Alex Bainbridge & Raul Bassi, Sydney
"Torture: are you next?" was the theme of an April 15 forum jointly organised by the Canterbury-Bankstown Peace Group (CBPG) and the Justice for Hicks and Habib Campaign and sponsored by the Research Initiative in International Activism.
Publicity for the forum highlighted the fact that Australians have been tortured in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Kuwait and Egypt, and that now, for the first time, people are being convicted using evidence obtained by torture.
Featured speakers included David O'Shea from SBS TV's Dateline and the CBPG's Raul Bassi who presented experiences of torture in Spain, Indonesia and Latin America. Maha Habib, the wife of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib, explained her and her family's experiences throughout her husband's ordeal. Keztril performed a dramatic monologue representing the thinking of torturers and victims.
The audience viewed a brief video called The Torture of Mamdouh Habib that was made by the Habib family. The film presented a re-enactment of Mamdouh's torture in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt and Guantanamo Bay.
Following discussion, the forum passed resolutions calling for investigations and prosecutions relating to the establishment and maintenance of, and Australian involvement in, the US-led international network of secret jails where tens of thousands of prisoners of war are arbitrarily detained and tortured. The meeting also called for the indictment of PM John Howard for war crimes (see < http://australianwarcriminals.jitgede.com/scripts/JSDB11P_ListA HREF="mailto:.asp"><.asp>), the creation of a commission against torture and for David Hicks to be returned to Australia.
From Green Left Weekly, April 26, 2006.
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