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The unsatisfactory ending to the case of citizen Hicks: after the outrage over David Hicks' detention in Guantanamo Bay, Victoria Stead asks why we're prepared to accept similar injustices at home.

Article Excerpt
So Hicks is home. After pleading guilty to the relatively minor charge of providing material support for terrorism, he has been sentenced to seven years in prison with six years and three months suspended. And now he's back in Australia serving the rest of his remaining nine months in Adelaide's maximum security Yatala prison. So that's it, end of story. But as far as endings go, this one's pretty unsatisfactory. Guantanamo remains in operation, with its inmates still languishing in indefinite detention. The War on Terror shows no sign of ending any time soon. People in Iraq and Afghanistan are still dying. The US keeps injecting troops and money into its war machine and Howard remains in slavish support. Muslim communities continue to face harassment and discrimination. States move closer and closer to authoritarianism with a battery of legislation introduced and justified under the mantle of combating terrorism. Hicks is home, but nothing has changed.

By the time Hicks struck the plea deal that would ensure his way out of Guantanamo, his case had become a major issue in Australian domestic politics. The op-ed pages of the major newspapers were regularly calling for him to be released from the Cuban hellhole, and the federal government was facing widespread condemnation for leaving him to rot at the...

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