Dan Duggan has launched a federal court appeal to fight the government's decision to extradite him to the US. 

A letter to Mark Dreyfus MP, Australian Attorney-General 

#FreeDanDuggan

Daniel Duggan is my husband and a father to our six school-aged children. He is a loving husband, caring father, a friendly neighbour, a distinguished pilot and a proud Australian. Daniel was provisionally arrested by the Australian Federal Police on 21 October 2022 in Orange NSW because of a request by the United States and is now in a NSW maximum security prison facing the harshest treatment. 

Daniel’s treatment in segregation and classification as an “extreme high risk” inmate is completely unjustified – he has never been charged or convicted of any crime in Australia, and is a model father, husband, friend and Australian citizen. 

Initially, Daniel was not able to have any contact with me or his children. He was also blocked from making any calls to his lawyers. He was not provided any reasons for being labelled by the NSW Commissioner of Corrective Services as an “extreme high risk” person. He has repeatedly been denied medical care. Daniel has not been provided the reasons for his “segregation” in prison, which is usually a decision reserved for punishing inmates who have misbehaved in custody.

Daniel was  been arrested so that the United States could make an extradition request to the Australian Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, to be extradited to the United States. Dreyfus signed this off just before Christmas.

Daniel is away from his children, his beloved family, friends and community because of an obviously politically motivated case, based on a 2017 indictment that was part of the United States now disgraced “China Initiative”. This initiative has been widely criticised by members of the United States Congress, academia, civil rights groups, and Asian American communities as racial profiling and fundamentally discriminatory. 

Daniel has been caught in a geo-political storm for working in China, doing work that has been done there for decades by Western, African and European pilots for decades with the full knowledge of these Governments.

Daniel’s unfair treatment has resulted in a formal complaint to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security who is now investigating whether any Australian authorities including ASIO acted illegally in Dan's arrest.

This petition is to urge the Australian Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus to reverse his decision to extradite Dan and a call for his immediate release given the clearly politically motivated case against him in the United States and to stop the injustice to an Australian citizen with a home, a wife, 6 children and life only in Australia. 

Daniel now finds himself a victim of the United States Government’s political dispute with China, by no fault of his own. Daniel is being targeted for having renounced his United States citizenship. Daniel has been an Australian citizen since 26 January 2012 and has called Australia his home since 2002. 

Australians will not stand for interference by the United States in our country. Our family has been shattered by this experience and we urge the Australian Attorney-General to do the right thing and release Daniel.