Amnesty International's latest international news release on Australia,
issued tonight from the organization's International Secretariat in London:
AI INDEX: ASA 12/00
18 February 2000
Australia: Prime Minister's disregard of human rights obligations shocks
Amnesty International, In an ironic coincidence, the United Nations
Secretary General's praise for Australia's assistance to East Timor today
contrasts with the Australian Prime Minister's refusal to accept that
universal human rights standards equally apply to his own country, Amnesty
International said.
"If all states which signed up to human rights treaties took the same view
as Prime Minister John Howard, then we might as well tear them up,"Amnesty
International said.
"The Prime Minister's blunt rejection of Australia's accountability to the
rest of the world over its human rights record is a flagrant violation of
the principle that state parties to human rights treaties are accountable
to each other," the organization added.
Prime Minister Howard's repeated dismissal of Australian violations of
international standards reveals a shocking disregard of his country's
obligations. His government has persistently refused to act on laws and
practices which UN bodies found inconsistent with Australia's human rights
obligations.
The recent death of a 15-year-old Aboriginal boy serving a mandatory
detention term highlights the punitive and racist effects of juvenile
justice laws. The legislation prevents a court from considering restitution
to victims and the harm created when sentencing property offenders.
An average of 75 per cent of children detained in Australia's Northern
Territory are Aboriginal, although they make up only about 32 per cent of
the juvenile population. A government member of Parliament has asserted
that the laws target "Aboriginal lawlessness".
"It is not up to the Prime Minister to decide when the universal human
rights standards that were applied recently in East Timor should be applied
to his own country. If Australia voluntarily binds itself to international
treaties, it must accept being held accountable to them," the organization
concluded.
Background
Australia rejected criticism of its juvenile justice laws by the UN
Committee on the Rights of the Child in 1997, of its mandatory detention of
asylum seekers by the UN Human Rights Committee in 1997, and of its
racially discriminatory Aboriginal land use laws by the UN Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 1999.
ENDS.../
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For more information please call Amnesty International's press office in
Sydney + 61 413 028191 or in London on + 44 966 361 131
Amnesty International, International Secretariat, 1 Easton Street, London
WC1X 0DW
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