Human Rights groups call for release of all children in Australian immigration detention centres by The Australian / ABC News 12:32pm 10th Dec, 2003   December 10, 2003    Australia had no right to chair the United Nation's Human Rights Commission next year because of its poor human rights record, a social justice advocate said today.    Catholic Commission for Peace and Justice executive officer Mark Purcell made the comments ahead of the launch of the commission's annual review of Australia's human rights record in Melbourne this morning. The annual report reviewed news reports and contributions from social justice agencies relating to human rights issues, and assessed them against Australia's human rights obligations.    Mr Purcell said the commission was concerned by the number of asylum seekers, particularly children, in detention and Australia's role supporting the United States in the Iraq war.    "There are 183 kids in detention in Australia and Nauru whose human rights are being violated," he said. "We have had nine people (of all ages) in detention for four years or more, 89 have been held for three to four years and 278 have been held two to three years – all without being charged."    Mr Purcell said Australia's supporting role in the Iraq war meant it had a "moral responsibility" for the 21,000 to 50,000 people estimated to have died in the war.    "These are among our concerns for next year, when Australia will chair the Human Rights Commission," he said. "We don't feel, with its current practices, that Australia's human rights record is up to scratch for it to hold that position."    But Mr Purcell said the ACT Government's plans to introduce a bill of rights, and the Federal Court's decision earlier this year to release five child asylum seekers held in detention were the main positives in the commission's report."However it's sad that the federal government has appealed to the High Court to keep those kids in detention," Mr Purcell said.    "Call to ALP on human rights" by Jamie Duncan    Australian Federal Labor Leader Mark Latham should attack the Howard Government on human rights issues, indigenous rights campaigner Lowitja O'Donoghue said today.    Dr O'Donoghue was speaking at the launch of the Australian Human Rights Register, a report on the state of human rights in Australia by the Catholic Commission for Justice, Development and Peace, in Melbourne.The annual report reviewed news reports and contributions from social justice agencies relating to human rights issues, and assessed them against Australia's human rights obligations.    Dr O'Donoghue said Mr Latham and his leadership rival, Kim Beazley, had ignored human rights in the lead-up to the ballot. "I watched dismayed at the terms under which the leadership of the Labor Party was contested," she said. "Neither candidate challenged the gung-ho border protection policies of the Howard Government. "Neither mentioned the haste in which the government concocted the pretence for Australian troops to join the coalition of the willing in Iraq."Neither mentioned human rights issues at all. They don't get a look-in when it comes to drumming up votes."    But Dr O'Donoghue, who has held several high profile positions including helping found the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, said she was heartened Mr Latham had spoken out about detaining child asylum seekers. "His views on mandatory detention of asylum seekers, and Labor's policies on refugees, still need a lot of work," she said. "I remain hopeful the new broom from Werriwa (Mr Latham) sweeps clean, that he might have the courage to take on the government and to challenge some stale old policies."    The Australian Human Rights Register examined 325 reports from welfare agencies and the media.It found human rights had been ignored or violated in almost 84 per cent of cases cited in the report.    December 10, 2003    Australian Federal Opposition Leader Mark Latham has repeated his call for the release of all children in Australian immigration detention centres before Christmas.    Mr Latham said there would be more than 200 children spending Christmas Day in Australia's immigration detention centres. "We support the community release programs that would get them out," he told ABC radio. "These programs have been trialled and we support them and we certainly support the ideal of having the children out of detention before Christmas. "Santa's on his way – let's get them out by Christmas Day."    But he rejected claims the call was a softening of his stance on illegal asylum seekers."I believe in the rule of law and the migration system. "We are a nation of migrants but all of that has been policed and managed over the years according to the rule of law."We need an orderly pattern of asylum."    The number of children in immigration detention rose in the past month to 188, with almost half of those held on the Pacific island of Nauru and another 95 in detention centres on the Australia mainland and Christmas Island, according to a report by A Just Australia.    Mr Latham outlined Labor's immigration policy as strong on border protection but compassionate to asylum seekers."We are firmer on border protection with our coast guard strategy but more compassionate with asylum seekers."    He said Labor would abandon the so-called Pacific solution, bring the management of detention centres back into the public sector and have 90 per cent of asylum seekers processed within 90 days.    "Genuine refugees are welcomed into the Australian community and those who aren't genuine obviously have to make other arrangements," he said.    He said the Labor Party would also pursue visa programs which would see migrants settle in regional Australia. "We are not so hung up on the net migration intake; we're interested in the dispersal of migration," he said.    5 December, 2003. "International Human Rights Conference in Sydney". (Published by ABC News Online: The World Today).    TONY EASTLEY: A major international conference is underway in Sydney, examining the competing needs of national security and individual human rights. Advocates such as the President of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Justice John von Doussa, QC, has told delegates that Australia needs more tolerance and understanding, especially when it comes to dealing with the Islamic community in the post-September 11 environment.    Other speakers have endorsed that view, including, Justice Marcus Einfeld, UNICEF's Ambassador for Children. He is urging Australians to tone down what he says is their arrogance in dealing with diverse communities.    Jo Mazzocchi has been at the conference for The World Today.    JO MAZZOCCHI: The President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Justice John von Doussa, QC had a very clear message.    Addressing an international conference on human rights in Sydney he spoke about finding the right balance between national security and human rights.    JOHN VON DOUSSA: In the past two years, post September the 11th and post Bali, Arabic and Islamic people have felt a growing wave of prejudice and vilification. Mosques have been vandalised, women wearing the hijab have been attacked in the streets. There have been people who, in a perversion of the notion of freedom of speech, have delivered a message of fear and exclusion. They have fanned simmering fears by disseminating frightening misinformation about Arabs and Muslims.    JO MAZZOCCHI: The Commission has been a fierce critic of any erosion of human rights, especially over the the Federal Government's new terrorism laws, and today Justice von Doussa told conference delegates the ASIO legislation was still of concern.    JOHN VON DOUSSA: In the last year the Australian Parliament debated and eventually passed Federal laws against crimes of terrorism. The overall effect of these laws, as well as the recently introduced amendments to the ASIO legislation, is to allow long standing rights to be wound back. We must remember the possibility that innocent people will be in the wrong place at the wrong time.    JO MAZZOCCHI: Another prominent human rights advocate, Justice Marcus Einfeld, AO also spoke about global terrorism and its impact here in Australia.    MARCUS EINFELD: We in Australia, for example, have been told that we must, as it has been put, brace for a terrorist assault, though how you brace for any such thing has not yet been explained.    One of our prime responses, injected into our psyches by advertising campaigns at vast public expense, has been to invite people to be alert for, but apparently not alarmed at bombs in parked cars, children's school bags and the clothes of Muslim women.    But not apparently the flowing robes of other women or men or of working doctors, nurses, judges, barristers, members of the clergy or university lecturers. Perhaps our most high brow defence against terrorism has been the supply by Government without charge of fridge magnets to display in our kitchens.    JO MAZZOCCHI: And he urged Australians to show greater understanding towards people from diverse communities.    MARCUS EINFELD: I have been in over 20 Muslim countries in recent years and have met and talked to hundreds and hundreds of their peoples.    I have met none who want anyone to be killed, still less to kill anyone themselves. All they want is what we want, the opportunity to live peaceful lives with their families, to work for fair reward and to give their children opportunities for happier, safer and more prosperous lives than they themselves have had.    I have held in my own arms Muslim children and babies, dying of simply cured diseases like measles and diarehhea. If only we could have got to them the fresh water we throw away every day just cleaning our teeth.    I have looked in the eyes of their parents as the lives of their children ebbed away and cried with them when I could not answer their pleas for help to save their kids. I could detect absolutely no different level or sense of love and loss than would be the case with any one of us. If we can do nothing else can we just tone down the arrogance a fraction.
	Next (more recent) news item
	Next (older) news item