No matter what David Hicks’ reasons for being in Afganistan were, we should never lose sight of the fact that his human rights were breached, he was detained in inhumane conditions, held without charge for an unacceptably long period of time, tortured in the process and eventually sentenced by a military commission that was determined by the US Supreme Court to be illegal. How infuriating that our media so quickly forget these “finer” crucial details.

It is all too easy to ignore the situation when we don’t know the person or if they are from a particular religious background, because we have been conditioned by the media (and politicians) to ‘expect’ it.

I wish that journalists should shift their focus today and try to imagine David Hicks is their brother; imagine what life must have been like living at Guantanamo Bay; and acknowledge the injustice that has been inflicted on this man and report the truth.