Sunday, August 28, 2005
7,000 SIGNATURES IN AUSTRALIA = NYT COVERAGE
The New York Times is het up about GetUp!:
In a little more than a week, a new grass-roots political movement here has gathered more than 7,000 names of supporters on its Web site in a campaign to free David Hicks, an Australian citizen being held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The organization, GetUp!, was founded this month by two young Australians. They collected the names for a letter to the Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, demanding that he take action to have Mr. Hicks, 30, brought back to Australia to stand trial ...
"We’re blown away,” Lachlan Harris, a spokesman for GetUp!, said about the response to the campaign. “Signing a letter for someone accused of serious crimes is not something one does lightly."
GetUp! must take the crimes Hicks is accused of pretty lightly – the organisation’s letter doesn’t mention them at all. Nor does it mention what charges Hicks should face before an Australian court.
(Via Alan R.M. Jones)