David Hicks 26-3-07

I find myself angry and disgusted hearing about the coverage on David Hicks. Hearing about this man who is in bad health, low spirits, isolated, possibly tortured, and who after all this time, be humiliated in front a court in front of strangers and his family. And that it has taken five years in solitary confinement before a person is trialed, and that the Australian government tolerates this, and public outrage over this.

Its embarrassing for the Americans to have the last tribunal ruled as unconstitutional, a country who’s government and president that’s already been reduced to chain-email jokes and crass T-shirts. A country who does not respect international law and order at the first place who have taken law into their own hands. We’ll hang this person today and we’ll bomb this other place tomorrow. America, the country that thinks it speaks for everyone else in the world.

I find the whole idea of solitary confinement a repulsive way of punishment, let alone an acceptable way to “temporarily detain” someone for five years. The sort of mental destruction this must have on any one is unimaginable for me. Cutting off people’s beards, taking away their religious scripts, forcing them to walk around in chains or confined to the floor. Did these perpetrators ever think what if this is their brother, sister, father, mother? This is not justice, its abuse. And its tolerated.

The worst news is, David Hick’s case is receiving this kind of media attention because he is Australian. He is the first to be trialed in the new commission out of hundreds of political prisoners detained as those accused of terrorism. There are HUNDREDS of people from countries from the Middle East and around the world not just in Guantamao but all over US military run prisons that do not have the democratic processes behind them, whether it be public scrutiny or government will or media capacity to pressure some action for their case. Before they are trialed properly, many of them would have probably been physically, mentally and sexually abused before they die in destitute, despair, and with absolutely no dignity – without any one knowing about it.

I think what I feel most angry about is perhaps how powerless I feel about this injustice. I can write in my blog, I can go on a protest, I can write to the paper, I can sign a petition, I can cast a vote, I can ring up my local polly. Thousands of people have done that, and still… some times I really wonder.