Aaron Benedek, Sydney
In a statement issued on January 17, Socialist Alliance national co-convenor Raul Bassi welcomed the announcement that Mamdouh Habib is to be released without charges from the US naval base prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The Socialist Alliance, Bassi added, "is outraged by the horrific torture Habib experienced in both Egypt and Guantanamo Bay at the hands of the US government, including electrocution, being stripped and beaten, months-long blindfolding, chemical injections, a dog being put on him when he was naked, and interrogators telling him that all his family had been killed".
The Socialist Alliance also "condemned the Australian government for its appalling role in the torture of an Australian citizen".
Bassi pointed out that the Australian government had backed the US military's "illegal and indefinite detention of Habib without charges" and had "applauded the denial of Habib's basic legal rights".
"The federal government has been unrepentant about its despicable brutality", said Bassi. "[Prime Minister John] Howard has ruled out compensation or even an apology to the Habib family.
"Attorney-general Philip Ruddock has even implied — without a shred of evidence — that Habib knew in advance about the September 11 [2001] World Trade Center bombing and is threatening to 'monitor' and harass Habib when he is returned to Australia.
"Clearly, the Australian and US governments are on the defensive, trying to vilify a victim of their war on civil rights to avoid too much opposition."
Bassi said that the Socialist Alliance "pledges to expose the government's lies and oppose the misnamed 'war on terror' — in reality, the plunder of Iraq and destruction of civil rights here in Australia... The release of Habib will only make us more determined to continue the struggle for the freedom of David Hicks and all the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay."
Bassi also urged all supporters of democratic rights to participate in the protest against Hick's illegal detainment being organised by the Canterbury Bankstown Peace groupon March 15 outside the federal attorney-general's Sydney offices. Phone (02) 9793 2188 for information.
From Green Left Weekly, January 26, 2005.
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