Media release : David Hicks torture details

international | rights, freedoms and repression | press release Thursday December 14, 2006 21:47 by Australians for David Hicks to come Home

On 9 December 2006, David Hicks marked 5 years in the American Concentration Camp at Guantanamo Bay without a trial. Abandoned by Australian Prime Minister John Howard and left to rot.

Date: 13 December 2006

To: Prime Minister John Howard - every member of the Australian Parliament

Subject: David Hicks torture details

From:
Australians for David Hicks to come Home
freedavidhicks[at]iinet.net.au

Source:
Australian son David Hicks 912 Campaign - main site
http://www.geocities.com/notinmynamesayschris/bring_dav....html

Australian son David Hicks 912 Campaign - mirror
http://members.iinet.net.au/~chrisjohn316/davidhicks/br....html

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David Hicks torture details

Email received Wednesday 13.12.2006

"Dear Chris: Yesterday, at our state's commemoration of UN Human Rights day, I gave a lecture at the Wisconsin State Capitol, under the grandly soaring rotunda, which contains a discussion of the HIcks case. Best of luck with your efforts, Very best, Al McCoy"

Chris email reply to Al, "Thank you for helping to save the life of Australian David Hicks."

UN Human Rights Day: A Beacon for All Americans Troubled by Torture

"4.) Then, US soldiers tortured David by kicking, beatings with rifle butts, gunpoint death threats, and anal penetration.

5.) After being flown to Guantanamo in January 2002, David was subjected to regular sleep deprivation, handcuffed tightly for up to 15 hours, and offered enticements to cooperate.

6.) After the “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh capitulated in July 2002, the Pentagon picked David to be the very first detainee tried before the Military Commissions.

7.) To soften this model case for trial, David was isolated inside a closet-sized, windowless cell and denied all sunlight or human contact for an unbroken, unimaginable 244 days.

8.) After he became the first detainee to face Guantanamo’s new Military Commissions in August 2004, the official Australian legal observer concluded, “a fair trial for David Hicks is virtually impossible.”

9.) As legal and legislative battles slowed his trial, in March of this year David was returned to solitary confinement where he remains, six months later, isolated 22 hours a day inside a cement room with a solid steel door.

10.) Under the new Military Commissions law, David faces another 2 to 5 years of such soul-destroying solitary confinement.

11.) In full view of the entire world, the United States has

--subjected a detainee to endless imprisonment lasting 7, 8, or 9 years on mere suspicion,

--denied him habeas corpus rights,

--tortured him with sophisticated psychological methods to bend before this presidential court and accept its pre-determined verdict,

--allowed use of evidence extracted under torture in a US court,

--and dragged him before a drum-head tribunal that, according to the US Supreme Court, mocks the civilized standards of Justice."

“UN Human Rights Day:
A Beacon for All Americans
Troubled by Torture”

Alfred W. McCoy,
University of Wisconsin-Madison

State Capitol, Madison, Wisconsin
UN Human Rights Day,
11 December 2006"