Amnesty International
News
Service: 11/045/99
AI Index: ASA 12/01/99 PUBLIC
4 March 1999 STATEMENT
Australia: Aboriginal child removals
breached contemporary human rights standards
The Australian Government should accept that past government practices of
separating thousands of Aboriginal children from their families on racial
grounds, involved violations of human rights recognized internationally as
early
as 1945, Amnesty International said today.
The government?s move to have this week?s test case of two separated
Aboriginal children thrown out of the Australian Federal Court illustrates the
government?s denial of the right of individual victims to seek justice and
reparations.
On Monday the government argued the court should strike out as "frivolous,
vexatious and too old" a compensation case moved by Lorna Cubillo, 60, and
Peter
Gunner, 51. The two claimed their involuntary removal from their families
at the
age of seven and their abuse and deprivation in institutions have caused
long-term psychological trauma and distress.
Amnesty International does not take a position on the merit or
appropriateness of their case. However, the organization reiterates its concern
stated in its March 1998 report - Silence on Human Rights: Government responds
to "Stolen Children" inquiry - that the Australian Government failed to
acknowledge the practice of removing children on racial grounds as a violation
of human rights prohibited by the United Nations (UN) from 1945.
The government?s suggestion that removing the children was to their
benefit
and should not be judged by today?s standards ignores the facts of Australia's
historic promotion of 1940s human rights norms. By 1947, the year Lorna Cubillo
was taken some 800 kilometres from her family to a home for mixed
Aboriginal-European children, Australian diplomats
? had successfully lobbied for human rights - including the prohibition
of all racial
discrimination - to become a primary tenet of the 1945 UN Charter;
? had presented a proposal for an International Court of Human
Rights to
enforce a future global Bill of Rights;
? were actively working in small UN committees drafting the 1948
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and two binding international
human rights treaties.
Australia?s outspoken commitment to all major international human rights
instruments developed from the 1940s are in stark contrast to the government?s
attempt to prevent Lorna Cubillo and Peter Gunner from even telling their story
in court.
ENDS/
For more information, to arrange an interview or receive a copy of the report,
please call:
Amnesty International - International Secretariat Press Office: (+44) 171 413
5729/5566
Amnesty International Australia Press Office (+61) (2) 9217-7640 or 0411 140
077.
International Secretariat, 1 Easton Street, London WC1X 8DJ, United Kingdom
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