/ ) which raises many of the issues. At that site, is the report of U.S. V David Matthew Hicks’ "Report of the Independent Legal Observer for the Law Council of Australia" by Lex Lasry, Q.C., July, 2005. His conclusions are too long to be detailed here, but item #76 in that judgement point out that David Hicks’ case is worse, owing to long delays caused by extended litigation and the possibility that, if there is a trial, there will be no cross examination of witnesses by Hicks’ lawyer but the prosecution will rely on second hand information and conceal what evidence it may consider necessary. In #77 he mentions that detainees at Guantanamo are excluded from access to US civilian courts with access to any rights under the US Constitution or under international conventions, including the Geneva Convention, of which the US is a signatory. There is the real possibility that prisoners, including Hicks, were tortured at Guantanamo Bay to get a confession, which should morally be excluded as obtained under duress. These considerations also affect other Guantanamo inmates. On the same website, Burton J. Lee III, a former physician to the president to George H.W. Bush and a board member of Physicians for Human Rights, denounces the "stain of torture" at Guantanamo.
As Lasry sums up:
"The following criticisms made by others and by me in my first report remain:
· Lack of independence and apprehension of lack of impartiality, the process being the creation of the Executive of the US government; · The Commission will function with two members who are legally unqualified and inexperienced but who will be required to make findings not only of fact but of law; · The "rule" of evidence remains unchanged and totally inadequate for the reasons already given; · The charges against Hicks remain and arguably represent a misuse of those charges; · There remains no viable appellate process that can impartially correct errors and remedy a miscarriage of justice.
# 78. I would, of course, agree that the Law Council should make further representations to the Australian government with a view to attempting to persuade them to request Hicks' repatriation as they ultimately did with Habib. Under the present structure not only is the Military Commission process unfair but it seems to be unworkable with relevant detainees being released from time to time and a total lack of certainty created by the whole process having been thoroughly bogged down in litigation.
Rather than attempt to remedy some of the injustices that are obvious in the process as it stands, the US government appears determined to defend and apply it to those nominated for trial. If the issues raised in Hamdan and other similar cases brought by detainees were brought before the US Supreme Court, it is hard to imagine that they would not find the logic of Judges Robertson and Green difficult to resist after their conclusions in Rasul and Hamdi. But even if the Court were to eventually confirm each of those judgments changes would need to be made to the process to accommodate those findings. As was demonstrated with the CSRT, the implementation is still likely to be open to further challenge in the courts that will mean a further lengthening of an already offensive delay. In any event the present US government approach is to expedite the hearing of the military commission, certainly in relation to the case of David Hicks.
# 79. The Law Council should urge the Australian government to examine these matters very carefully. This is much less about David Hicks than it is about a grossly unfair process and in many ways Australia's own moral authority is at risk if it continues to condone this process as ‘fair and just’"
David Hicks, the Australian imprisoned at the US Base of Guantanamo Bay, was 30 years old on Monday August 7, 2005. Justice for Hicks and Habib campaigner, Marlene Obeid, said: ‘David has been imprisoned and tortured for 3 years and 9 months now. Another birthday in the hellhole of Guantanamo – nothing to be happy about.’
Mr Hicks’ Australian solicitor, David McLeod, found in a recent visit to the US Base that his client is losing his eyesight, has severe back problems, and his mental condition is rapidly deteriorating.
The British Government successfully negotiated the release of nine Britons held imprisoned at Guantanamo. Five were released in March 2004, while the last four were released in January 2005. None of these were charged in spite of US Military officials alleging that four of them were trained and involved in military activities in Afghanistan.
A US citizen, Yaser Esam Hamdi, who was captured in similar circumstances to David Hicks was freed in September 2004 after two and a half years imprisoned, and agreeing to renounce his US citizenship and renouncing terrorism.
‘It is time for the Australian Government to request David Hicks’ repatriation, before it is too late,’ Mrs Obeid added.
(For further information contact Marlene Obeid on 0401 758 871)
David Hicks is a symbol of a system that is increasingly leading to an Orwellian Big Brother State. The events of September 11,2001, have fostered an attitude suppressing free speech and basic freedoms that a Western heritage had led us to hope might be sacrosanct: freedom from arbitrary arrest, a right to trial by jury, innocent until proven guilty, cross examination of witnesses and an expectation that the accused had to have his guilt proven "beyond reasonable doubt." The sheeple are being brainwashed into accepting gross violations of human rights, including the shooting of a "suspect" Brazilian in London, now known not to have been a terrorist. Sir Ian Blair, the British Police Commissioner, had falsely announced that the killing of de Menezes was "directly linked" to terrorism. Some citizens have become "useful idiots", "justifying" the shooting by saying " they were only doing their job." No doubt, by shooting innocent people to "rescue" us from terrorism!
John Pilger’s article "The rise of the Democratic Police State", published August 19, 2005, by www.antiwar.com (among others) depicts the way selective attention is given to targeting Muslims as "the force behind terrorism" in U.K., while at the same time, condoning US terrorism against those in Iraq and Afghanistan. The same pattern is evident in Australia, as Prime Minister Howard follows the lead of Blair and Bush. Blair wanted police state powers in 2001, when he suspended habeas corpus and installed unlimited house arrest without trial. Lord Hoffman said that Blair’s attacks on human rights were a greater threat to freedom than terrorism. He might have added that by suspending civil rights the State itself becomes a terrorist.
This is the direction in which we are now headed as "democracy" becomes a sham, existing only in the dictionary. Prime Minister Howard has also encouraged the rush to autocracy by calling for a national ID card and targeting Muslims as the main villains behind "terrorism", conveniently ignoring State Terrorism, seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, supported by the "coalition of the willing", those willing to be dupes of those who would smash freedom once and for all. David Hicks is merely a symbol of what our society is turning into: a totalitarian state.
Geoff. Muirden Published in "The Independent Australian", Issue # 7,2005
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so much for the rule of law .....
‘As the government has tried to maximize its power to track down, question and incarcerate suspects here and abroad, it has come to view the courts as a sort of new domestic threat that often affords prisoners more rights than officials feel they legally deserve. Barely a year ago, the Supreme Court gave terrorism suspects broad rights to challenge the government in court.
In the wake of that and other rulings, authorities have moved repeatedly to avoid judicial review by changing the status of prisoners, shipping them overseas or making adjustments in the conditions of their confinement - sometimes days before suspects were to appear in court.’
Sidestepping Courts In The War On Terrorism
the rule of law srikes back .....
‘Eleven police forces were today threatened with legal action if they fail to investigate allegations that UK airports are being used as secret stop-overs by CIA jets transferring terror suspects to torture camps.
The human rights group Liberty has called on the chief constables of forces from Prestwick, near Glasgow, to Bournemouth to investigate claims that the airports are facilitating kidnap and torture - which is illegal under British and European Union law.
The move follows international concern over the CIA's failure to confirm or deny suggestions that it has illegally abducted terrorist suspects and flown them between a network of clandestine detention centres - so-called "black sites" - for interrogation under torture.’
UK airports 'Are Stop-Offs In Torture Flights'
Meanwhile, in the Italian Courts ….
‘A judge has rejected an appeal by a former CIA station chief in Milan against an arrest warrant issued for his alleged role in the kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric, ruling that he was not protected by diplomatic immunity.
Italian judges have issued arrest warrants for 22 purported CIA agents, including the former station chief Robert Seldon Lady, accused of involvement in the kidnapping of cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr.’
Judge Rejects Appeal of CIA Arrest Warrant
more on the rendition machine .....
‘More than 300 CIA flights have landed at European airports, a British newspaper said, adding a new element to claims that Washington has been transporting terrorist suspects to secret prisons in Europe.
The Guardian daily said it had seen flight logs documenting the flights by 26 planes operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).’
Flight Logs Reveal Hundreds Of CIA Flights To Europe
oh what a tangled web .....
‘In May 2004, the White House dispatched the U.S. ambassador in Germany to pay an unusual visit to that country's interior minister. Ambassador Daniel R. Coats carried instructions from the State Department transmitted via the CIA's Berlin station because they were too sensitive and highly classified for regular diplomatic channels, according to several people with knowledge of the conversation.
Coats informed the German minister that the CIA had wrongfully imprisoned one of its citizens, Khaled Masri, for five months, and would soon release him, the sources said. There was also a request: that the German government not disclose what it had been told even if Masri went public.
The US officials feared exposure of a covert action program designed to capture terrorism suspects abroad and transfer them among countries, and possible legal challenges to the CIA from Masri and others with similar allegations.’
Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake
Meanwhile, the pressure of this scandal is being felt in the UK, as
‘Jack Straw has sent a second letter to the US government demanding answers over the alleged use of British airports for CIA "torture flights", Scotland on Sunday can reveal.
Straw was last week pressured into writing to Condoleezza Rice, his US counterpart, in Britain's capacity as president of the European Union, to request "clarification" of claims that the CIA had used private jets to ferry terror suspects for interrogation - even torture - in secret prisons in Europe.’
Straw's Torture Flight Quiz
a wasteland of injustice .....
‘As a U.S. citizen and as a Christian, when the prisoners in Guantánamo began their first hunger strike this summer, I was forced to think more seriously about how to say no to torture and yes to humanity. I had to think about the depth of powerlessness and despair as well as the intensity of will and defiance that goes into the decision to starve oneself. It is an act against biology. But refusing to eat is the prisoners' only way of drawing attention to their predicament. They have no other tools except deepening their own suffering.
Jesus commands that we visit the prisoner and comfort the afflicted, and reminds us that what you do to the least among us, you do to me. I am marching as a person of faith trying to apply these mandates to an ever more violent world.’
Why I Am Marching to Guantánamo
the ultimate crime .....
The Editor,
Sydney Morning Herald. December 16, 2005.
If David Hicks is to be prosecuted for “violations of the law of war
john howard's rule of law .....
"The question is whether the quality of justice envisaged for the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay complies with the minimum international standards for the conduct of fair trials," Lord Steyn continued. "The answer can be given quite shortly. It is a resounding 'no'. Prisoners at the Camp Delta base on Cuba are being held in conditions of 'utter lawlessness'."
That verdict was reinforced last week by some of the most learned and respected judges in the world, the British House of Lords, sitting as the Supreme Court of the UK.
In a judgment delivered on Thursday, the seven Law Lords denounced torture and any attempt to use evidence obtained by torture in British courts.
Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the former Lord Chief Justice who chaired the panel, said English law had regarded torture and its fruits with abhorrence for more than 500 years. "The principles of the common law, standing alone, in my opinion compel the exclusion of third-party torture evidence as unreliable, unfair, offensive to ordinary standards of humanity and decency and incompatible with the principles which should animate a tribunal seeking to administer justice."
Lord Hoffman: "The use of torture is dishonourable .It corrupts and degrades the state which uses it and the legal system which accepts it. In our own century, many people in the United States have felt their country dishonoured by its use of torture outside the jurisdiction and its practice of extra-legal 'rendition' of suspects to countries where they would be tortured."
Lord Hope: "Torture [is] one of the most evil practices known to man. practices authorised for use in Guantanamo Bay would shock the conscience if they were ever to be authorised for use in our own country."
Lord Rodger: The torturer is abhorred "not because the information he produces may be unreliable but because of the barbaric means he uses to extract it".
Lord Nicholls: "Torture is not acceptable. No civilised society condones its use. This is a bedrock moral principle in this country. For centuries the common law has set its face against torture."
Lord Brown: "Torture is an unqualified evil. It can never be justified. Rather, it must always be punished."
A Maiming Of The Soul
cornering the rodent .....
76 signatories – including four former Supreme and Federal Court judges
– have put their names to an open
letter to the Prime Minister highlighting the need for an independent and
impartial trial and appeal mechanism for Australian Guantanamo Bay prisoner
David Hicks.
Yet David Hicks is not the only Australian victim of questionable
military justice systems. There are men and women from the ADF who have
discovered that they have been denied independent and impartial hearings under
our own military justice system.
There is still significant concern over the Government's response to the
unanimous findings of the Senate
inquiry into military justice . The progress
report released last Thursday on the implementation of the Government
response to the inquiry by defence chief Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston has
failed to reassure some observers.
A number of high profile compensation cases still remain outstanding, and the allegations
of physical and psychological abuse made by Lieutenant-Commander Robyn Fahy.
Neil James from the Australia Defence Association told the ABC last
week that the ADF has made a good start, but more still needs to be done.
“There's a lot wrong with the military justice system, so obviously this is
only the first of four scheduled reports, and I suspect there may indeed be
more,” he said. “Because it's going to take a lot to fix those parts of the
administrative law system and the disciplinary law system that aren't working
optimally.”
meanwhile, to underscore the
importance of this issue …..
The Pentagon
has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva
Convention that explicitly bans ‘humiliating & degrading treatment,’ … a
step that would mark a further, potentially permanent, shift away from strict
adherence to international human rights standards.
The State Department fiercely
opposes the decision & has been pushing for the Pentagon & White House
to reconsider.
Army
Manual To Skip Geneva Detainee Rule
Kangaroo still on the court's menu
From the New York Times
White House Bill Proposes System to Try Detainees
By DAVID S. CLOUD and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: July 26, 2006
WASHINGTON, July 25 — Legislation drafted by the Bush administration setting out new rules on bringing terror detainees to trial would allow hearsay evidence to be introduced unless it was deemed “unreliable” and would permit defendants to be excluded from their own trials if necessary to protect national security, according to a copy of the proposal.
The bill, which officials said was being circulated within the administration, is not final, but it indicates the direction of the administration’s approach for dealing with a Supreme Court decision that struck down the tribunals established to try terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The 32-page bill preserves the idea of using military commissions to prosecute terror suspects and makes modest changes in their procedural rules, including several expanded protections for defendants, many of them drawn from the military’s legal code. But the proposal also sets up a possible confrontation with lawmakers who have called for modelling the trials on the military’s rules for courts-martial, which would allow defendants more rights.
The draft measure describes court-martial procedure as “not practicable in trying enemy combatants” because doing so would “require the government to share classified information” and would exclude “hearsay evidence determined to be probative and reliable.”
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Gus heard on the grape wine that... the hearsay is... that "classified information" is the first refuge of official liars... One thing the US want to avoid is to reveal the amazing network of bribe and reward schemes that have paid dirt and those that have not, including those that have only netted innocent people still "hanging" about in Guano Bay... without the prospect of being charged with anything...
But the classified information people are working on it...