In an update on the treatment of David Hicks, a 5-year-long Australian detainee at Guantanamo Bay, the ABC reports, Friday, January 19, 2007:

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer has welcomed the publication of new US rules to put Guantanamo Bay detainees, including Australian David Hicks, on trial.
Mr Hicks's defence team and the Opposition have criticised the new military commission system, which allows the admission of hearsay evidence and testimony gathered under coercion.
Mr Downer says the challenge now is for the US to charge Mr Hicks so his case can be heard.
"Let the military commission hear those charges and if David Hicks and his defence want to appeal against any adverse decision that may come forward from the military commission, they can," he said.
"They can appeal all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States."
The Law Council of Australia says the new military commission rules have thrown the right to silence out the window.
AND:
In a separate development, it has been revealed that a public affairs officer with the US Embassy in Canberra, not a doctor, assesed the mental health of Mr Hicks.
Yesterday the Foreign Affairs Minister said he had received a report suggesting Mr Hicks was in good physical and mental health.


So, a letter to the Minister for Foreign Affairs:

Mr. Downer,
Do you have no ethical sense, at all? Do you have no inclination to take a principled position in face of American trammeling of not just their constitution, but also of common decency?
Please imagine this: Australia is overrun by the angry invaders we all fear, and people who have breached common practices of courtesy and ethics are detained. How would you want to be treated?
Now, please apply that to people like Hicks, and please make some sort of decent representation to the American torturers... Oops, coercers.

Sincerely...