No public sympathy for Hicks
By Piers Akerman
December 26, 2006 07:03am
DESPITE blanket coverage on the national broadcaster and in the alternative media, and hours of prayers from deluded church leaders looking for flocks to lead, Taliban member David Hicks still fails to ignite the public psyche - with good reason.
He is no martyr. He craved to kill. He lusted death in the Islamist cause.
He was, according to his own enthusiastic gushings, a more than willing recruit for the Pakistani terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), or "Army of the Righteous", in whose ranks he fought against Indian army troops after training at the notorious Mosqua Aqsa base.
He took a letter of introduction and funding from LET to enter al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, including al Farouq, where he met Osama bin Laden and allegedly accepted the terrorist leader's invite to translate al-Qaeda training into English.
He is reported to have provided information about Australia to al-Qaeda and conducted surveillance on targets in Kabul, including the British and US Embassies. Although he was in Pakistan on 9/11, he returned to Afghanistan to rejoin al-Qaeda colleagues guarding arms near Kandahar airport.
His stated intent, according to letters he wrote boasting of his acceptance as "an official Taliban member", was to be a killer in the cause of "an Islamic revolution" for which he was prepared to accept "martyrdom".
If we accept his own admission, it is most likely he will be easier to convict than Abu Bakar Bashir, whose release from an Indonesian jail distressed many Australians last week.
While it is unfortunate that he has yet to be brought to trial because of the numerous appeals brought on his behalf and some others held in Guantanamo, he will eventually have his deserved day in court on charges which could not be brought against him in Australia.
While it was noteworthy that his father Terry Hicks, who has relentlessly campaigned for his son's release, was nominated for Father of the Year, it was just as telling that the idiot who nominated him was none other than the ACT's hapless chief minister John Stanhope, a throwback from some distant socialist era who championed independence for the ACT.
But when Stanhope was shown to have signally failed constituents in the face of killer bushfires, he cravenly refused to accept the responsibility that such independence demands.
Hicks (aka Abu Muslim al Austraili aka Muhammed Dawood) and Bashir are peas from the same ideological pod, not withstanding Dawood's claim to have renounced Islam. They shared a wish for the death of all Jews and the destruction of the West. They deserve to be held in universal contempt.
It is curious that those who parade their own religious conviction, devotion to spirituality and moral superiority as they flourish petitions for Hicks appear totally blind to the plight of a true prisoner of conscience in desperate need of support, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury.
Choudhury, a Bangladeshi journalist, stands accused of damaging the image and relations of his nation "by praising the Jews and Christians, by attempting to travel to Israel and by predicting the so-called rise of Islamist militancy in the country and expressing such thorough writings inside the country and abroad", as well as charges of blasphemy, sedition, treason and espionage.
He was arrested at Zia International Airport on November 29, 2003, as he was about to fly to Israel to attend a writers' conference in Tel Aviv on how the media can foster world peace.
Over the past three years, he has been bashed, held in a detention centre for the criminally insane, had his legs broken while being tortured, been vilified in the Bangladeshi press, refused permission to attend his mother's funeral, denied medical treatment and had his office bombed.
He has pleaded not guilty but his travails have escaped the noisy ranks of the civil liberties lobby.
One of his champions, Dr Richard Benkin - an American human rights activist - has successfully lobbied the US Congress to introduce a resolution calling on Bangladesh to drop all charges against Choudhury.
Dr Benkin is to visit Dhaka on January 8. He has arranged to meet the US Ambassador and would very much like to arrange a meeting with the Australian Ambassador.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer should ensure this is arranged and that Dr Benkin is accorded a sympathetic hearing. Perhaps some of the Australian civil rights lawyers who seem so eager to publish articles condemning various Western governments might consider penning a plea on behalf of this young man.
All he is guilty of is wanting to promote mutual understanding between Muslims and Jews and for this he faces death. Bangladesh does not recognise Israel's existence.
Dr Benkin says Choudhury is unique because he has not sought asylum in the West, but continues to oppose militant Islamists.
He recently told the Jerusalem Post that "more and more Muslims are looking at this case".
"They want to see if Shoaib will get the support and protection he needs from the West. If he is victorious, other Muslims will try the same; if we allow him to go down, they will remain silent."
This man is deserving of our deepest concern. Hicks, who swore allegiance to a group dedicated to the murder of Christians and Jews, should ask his soulmate Bashir for advice.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20974825-5007146,00.html
