Why I am ashamed of the Australian Government

I don’t typically blog about politics but there is something that I need to express my views on.

For those who are unfamiliar with the story, a guy called David Hicks, an Australian, was captured in Afghanistan by the US military and sent to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. After years of confinement, and his continued insistence of innocence he pleaded guilty yesterday to “supporting terrorism” in front of a US military tribunal which sits outside of the justice system of any country. His guilty plea has even surprised the tribunal itself – who insisted that he present evidence that the guilty plea was genuine and not a ploy to get out of Guantanamo. Many people including myself (also an Australian), feel his confinement was unfair, without legal basis and that the Australian government should have tried to secure his release – which they did not.

The legality of the camp, the military tribunals set up to judge those held there, and the treatment of the prisoners interred there has been the cause of a lot of consternation. No US or British citizens are currently held there as the legal systems of those countries have deemed the camp breaches the rights of their citizens, and the camp has been widely condemned internationally.

Hicks was classified as an “enemy combatant” – a term developed deliberately to reclassify people as falling outside the Third Geneva Convention “relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War”. This meant that he was not protected by the same basic rights as the soldier of an opposing army. For years he was locked up for 23 hours a day in a cell (for an extended portion without any natural light). His US military-appointed lawyer raised allegations of torture. None of this was ever complained about, or investigated by his government.

Despite calls by the Australian legal community, including its judiciary, not a single noise has been made by the government for the release of David Hicks. Hicks did not violate any Australian laws being in Afghanistan, nor did he violate any US laws that were around at the time.

His languishing in a prison outside the reach of any country’s legal system has suited Prime Minister John Howard’s government. A government with a well-documented history of playing to the lowest common denominator of Australian society with it’s tough on terrorism, tough on immigration policies. A government with a distasteful human rights record – after all, who can forget the Tampa, the Children Overboard affair (where a subsequent senate enquiry proved the PM had lied to the public), and its treatment of “Illegal Immigrants” in its detention centres?

Conditions on the acceptance of his plea included dropping a challenge on the legal validity of the tribunals in the US Supreme Court, going back on claims that he was abused in captivity, and promising not to sue the US. One other condition was that Hicks cannot talk to the media for a year. The timing coincides nicely until after the next Australian election. Already Mr. Howard (a master of political point scoring, if ever there was one) has started to take advantage of the situation, knowing that no direct reply can be given:

“Whatever may be the rhetorical responses of some and particularly the government’s critics, the facts speak for themselves,” he said in Sydney.

“He pleaded guilty to knowingly assisting a terrorist organisation – namely, al-Qaeda.”

I’m sorry Mr. Howard. No facts were ever heard in anything that resembled a fair trial. Hicks would never get an unbiased hearing (after all, the trial judge even removed two of his lawyers). He would have been convicted and remained in Guantanamo until well after your time, or a change of government in the US (maybe). Had I been given that choice, I would have pleaded guilty too.

Whatever one might think about David Hicks, his motivations, beliefs or reasons for being in a war zone there is a big question that needs to be asked. Was his subsequent treatment fair? No. Had he been held by any other country, for any other reason than terrorism, the cause du-jour, something would have been done. Given the traditional Australian fondness of the concept of “A Fair Go”, I cannot feel anything other than revulsion at his treatment. The Australia I believe in is one where it’s citizens are protected by certain rights, and a government that will stand up for those same rights when they are encroached on.

If Hicks had done anything that was illegal in Australia, he should have been brought back and tried there. If he didn’t, the government should have pressed for his release. The sooner Australia defines a bill of rights for its citizens (it is the only democratic country without one), and turns its back on this government’s distasteful policies the better.