SCALES OF JUSTICE

The Sunday Age newspaper campaigns to bring David Hicks home

He lives in a cell of featureless walls, 24-hour lighting and a single window of frosted glass that in daylight glows like a fluorescent globe.

For five years, David Hicks has occupied spaces like this, caught between a US Government that has been unable to prosecute him and an Australian Government that refuses to try to free him. This sentence without trial, in conditions so secret that he cannot be photographed, could drag on for another two years unless the Federal Government asks the United States to send him home.
Hicks' military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, says Australia is tolerating a terrible situation. While Hicks has been in legal limbo, John Walker Lindh — the so-called American Taliban who trained at the same camp as Hicks — has been charged, pleaded guilty and sentenced. But Lindh broke American law; Hicks has not broken Australian law.

Associate professor at Monash University's Global Terrorism Research Unit, David Wright-Neville, regards Hicks' treatment as outrageous in a human rights sense, and counterproductive from the perspective of counter-terrorism. He says the denial of justice and due process smacks of victimisation and threatens an entire community within Australia.
"David Hicks has been offered up as a sacrifi ce to the Bush administration," Wright-Neville says. "They had to let go of the Poms and the Swedes, so they want some token white guy so they can say we are prosecuting Europeans, not just Pakistanis and Saudis."

Law Council of Australia president Tim Bugg says the passage of time and the resulting loss of evidence means Hicks could not have a fair trial. "The Federal Government's inactivity and refusal to do anything is just extraordinary. There's an Australian citizen in the most appalling circumstances and the Government has done nothing to assist," he says.
Bugg says it appeared that political considerations rather than principle lay behind the Government's stance. "Because of that, the Government and the minister involved deserve to be condemned."

The Sunday Age invites readers to register their support to bring David Hicks home, and we will pass it on to the Federal Government. Send your messages to bringdavidhome@theage.com.au