Racist Australia

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BBC - Tuesday, 5 March, 2002, 16:29 GMT

'Australia encouraging racism' says Amnesty

"I am afraid the image of Australia today is less of a carefree, sunburnt sporting nation and more the image of... riots and protests at Woomera", AI Secretary-General Irene Khan

Amnesty International's Secretary-General, Irene Khan, says Australia's policy on asylum-seekers is encouraging racism.

Miss Khan, who is on a five-day visit to Australia, said the government should educate people about refugees instead of creating a climate of suspicion by suggesting that they represented a threat.

It is the first visit to Australia by a chief of the London-based human rights organisation to discuss human rights concerns.

Prime Minister John Howard has refused to meet Miss Khan, but she does have plans to meet Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock - who is a member of Amnesty.

Australia's treatment of asylum seekers has come under the spotlight in recent months. In January more than 240 detainees at Woomera detention centre staged a two-week hunger strike to protest at the length of time the authorities took to process their claims.

And there were revelations last month that claims by ministers in the run-up to last year's elections that asylum seekers trying to reach Australia by boat threw their children overboard were untrue.

'Feeding on fear'

"I am afraid the image of Australia today is less of a carefree, sunburnt sporting nation and more the image of... riots and protests at Woomera...," Miss Khan told journalists at Australia's National Press Club.

She stressed it was important not to confuse "those fleeing terror with those who are suspected of causing terror".

"It is all too easy to feed people's fears that the threat comes from abroad, to create a climate of suspicion, mistrust, xenophobia and racism," she said.

Amnesty has been increasingly critical of the Howard government's policy of mandatory detention for all asylum seekers who arrive in the country illegally while their application is assessed.

Miss Khan has said she hoped to visit the detention centre at Woomera, where mainly Afghan asylum seekers staged a hunger strike - some sewing their lips together.

They were protesting about the length of their detention and at the conditions inside the camp, which lies in the middle of the South Australian desert.

She also wants to speak to representatives from Australia's indigenous community and other human rights and refugee groups.

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Saturday, 25 March, 2000, 06:02 GMT

Australia rejects UN racism report

Aborigine James Wurramara was jailed for stealing biscuits

The Australian federal government has dismissed a United Nations report on racial discrimination against Aborigines, calling it unbalanced and inaccurate.

A UN committee on the elimination of racial discrimination published a report on Friday criticising Australia for failing to override mandatory sentencing laws in effect in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

These laws require that repeat offenders be jailed even for trivial crimes, and human rights campaigners say these target the kind of offences committed by Aborigines.

The UN report said the mandatory sentencing laws could be in breach of the UN convention on the elimination of racism.

But Australian Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said on ABC radio on Saturday morning that the committee's report seemed to rely exclusively on information from non-government organisations.

He also accused the UN committee of intruding unreasonably in domestic Australian affairs.

He was backed up on ABC radio by federal Attorney-General Darryl Williams, who also said that the report was not balanced.

"It puts in question the credibility internationally of the committee. The committee should reconsider its report and take a more balanced perspective," Mr Williams said.

'Well-founded'

But opposition Aboriginal affairs spokesman Daryl Melham called on the federal government to override the laws in light of the UN's criticism.

He said he believed the report was factual and balanced and made well-founded criticisms of the incarceration rates of indigenous Australians.

"I think they have to do that because what's happening is Australia's reputation is being sullied internationally," he said.

The mandatory sentencing laws came under renewed criticism last month in Australia when a fifteen-year-old Aborigine committed suicide after being jailed for 28 days for stealing stationery.

Opponents of the laws say such young offenders should not be jailed, but the state governments involved have said they will not alter their sentencing procedures.

Earlier in March, Australia's Senate passed a bill overturning the mandatory sentencing laws. But it is expected to be rejected in the lower house of parliament where Prime Minister John Howard's conservative coalition government has a 12-seat majority.

The prime minister has said he does not approve of the laws but insists that the federal government should not interfere.

Australia has until October to respond to the UN report.

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Saturday, March 13, 1999 Published at 02:35 GMT

Australia defends 'racist' land law

Life expectancy for aborigines is 20 years less than rest of populatio

Australia's 386,000 aborigines say they are disadvantaged

Australia has begun its defence at the United Nations against charges of racially discriminating against Aborigines.

The Committee to End Racial Discrimination, in Geneva, wants Australia to explain changes to laws on aboriginal land rights.

Aboriginal groups, who have been briefing the UN officials, say the latest changes to their land rights are discriminatory and in breach of the relevant UN Convention.

But the Australian government denies the allegations. Its representative told the committee that Australia could not undo all the discriminatory actions of the past.

He said Australia was trying to strike a balance between the interests of the Aborigines and other land-holders.

But he did accept that both groups - especially the Aborigines - were unhappy with the latest changes to their land rights.

A report by the Australian delegation said: "The expropriation of indigenous lands was a tragic event, but it is difficult to reverse past situations."

The Australian government said that under modifications to Australian law, 79% of the country's land now is subject to claims by holders of indigenous land rights.

Our correspondent in Geneva, Claire Doole, says it is unprecedented for Australia to face such scrutiny in an international forum.

Farmers vs aborigines

The United Nations asked Australia last August to explain changes to its land-rights laws, a month after it removed aboriginal rights to claim "native title" on vast areas of farmland.

They were removed because of farmers' concerns that land which they had leased for generations could be taken away.

Government officials say the legislation was a hard-won compromise between farmers and the Aborigines.

But aborigines say Australia is flouting international standards on racial discrimination by making it more difficult for aborigines to press compensatory claims for lost land.

"If this United Nations has got any real meaning, they should be able to intervene and prevent any further action," said Geoff Clark, from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.

However, the Australian parliament still has the final say on any reforms to the current law.

Race relations at low ebb

Australia's race relations are at a dangerous low ebb after the emergence of Pauline Hanson's racist One Nation Party.

Relations between Aborigines and the government have also been strained over the government's refusal to issue an apology for past injustices to indigenous people.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination also asked Australia to explain its abolition of the post of social justice commissioner for Aborigines.

The position was recently reinstated.

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Monday, March 1, 1999 Published at 14:47 GMT

'Stolen Generation' seek justice

Defendants say they've been deprived of spiritual heritage

A landmark trial has opened in Australia of two Aborigines, who are suing the government for being separated from their parents, and brought up as white children.

Lorna Cubillo and Peter Gunner, members of Australia's so-called "stolen generation", are claiming compensation and punitive damages for what their lawyers describe as life-long psychological trauma and mental distress.

The hearing could be a test case for thousands of Aborigines who survived official attempts to assimilate them into white society by putting them into institutions and church missions.

Denied language and culture

Mr Jack Rush, a lawyer for the two Aborigines, told Darwin's federal court that his clients were subjected to a cruelty unsurpassed in recent Australian history.

The court heard how Ms Cubillo, now aged 60, remembered being taken from her mother at the age of seven and put into a truck lined with barbed wire, along with babies just a few months old, and carried hundreds of kilometres away.

In her statement to the court, Ms Cubillo said she was regularly flogged with a leather strap for speaking her traditional language and locked up at night.

She also said she was beaten so severely for swimming on a Sunday that her face still carries scars.

Peter Gunner, who is 51, was taken from his home near Alice Springs at the age of eight, and did not see his mother for another 30 years.

At the time of separation he did not speak English, and said he thought he would be killed.

'Form of genocide'

In 1997, an Australian Human Rights Commission report denounced the policy of forced separation and assimilation as a form of "genocide", and concluded that surviving victims should be compensated.

"What the government did was genocide, in that it tried to wipe us out because of the colour of our skin," said Aborigine Barbara Cummings, a spokeswoman for the Northern Territory Aborigines seeking compensation.

Many of the estimated 30,000 surviving victims say they were beaten, sexually abused or treated as slaves.

PM denies blame

The Prime Minister, John Howard, has expressed personal regret about the atrocities of previous governments, but has ruled out paying compensation.

The present generation, he says, cannot be held responsible for what happened in the past.

The policy began in the 1880s, and was continued for almost a century before being finally abandoned in the late 1960s.

Last year another Aborigine lost a High Court of Australia case arguing that the separation laws were unconstitutional.

Ms Cubillo and Mr Gunner are not arguing that the policy was wrong or genocidal, but that that government failed in its "duty of care" towards wards of the state.

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Tuesday, May 26, 1998 Published at 03:28 GMT

A 'Sorry Day' in Australia

Dozens of ceremonies have been held for the so-called "stolen generation"

Ceremonies have been held throughout Australia to mark a day of national mourning for Aboriginal children forcibly separated from their parents early in the century.

As part of the commemoration - entitled Sorry Day - many church leaders and institutions have apologised for mistreatment of Aboriginal people.

A BBC correspondent in Sydney says that across the country, church bells rang, children were called to prayers and thousands of people signed so-called "Sorry Books" apologising for the practice of separating aboriginal families.

The state government in New South Wales, which is led by the Australian Labour Party, plans to give an aboriginal name to Botany Bay, the place where the English explorer Captain James Cook, first set foot on Australian soil.

However, the conservative federal Prime Minister, John Howard, has said Australians should not be asked to apologise for acts that they had not committed.

The correspondent says that churches and state institutions took Aboriginal children from their parents believing white Australians were better able to care for them.

Today's critics of this practice say it was a form of attempted genocide intended to breed out the blackness of indigenous Australians.

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Thursday, 17 February, 2000, 18:34 GMT

Australian laws 'violate children's rights'

James Wurramara: Jailed for stealing biscuits


Human rights groups in Australia want United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to intervene against laws requiring a mandatory jail sentence for minor offences in some parts of the country.

Mr Annan is due to visit Australia on Friday.

Australia's human rights commission said the laws in the Northern Territory and Western Australia breached UN convention because they allow children to be put in prison.

"The Human Rights Commission strongly urges the federal government to legislate so that these offensive laws are annulled," said commission president Alice Tay.

Last week, a 15-year-old aboriginal boy jailed for stealing pens and paint hanged himself in a detention centre near Darwin.

And on Wednesday, James Wurramara, a 21-year-old aborigine, was sent to prison for a year for stealing a box of biscuits.

'Strong views'

Mr Annan is scheduled to meet the Northern Territory's chief minister, Dennis Burke, on Friday, and Prime Minister John Howard next week.

A UN spokesman said the secretary-general was likely to raise the issue of mandatory sentencing while in Australia.

"The secretary-general is known as a very strong advocate for human rights and has spoken very forcefully against violations of human rights," he said.

"He won't shy away from giving his views."

Serial law-breaker

But Mr Burke - and the premier of Western Australia, Richard Court - warned Canberra to keep out of their affairs.

Mr Burke told the BBC that Wurramara had been breaking the law since 1995, and deserved the sentence he had received.

"Since 1997, when the mandatory sentencing laws were brought in, he's been to the court on three convictions of property offences, and if you're up for the third time you'll go to jail for 12 months."

The Law Council of Australia, the UN children's fund (Unicef) and Amnesty International have also argued against the legislation, saying it breaks a number of international human rights conventions.

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Page last updated at 05:02 GMT, Monday, 4 January 2010

India and Australia condemn student killing

The governments of India and Australia have condemned the killing of an Indian student in the Australian city of Melbourne on Saturday night.

Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna urged the Australian authorities to "speedily book" the people responsible for the killing of Nitin Garg.

Mr Garg was stabbed to death on his way to a fast food restaurant in Melbourne.

There have been a number of attacks on Indian students in Australia in the past year.

Australian police blamed the attacks on opportunistic criminals, but some Indian students see them as racist.

The attacks have caused outrage in India and prompted Australian PM Kevin Rudd to reassure the Indian government that Australia is not a racist country.

Melbourne police said that the motive for the latest attack on Mr Garg, 21, an accounting graduate from the northern Indian state of Punjab, was not known.

'Deep anger'

Mr Krishna said the attack was "highly condemnable".

He said the Australian government should realise such attacks were making public opinion in India "polarised".

He said Australian authorities should take note of the "deep anger" caused by such attacks, and their possible effect on bilateral ties.

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has also condemned the attack.

"This is a nation that welcomes international students. We want to make them welcome, this is a welcoming and accepting country," Ms Gillard was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

Gautam Gupta, president of a group of Indian students in Australia, said there was "extreme shock and fear and anger" over the killing of Mr Garg.

Australia's Tourism Forecasting Committee (TFC) said Indian students were choosing to stay away because of a series of attacks in mid-2009.

The number of Indian students studying in Australia is projected to fall by about 20% in 2010, the TFC said.

The decline is expected to cost Australia almost $70m (£44m).

More than 70,000 Indians studied in Australia in 2009. Australia's higher education industry is its third biggest export earner after coal and iron ore.

An interim report on Australia's international education sector released last month found its global reputation and brand had been damaged by violent attacks and migration scams, "particularly in India".

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd visited India this year, together with his education and foreign ministers, to deliver assurances that Indian students were safe.

Last year's attacks attracted prominent media coverage in India.

An Indian minister cancelled a planned trip to Australia and one of the country's leading film stars, Amitabh Bachchan, turned down an honorary degree from Queensland University of Technology, saying he could not accept it under the circumstances.

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BBC: Australian religious leader hit the headlines when he told television that Muslim Australians had more rights to the country than white Australians whose ancestors arrived as convicts...

Friday, 12 January 2007

Australia cleric in convicts jibe

Australia's top Muslim cleric at the centre of a storm last year over his comments about immodestly dressed women has sparked a new furore.

Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali said Muslim Australians had more right to live in the country than white Australians whose ancestors arrived as convicts.

His comments, were laughed off by Prime Minister John Howard.

But some ministers suggested the Sheikh should leave the country.

'Fear card'

Sheikh Hilali, the Sydney-based Mufti of Australia, said on TV that Muslims were more entitled to be in Australia than those with a convict ancestry.

"The Anglo-Saxons arrived in Australia in shackles," he said. "We (Muslims) came as free people. We bought our own tickets. We are entitled to Australia more than they are".

"As we would say in Egypt, they play the fear card to keep the Muslim community down, and they start with me because I am known in that community," he said.

ill-advised

Mr Howard said the Sheikh's latest remarks would bring a "wry smile to the face of Australians who don't actually feel the least bit offended that many of our ancestors came here as convicts.

"It's almost a badge of honour for many Australians," he added.

However, Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said the Sheikh should respect Australia or stay away.

"I remind Sheikh al-Hilali that if he doesn't like Australia, our heritage or our way of life, he doesn't have to come back," she said.

Federal opposition leader Kevin Rudd said the Muslim cleric appeared to be "several sandwiches short of a picnic".

Muslim leaders in Australia appeared to be distancing themselves from his remarks.

Keysar Trad, head of the Islamic Friendship Association and a close friend of the sheikh, said some of his comments were "ill-advised".

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Page last updated at 16:34 GMT, Tuesday, 26 January 2010

Two Indian students assaulted in fresh Australia attack

The Australian prime minister's nephew was arrested for dressing in a Ku Klux Klan outfit to protest against racist attacks

Two Indian students have been assaulted in the Australian city of Melbourne - the latest in a series of attacks there targeting people from India.

A group of attackers allegedly made racist comments before kicking and punching the students on Monday.

One victim was taken to hospital and underwent surgery. Police have charged five men over the attacks, reports say.

Meanwhile, the prime minister's nephew has been fined for staging a controversial anti-racism protest.

Van Thanh Rudd - the son of PM Kevin Rudd's brother - and another man dressed in Ku Klux Klan costumes and carried anti-racism signs outside the Australian Open tennis championship on Tuesday.

They had each been fined Australian $234 ($210; £130) for offensive behaviour, Victoria state police said.

The attack on the students, aged 20 and 22, was the eighth such incident in Australia in a fortnight.

Earlier this month, Australia condemned an Indian newspaper cartoon depicting an Australian police officer as a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

The cartoon, published in New Delhi's Mail Today, satirised Victoria police for saying there was no evidence the fatal stabbing of Indian student Nitin Garg, 21, in a Melbourne park on 2 January, had been racially motivated.

Van Thanh Rudd said Indians in Australia were two-and-a-half times more likely to be attacked than any other ethnic group and it was time for the government to condemn the attacks as racist.

He told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) the protest was also meant to call attention to the plight of asylum seekers turned away from Australian shores.

Van Thanh Rudd is an artist whose work is categorised by bold, political statements.

A spokeswoman for the prime minister told ABC his nephew's protest was "a matter for the people involved".

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Page last updated at 10:35 GMT, Saturday, 9 January 2010

Indian man attacked and set alight in Melbourne

Det Sgt Neil Smyth: "I believe there's no reason at this stage to consider this in any way racially motivated."

An Indian man is in a serious condition in a Melbourne hospital after being attacked and set alight by a gang.

It comes a week after an Indian graduate student was stabbed to death in the city, prompting a travel advisory from the Indian government.

Melbourne police said the latest attack appeared to be random and there was no evidence it was racially motivated.

But the attacks have prompted an angry reaction in India, where Australia has been accused of ignoring racism.

The 29-year-old man attacked on Saturday was returning home from a dinner party with his wife when he was set upon.

The gang - said by police to comprise four men - poured fluid over him and then set him alight.

The victim is now in a Melbourne hospital, where his condition has been described as serious, with burns to 15% of his body.

Police are trying to trace his burnt clothes, which he shed as he fled the scene.

Det Sgt Neil Smyth said the attack had been "an unusual event" but that it appeared to have been carried out at random.

"There is no reason at this stage to consider this in any way racially motivated," he told reporters.

"The circumstances of parking a car randomly on a side street and just some people approaching him are a bit strange and it's highly unlikely, therefore, to be a targeted attack on any individual."

Peter Batchelor, a minister for Victoria, said that whether the crime was motivated by racism or theft, it was damaging to Melbourne society.

"It diminishes our community, it diminishes us all and we're totally opposed to it," ABC news quoted him as saying.

'Dodging issue'

Australia's Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said the government "condemns all acts of violence in the strongest possible way" and that the matter was being investigated.

But the BBC's Nick Bryant in Sydney says the latest attack is bound to increase the sense of outrage in India, following the murder last weekend of Indian graduate student Nitin Garg.

That came after a spate of attacks against Indian students last year, which deterred many from studying in Australia.

The Indian government earlier this week issued an advisory warning about the dangers of travelling to Melbourne, Australia's second largest city.

Gautam Gupta, from the Federation of Indian Students of Australia, told ABC News he was "extremely disturbed" by the attacks and had asked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's office to intervene.

"How many times are they going to just dodge this issue?" he said.

The Australian government has criticised an Indian newspaper for printing a cartoon which depicted Australia's police force as racist.

The cartoon shows a person wearing the white robes of the Ku Klux Klan and an Australian police badge, saying: "We are yet to ascertain the nature of the crime."

Ms Gillard said the cartoon implied police were not trying hard enough to solve the crimes.

"Any suggestion of that kind is deeply, deeply offensive to the police officers involved and I would absolutely condemn the making of a comment like that," she told reporters on Friday.

The Indian community in Melbourne has said it believes racist attacks are on the rise in the city.

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