Natasha Stott Despoja (SA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate notes that:

(a)

on 7 August 2006, Australian David Hicks commemorated his 31st birthday, his fifth in detention at Guantanamo Bay, where he has been held for four and a half years;

(b)

the United States Supreme Court ruling in Hamden v Rumsfeld held that military commissions are ‘[in]consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States’ and thus ‘illegal’;

(c)

in March 2006 the World Organization for Human Rights USA submitted a report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, Torture, Arbitrary Detention, and other Major Human Rights Abuses by the United States: US Non-Compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in the Context of the ‘War on Terror’;

(d)

this report highlights how the Government of the United States of America (US) has deliberately and systematically disregarded domestic American and international laws regarding human rights and civil liberties as the report makes the case that the US Government is in clear violation of the ICCPR, one of the fundamental protections against government-instigated oppression; and

(e)

the findings of this report suggest that the US Government is intentionally worsening the situation of the remaining Guantanamo detainees, including Mr Hicks.

Question put: