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Rights compromised in the name of security

21 May 2007, 10:41AM

On 30 March 2007 in the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Australian national David Hicks became the first person to be sentenced by a military commission convened under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA). Four days earlier he had pleaded guilty to one charge of "providing material support for terrorism". At a press conference after the sentencing, the chief prosecutor for the commissions, US Air Force Colonel Morris Davis, suggested that it had been a good start to the military commission process and expressed his hope that it would be reported that "we gave an al-Qa'ida terrorist a full and fair trial". Amnesty International can file no such report.

After over five years of detention in Guantanamo Bay, David Hicks is finally coming home. While his return to Australia is a relief for him and his family the flagrant disregard of human rights standards in this "war on terror" is a stain on the record of the Australian Government.

The commission process has effectively been tailored to obtain convictions while whitewashing the unlawful government practices that have preceded them. Can a guilty plea made by a detainee held for more than five years in indefinite detention and virtual incommunicado detention, thousands of miles from home, without judicial review and facing the possibility of a life sentence after an unfair trial by military commission, be considered to have been made voluntarily?

On the same day that David Hicks was sentenced, the Pentagon revealed that Saudi national Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, held in secret custody for nearly four years before being transferred to Guantᡡnamo in September 2006 with 13 other "high-value" detainees, has alleged that he had only admitted to involvement in the attack on the USS Cole and other crimes under torture in US custody. A panel of military officers convened behind closed doors to review his "enemy combatant" status that he had "made up stories during the torture in order to get it to stop", and that "once he made a confession, his captors were happy and they stopped torturing him".

Throughout the whole ordeal including his recent appearance before the military commissions - the Australian Government failed to protect one of its own citizens.
Instead of rejecting the military commissions which had been condemned by world leaders, the UN and many legal and human rights organisations alike, the Australian Government - alone in the world - declared them to be fair. Instead of insisting on an independent investigation into David Hicks' allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, the Australian Government accepted assurances by the US Administration that torture was not committed by its personnel in the face of growing evidence to the contrary.

For five years David Hicks was denied his basic human rights. The majority of Australians were horrified that it had taken this long for him to receive a "fair go". The Australian Government was indifferent.

Protecting our human security and protecting human rights are inherently linked. We live in a time where governments are using fear as a political tool where there is fear of hordes of asylum seekers, fear of those who are different, fear of the other. The threat of terrorism is real and must be addressed by governments, but, the world does not become a safer place when human rights - such as freedom from torture - are no longer sacrosanct, and when the right to a fair trial can be compromised in the name of security.

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