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maelorin at 07:09pm on 13/04/2006 under australia, britain, citizenship, fucking stupid!, guantanamo bay, hicks, wtf!Law Council says UK cares more for Hicks...SO the best thing for an Australian to do before they travel overseas these days is to acquire a foreign citizenship....but Aust says a British Hicks can come homeThe Law Council of Australia says Britain is embarrassing Australia by showing more concern for the fate of terror suspect David Hicks than his homeland. Law Council president John North has made the comments after London's Court of Appeal upheld the right of Australian-born Hicks to British citizenship. North is appealing to the Federal Government to do all it can to help Britain fast-track Hicks's bid.
Australia would allow a British David Hicks home if he is freed from a US military prison, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says. Hicks, born in Adelaide, has received a boost to his campaign to be released from Guantanamo Bay after a UK appeals court upheld a ruling against the British Government's bid to deny him citizenship. Ruddock said the 30-year-old could return to Australia as a newly-released British citizen. "If he is no longer held by the United States, he has an entitlement to return to Australia," he told ABC radio. "There's no basis upon which he would be denied travel documents to travel to Australia," Mr Ruddock said.
Our government is not prepared to help Hicks as a Citizen of Australia, but he's fine if released for being British.
WTF!
angry
indeed
Keep in mind that I get most of my 'news' regarding USA politics from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report ... that is, outside of Slashdot & Co.
My point is this, I find the incongruity in our FedGov's position alarming - that Hicks is OK to be free and in Australia if he's British, but we'll do nothing for him while he's an Australian citizen.
The lawyer in me struggles to accept that as a citizen he is not afforded any of the assistance that he should recieve because he is a citizen. [If you have a passport, have a read of the front part.] But if he gets out through acquiring citizenship of another nation which will act to help him, our government will not actively impede his return.
And it's not just/really the IW that's pointed this problem out. I came across it in a general search on the issue.
Ruddock 'softening on Hicks' - www.theage.com.au
The charges against David Hicks - Editorial - www.theage.com.au