The Guardian 13 December, 2006
Bring David Hicks home for Xmas
Bob Briton
More than 1000 people marched in Sydney last Saturday to mark the fifth anniversary of David Hicks’ detention at the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba and to demand that he be brought back to Australia immediately. Hundreds took part in protests in Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Canberra and Adelaide on the same day with the same demand. His brutal and illegal detention and a call for the closing of Guantanamo were the main themes at events organised by Amnesty International throughout the country the next day to mark International Human Rights Day.
"Our message is clear. Bring David Hicks home to face a fair trial and if he cannot be prosecuted, release him. It is that simple", Amnesty said in a media release.
There is now a massive backlit billboard visible on the approach to Sydney Harbour Bridge with the slogan "BRING DAVID HICKS HOME" emblazoned on it. The first of the “billboards for justice” from campaigning group GetUp! was made possible by a torrent of donations from outraged Australians.
ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope spoke out on Saturday’s anniversary of Hicks’ incarceration. “It marks five years of abandonment by his own country, five years of being denied some of the most basic human rights: the right to a fair and swift trial, conducted according to the rule of law", he said. A group of Liberal MPs — including NSW backbenchers Danna Vale and Bruce Baird and Victorian MPs Russell Broadbent and Petro Georgiou — used the most recent weekly meeting of Coalition MPs to raise their concerns about Hicks' case. Ms Vale said Hicks should be brought home by Christmas.
The Law Council of Australia has added its voice to protests that Hicks has spent too long in jail with no charges laid. "With all those circumstances, the fact that he isn’t currently subject to any charge, the continuing delays and the time that’s gone by meant the Australian Government ought to be asking the Americans for Hicks to be released", Council President Tim Bugg said last week. The US authorities have said they would release Hicks if requested to do so by the Australian Government. Several other governments (including that of Iran in recent times) have succeeded in bringing supposed terror suspects home to face local jurisdictions.
Attorney General Philip Ruddock now claims that new, yet-to-be-disclosed charges will be heard soon after a revised system of military commissions is put in place on January 17. The previous charges against Hicks — conspiracy, attempted murder and aiding the enemy — were abandoned when the US Supreme Court ruled that the military tribunals set up to hear them were illegal.
Howard Government heavyweights have been keen to pin some of the blame for Hick’s drawn out detention on the detainee himself. "Just this week the Prime Minister John Howard was echoing sentiments uttered earlier by other federal ministers, to the effect that some portion of that five-year incarceration without trial was Mr Hicks' own fault, for having the temerity to challenge the legality of the military tribunals that were established to try him...What Mr Howard and his ministers seem to be saying is that if only Mr Hicks had been willing to surrender his right to a fair trial, he could have had a swift one. Under what possible twisted reading of law would that constitute justice?" Jon Stanhope noted.
Ruddock claimed last week to have great sympathy for David’s father Terry and the way he has campaigned for his son. "Mr Ruddock has been no help to David’s cause — the American and the Australian Governments should be the ones facing court", Mr Hicks replied in the media. And it appears the Commonwealth of Australia, the Foreign Minister and the Attorney General might yet have to answer for themselves in court after a team of lawyers working free-of-charge for Hicks filed papers in the Federal Court in Sydney.
The team, headed by constitutional expert Bret Walker SC, has asked the court to issue writs to cause the government to do its best to ensure Australian citizens are dealt with before properly constituted courts that can guarantee a fair trial. They are requesting this on the basis that the government's actions in David Hicks' matter have been based on "improper considerations" — i.e. he has been abandoned to the flawed US military tribunals because there are no charges that could be brought against him under Australian law. The government is also being accused of failing to request that US authorities give him minimum protection under international law such as the Geneva Conventions, the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights and standards prescribed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The lawyers have requested an urgent hearing and are hoping to receive one within the next few weeks.