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28/11/2003

The Detention of Australian citizens at Guantanamo Bay

INTRODUCTION

Two Australian citizens, David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib are currently being held by the government of the United States of America at "Camp Delta" at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Both Hicks and Habib have been placed in indefinite detention in that facility without charge for almost two years, contrary to the provisions of the Third Geneva Convention, and Articles 9 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which both Australia and the United States are parties. Hicks and Habib have been held indefinitely - as "unlawful combatants" in the so-called "war on terrorism" without charge and without access to consular assistance, their lawyers, or their families.

David Hicks was captured by the US military in Afghanistan in November 2001. Mamdouh Habib was detained in Pakistan in early October 2001, before being moved to Egypt and then held in Afghanistan before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay. Both men have now been detained without charge for up to two years.

In early July 2003, the US Government announced the establishment of a military commission that will determine whether those charged and brought before it have committed criminal offences. David Hicks was one of six foreign nationals named as being eligible to stand trial before the commission on charges relating to the "war on terrorism" - charges which have yet to be laid. The Australian Catholic Social Justice Council holds that the indefinite detention has denied these two citizens natural justice and that the proposed military trial of detainees will not afford an adequate standard of justice.

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