Families of Guantanamo Bay detainees address public forum in Sydney

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/sep2003/guan-s23.shtml

The families of David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, two Australian citizens held without charges for nearly two years by the Bush administration in the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, addressed a public forum at the Sydney Trades Hall on Saturday September 20. Attended by around 150 people, the meeting provided them an opportunity to speak out against the wholesale abuse of democratic and human rights being committed by the Bush administration, with the complicity of the Australian government and political establishment. The forum was organised by the Canterbury-Bankstown Peace Group and Actively Radical TV, both of which have connections to the Socialist Alliance and Democratic Socialist Party (DSP).

David Hicks, a 28-year-old convert to Islam, was seized in Afghanistan by forces of the pro-US Northern Alliance in early December 2001. After 10 days he was handed over to the US military and transferred to Guantanamo Bay. In July this year, Hicks was named as one of six Guantanamo detainees who may be brought before a US military tribunal and could face the death penalty. His detention is being justified by the Bush administration on the grounds that he was in Afghanistan as an “illegal combatant”—a definition that has no standing under Australian law or the Geneva Conventions. He is being held in solitary confinement, subjected to regular interrogations and has been denied any direct access to legal counsel.

Mamdouh Habib, 47-years-old and a father of four, was seized by Pakistani police on October 5, 2001, while traveling from the city of Quetta to Karachi in order to fly back to Australia. With the full knowledge of Australian authorities, he was sent incommunicado to Egypt for five months and then transferred to Guantanamo Bay.

The Australian government, which supported the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, has rejected all appeals that it intervene to secure the release of Hicks and Habib. It continues to applaud the US military’s abrogation of due legal process in the name of “defending democracy” and “combating terrorism”.

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[Tom Yossarian Joad]

1. Rummy: Cuba Detainees sShould expect to be there for duration of war on

terror:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/americas/view/48774/1/.html

Most suspected terrorists at a US prison camp in Cuba could expect to be held for the duration of the global war on terrorism rather than face trial, US Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said on Wednesday.

Asked about the matter in a question-and-answer session at the National Press Club, Mr Rumsfeld said he expects some trials but prefers that most continue to be held at the Guantanamo Bay facility.
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