Free David Hicks rally - Melbourne 21 April : Melbourne Indymedia

Umbrellas were out, as they say on SBS, but something over two hundred people were there to hear Bob Brown, Terry Hicks, Martin Kingham and Liz Thompson, as well as two representatives of Civil Rights Defence, expressing different perspectives on the issues raised by the case of David Hicks. The CRD speakers sketched the work of the group over the last few years in campaigns around the erosion of civil liberties in Australian society, specifically in connection with Jack Thomas, anti-terror legislation, the thirteen Melbourne men detained in maximum security at Barwon Prison, and most recently, David Hicks. They dealt with the question of why CRD is continuing to campaign since David Hicks' plea bargain, the first reason to continue calling for him to be freed being the fact that he is not free: he will be returning to a maximum security prison for the next nine months. He has been gagged and cannot talk about what he has been through. 'He will be freed from Guantanamo, but not freed from the suffering he will face as a result of his treatment.' Like Jack Thomas, he could still be subject to a control order restricting travel and even the ability to leave his house in the evenings. And this could be done not by a court order, but by the sole discretion of Philip Ruddock ... the very person who has failed to ensure David Hicks' return to Australia ... any kind of fair treatment, let alone a trial .. who supported the passing of the terror laws that have now not just eroded but trampled all over out civil rights. David Hicks is not free, that's why Civil Rights Defence continues to fight to free [him], to shut Guantanamo Bay for ever, and to abolish the terror laws, and to free all those currently charged and imprisoned under them ...
The rally was co-sponsored by Liberty Victoria and the Victorian Trades Hall Council.

MP3 1.07 MB, 9min.21

(introduced by CRD representative) read a statement from the G20 arrestee solidarity network ...
" ... a question that really need to be asked is why it is that the full force of the state - snatch squads, federal police, anti-terror units - have been deployed against the G20 protesters, when Paul Wolfowitz, architect of the Iraq invasion, a man against whom a million Australians and millions more around the globe protested, got a special invitation [to the G20 forum].
The full statement, MP3 1.03 MB, 9min.03

himself a past target of draconian laws, expressed admiration for Terry Hicks as well as for others who had waged this campaign, not forgetting Major Mori - 'just when we thought there were were no good Americans, one pops up ...' - and called for the fight to continue, not just to get David Hicks home, but also to 'punish' the Howard Government for its role in the affair.He drew a comparison with the experience of his own union's workers - 'Up and down the country at this moment rank and file members of the CFMEU are being interrogated, prosecuted, and fined for standing up for workers' rights, for taking part in industrial action. The Howard Government is a bad government. No Australian citizen should ever again be exposed to the jeopardy that David Hicks was exposed to by his own government... So lets all get together and vote these bastards out!'

Martin Kingham's speech MP3 408KB, 3min.27

'The problem we have with this government at the moment is what rights do we as Australians have? Under this government we have none. They've stripped us of our human rights ... They've also now taken the freedom of speech, or so they think ...' He echoed Martin Kingham's call to vote the Howard Government out, to 'put your tick in the other box [and] let him see what he can do under pressure.'
Full speech. MP3 672 KB, 5min.43.

.wmv format, 5min.14, 6.8MB

'Lawyer Clive Stafford Smith has 36 clients in Guantánamo and has visited many times. In this powerful extract from a new book he argues that secrecy in the camp is a disease'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,2062387,00.html

Hicks owes Canberra $300,000: father
Kenneth Nguyen April 21, 2007

GUANTANAMO Bay detainee David Hicks has been told he owes the Federal Government more than $300,000, Hicks' father Terry revealed last night.

In a speech to Melbourne University law students last night, Terry Hicks criticised the Federal Government for its insistence that David Hicks not profit from telling his story.

"Mr Downer says that David Hicks owes $300,000," Terry Hicks said. "Well, let him write a book and pay the money back to them.

"Why is the Government stopping him trying to make some money to pay them back? They just want this hanging over David's head all the time … to put him in his place."

The $300,000 sum is believed to relate to fees for David Hicks' lawyers, paid by the Federal Government. Terry Hicks maintained last night that his son — who pleaded guilty last month to providing material support to terrorism — was not proven guilty by any fair process, and also said his son had been targeted by authorities because he was a Westerner.

"If these governments had so much evidence against David, what would have been wrong with a proper court system?" Terry Hicks asked rhetorically.

After more than five years in detention, David Hicks is to be returned to Australia by May 29.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/hicks-owes-canberra-300000-father/2007/04/20/1176697096747.html

VID LINK
http://www.witnesstorture.org/node/601

CHARGES DISMISSED FOR ANTI-TORTURE ACTIVISTS, BUT FOURTEEN OF THEM ARE LATER ARRESTED AT THE WHITE HOUSE

On April 18, 2007 at 9:30 AM, around fifty anti-torture activists went
to U.S. District Court, 333 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. for
trial to face a charge of disorderly conduct as a result of a January
11 arrest in the atrium of the same courthouse. Courthouse officials
seemed surprised that the defendants appeared in Magistrate Judge
Deborah Robinson's courtroom.

After the Jan. 11 arrest, most of those in custody refused to provide
any identification and simply gave the name of a Guantanamo Bay
detainee. Presumably, the government did not expect any of the
eighty-nine individuals arrested to appear for trial as they were
released with John and Jane Doe citations. While the prosecutors,
Judge Robinson and the marshals deliberated behind closed doors, the
defendants began reading names and stories of the men being illegally
detained at the Guantanamo gulag.

Since the government was unprepared for a trial, a large majority of
the defendants decided to leave the courthouse at 10:15 AM in order to
march through the city and call for the closure of the detention
center at Guantanamo Bay. Once outside, they donned the infamous
orange jump suits and black hoods which are worn by those illegally
interned in Cuba. At 11 AM, those defendants who remained in court
were informed that the government would dismiss all eighty-nine cases.

The orange-clad anti-torture advocates marched to the Rayburn House
Office Building, the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice and
finally the White House. At each site, the advocates demanded justice
and due process for the detainees. At the White House, to emphasize
the dire conditions faced by the detainees, fourteen of the
demonstrators locked themselves to the White House fence on
Pennsylvania Ave. After about an hour, the U.S. Park Police brought
out bolt cutters to sever the locks and took the resisters into
custody.

During the White House demonstration, there were large numbers of
tourists and students on spring break who witnessed the action.

Coincidentally, representatives of Code Pink came to the White House
to chant antiwar slogans as George W. Bush was to meet with Rep. Nancy
Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid to discuss supplemental funding of the war
in Iraq. Cindy Sheehan and her sister Dede Miller joined with Code
Pink to enthusiastically support the demonstration demanding the
closure of Guantanamo Bay.

After the prisoners were taken to the Park Police jail in Anacostia,
those not arrested renewed their commitment to condemn the
government's use of torture and its denial of due process rights to
"enemy combatants." Nonviolent civil resistance will continue as a
number of anti-torture events are being planned and organized.

Related Link: http://www.witnesstorture.org/node/601

May 22, 2007 -- The so-called "Australian Taliban," David Hicks, the Adelaide-born horse trader and kangaroo skinner imprisoned by the U.S. military for the past five years in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba after being picked up by U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was flown to Australia from Guantanamo on a CIA rendition aircraft with an interesting history.

The Gulfstream Aerospace G550 that flew Hicks to Australia is registered to Time Works Leasing LLC, 223 Industrial Avenue, Teterboro, New Jersey. Time Works Leasing is being reported in some Australian media as a CIA front company. The Gulfstream's current tail number is N90AM. Previously, the plane's U.S. tail number was N592GA and it was transferred from Raven Acquisition Technologies of Washington state to Time Works on January 31, 2001. The plane has also been registered as tail number VP-CI, a Cayman Islands registration. However, FAA records indicate that the Gulfstream was transferred to the Caymans on April 5, 2006

Australian media reported that a A$500,000 deal was worked out between Time Works and Adagold Aviation Pty. to fly Hicks from Cuba to Australia.

Before transferring the plane to Time Works in 2001, Securities and Exchange Commission records indicate that Raven Acquisition Technologies was merged with AVT Corporation of Kirkland, Washington and Infinite Technologies of Owings Mills, Maryland on January 3, 2001. The combined company is now known as Captaris, Inc., a telecommunications firm. On December 3, 2001, Phoenix Airport records indicate that N90AM was registered to Chevron Inc., the firm for which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice once served as a director.

N90AM, the latest Guantanamo Express plane to emerge from the shadows, in addition to being sighted in Tahiti on the way to RAAF Base Edinburgh, outside of Adelaide, has been seen in other locations around the world. In March 2001, it was spotted at Mojave Airport in California for "testing."

On February 25, 2007, N90AM was at McCarran International in Las Vegas; on January 12, 2007 at Fort Lauderdale; on August 12, 2006, it was at Kefallinia-Argostolion, Greece; November 13, 2006 at Philadelphia and Gaithersburg, Maryland; on April 10, 2005 at Franz-Josef Strauss International in Munich; on September 1, 2004, at Beijing Capital, China; September 24, 2004 at San Francisco International; on January 14, 2004 at Franz-Josef Strauss International in Munich; on January 23, 2004 at Long Beach, Daugherty Field; on September 23, 2003 at Luton, UK; on December 1, 2004 at Luton, UK; on January 12, 2004 at Tempelhof-Berlin; on January 13, 2004 at Luton, UK; on January 14, 2004 at Tempelhof-Berlin; on June 14, 2003 at LeBourget, Paris; on September 26, 2003 at Dublin, Ireland; on June 26, 2002 at Brussels-Zaventem, Belgium; on July 2003 at Faro, Portugal; on February 18, 2000 at Tenerife, Canary Islands; and on July 25, 2000 at RAF Northolt, UK. There are also reports that the plane has landed in Malta.

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

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