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the road to guantanamo .....

from the Sydney Morning Herald …..

‘Concern is growing among the Coalition back bench over the future of David Hicks, who has been held at Guantanamo Bay for more than five years.

The Liberal senator Russell Trood said yesterday there was concern about how long it had taken Mr Hicks, yet to be charged under the new US military commission process, to receive justice.’

Coalition Unrest Grows Over Hicks

meanwhile, for those in Sydney please see info below

David Hicks has been imprisoned for almost five years at Guantanamo Bay. 

Britain demanded the release of its nationals years ago, and now a film has been made about how one of the British detainee, Ruhal Ahmed, ended up in Camp X -Ray.

ASIO banned Mr Ahmed from visiting Australia to promote the film declaring him a 'security threat'.  Mr Ahmed has travelled to Germany, France, Iceland, Turkey, Spain, Ireland, Holland and other European countries to promote the film. He is scheduled to visit South Africa, Slovenia, Denmark and Kosovo. He is only banned in the USA and Australia.

You're invited to a fundraising screening of The Road to Guantanamo

Profits will go to the 'Bring David Home' Campaign and the Marrickville Greens election campaign 

6.30pm, Thursday 23 November

Palace Cinema, Norton Street Leichhardt

$15 or $20 for keen Greens

Please book by Monday 20 Nov fundraising@marrickville.nsw.greens.org.au

moral turpitude .....

The Editor,
Sydney Morning Herald.                                            November 11, 2006.

In refusing to secure & defend the rights of Australian citizen, David Hicks, the Prime Minister once again reveals the full extent of his government’s craven moral turpitude (‘Fair trials accord adds to pressure’, Herald, November 11).

In rejecting calls for Hicks to be returned to Australia for trial, John Howard argues that he could not be charged & tried for his alleged “crimes”, because they were not offences at the time they were allegedly committed. Howard, a lawyer, disingenuously argues that his government does not want to pass the necessary retrospective criminal laws to overcome that problem, as that “would represent a very significant regressive move and it would violate the basis of our criminal justice system."

Of course, as usual, the Prime Minister tells only half the story. Federal parliamentary legislative guidelines often provide for the retrospective operation of a “beneficial provision” – one that does not operate to a person’s disadvantage by decreasing that person’s rights or by imposing liabilities on the person. Given that the “rules” of the US Military Commission have been universally condemned for their failure to measure up to established Australian & international judicial standards, the Prime Minister’s argument is simply dishonest.

In addition, the Prime Minister conveniently conceals the fact that any charges that David Hicks might ultimately face before the US Military Commission, will relate to “offences” that were created under US law more than 18 months after they were allegedly committed. Coupled with the facts that Hicks has already been detained for almost five years without charge; held in solitary confinement for most of that time, whilst allegedly subjected to torture, it is inevitable that any trial for offences under Australian law, even if the charges were based on retrospective legislation, would have to be advantageous to Hicks.

Of course, whilst the Australian government publicly wrings its hands & mouths complaints to the US about undue delays in the Military Commission process, it remains cynically determined to see David Hicks corruptly railroaded by the US Military Commission process … no matter how long it takes.

After all, political expediency demands that securing & protecting the legal & human rights of an Australian citizen must remain subordinate to the interests of a fridge magnet based fear agenda, particularly if there is a dangerously high risk that the demonised citizen just might be found innocent of phoney charges, if exposed to the genuine “rule of law” & a jury of his peers.

the missing .....

‘More than 7,000 prisoners have been captured in America's war on terror. Just 700 ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Between extraordinary rendition to foreign jails and disappearance into the CIA's "black sites", what happened to the rest?

On 6 September, President George W Bush finally confirmed the existence of secret CIA jails such as the one that held Bashmilah. He added something chilling - a declaration that there were now "no terrorists in the CIA programme", that the many prisoners held with Bashmilah were all gone. It was a statement that hinted at something very dark - that the United States has "disappeared" hundreds of prisoners to an uncertain fate.

Let's examine the arithmetic of this systematic disappearance. In the first years after the attacks of 11 September, thousands of Taliban or suspected terrorist suspects were captured. Just in Afghanistan, the US admitted processing more than 6,000 prisoners. Pakistan has said it handed over around 500 captives to the US; Iran said it sent 1,000 across the border to Afghanistan. Of all these, some were released and just over 700 ended up in Guantanamo, Cuba.

But the simple act of subtraction shows that thousands are missing. More than five years after 9/11, where are they all? We know that many were rendered to foreign jails, both by the CIA and directly by the US military. But how many precisely? The answer is still classified.

No audit of the fate of all these souls has ever been published.’

Missing Presumed Tortured