Peter Boyle
"The Coalition government must reveal its role in torture of the illegally detained Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib in Egypt and in Guantanamo Bay", Raul Bassi, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the western Sydney seat of Blaxland told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly on July 8.
"Attorney-General Philip Ruddock was forced to admit on the July 7 SBS Dateline program that the Australian Federal Police had interrogated Habib in Pakistan after he was detained in October 2001 for being in the wrong place at the wrong time", Bassi explained.
"The Howard government is complicit in this torture. Stephen Hopper, Mr Habib's lawyer, revealed that his client was sent to Egypt from Pakistan. There he was given electric shocks, beaten and interrogated at gunpoint."
Dateline's reporter Bronwyn Adcock interviewed one of the two Britons who had been illegally jailed at Guantanamo Bay. Tarek Dherghoul, who has since been repatriated, said that when Habib came back from Egypt he told him he had been electrocuted, put in water, and electrocuted again. "He'd been stripped ... kicked and punched — used as a punching bag. He said something about a dog being put on him as he was naked. Cigars put out on his body. Blindfolded."
It was only after the British men made this public that the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade revealed that Habib had made similar allegations to them two years ago.
Stephen Hopper, Habib's Australian lawyer, believes that he was handed over to the US authorities by the Pakistani government at the request of the US. The US authorities took him to Egypt because "it was convenient, because they could have a cover story, because he was born in Egypt". More importantly, he said, "they took him to Egypt because they knew he'd be tortured there, and they wanted to get whatever information Mamdouh might know that would be useful to them out of him. I want to know under whose authority he was transferred to Egypt."
Ruddock could not explain to Dateline's Mark Davis why the Australian government had not, unlike other governments, exerted pressure on the Pakistani or US governments to have Habib repatriated, nor could he explain why the government failed to investigate the allegations of torture when they were first raised.
"These are not matters about which we can make inquiries. We can ask, but they're not matters about which we can make inquiries", was Ruddock's defence.
On July 8, the Greens announced plans to move for a Senate inquiry into the role of the federal government in the imprisonment of Habib and fellow Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks, when parliament resumes in August.
On the same day, nearly three years after Habib was arrested, the Australian government announced that he would face a US military tribunal. Such a court can accept "evidence" extracted by torture and hearsay. Hopper and other civil libertarians point out that this is just a continuation of the injustices that Habib has already faced.
Hopper is hopeful that his client's case in the US District Court, in which the legality of Habib's imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay is being challenged, will be resolved before the tribunal starts. Last week, the US Supreme Court affirmed the right of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to challenge their detention in US courts.
Bassi, who has experienced life as a political dissident under the dictatorship in Argentina, said that this case was part of a dangerous attack on civil rights. Bassi has been active in the campaign to free Habib and Hicks.
"Recently the Labor 'opposition' helped the Howard government pass more 'anti-terrorism' laws, and now federal police commissioner Mick Keelty is demanding more reductions in our civil rights. Keelty wants to abolish the right to silence for terrorism suspects and he wants to make 'associating with terrorists' a criminal offence.
"Now the US says that it is going to try Mr Habib by a military court which can accept 'evidence' extracted by torture and hearsay. Where does it stop?
"If we let the authorities get away with what they are doing to Habib then it may become 'normal' to send so-called 'terrorism suspects' for off-shore torture."
The Socialist Alliance is campaigning for the immediate release of Habib and Hicks. It is also calling on the ALP to take up the call for a full public inquiry into Australia's involvement in the illegal detention and torture of Habib.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, July 14, 2004.
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