Dari SMH: Saya heran dengan langkah Aussie yang menolak masuknya LSM-LSM HAM ke tanah Aussie. Mereka dengan gencar memakai isu HAM untuk mengintervensi urusan negara lain, membiayai berbagai kelompok LSM-HAM untuk beroperasi di Indonesia, tetapi menolak lembaga-lembaga serupa untuk masuk ke sana. Apa enggak ajaib? Mereka mempergunakan iblis Mary untuk memecah-mecah Indonesia, sekarang merekapun kena oleh sengatan iblis betina ini. Mari kita saksikan kelanjutannya. Anjasmara ------------------------------------ Backtrack on rights tragic, says UN By STAFF REPORTERS The Federal Government's decision to downgrade Australia's participation in United Nations monitoring of compliance with international human rights standards was tragic, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Ms Mary Robinson, said last night. Her comments came after the Government announced that Australia would refuse to appear at some hearings of UN human rights committees, and ban most visits to Australia by UN human rights monitoring bodies. The Government also announced it would refuse to sign a "protocol" - which it has been active in drafting - which would allow Australian women to seek an opinion from the UN sex discrimination committee on whether the Australian legal system had failed to protect them. The Government's pull-back from its international human rights obligations comes three days before it faces a third damning report from a UN human rights body this year over the poor state of indigenous health and migrants' two-year wait for social security benefits. The Attorney-General, Mr Williams, said the UN should no longer monitor "minor, marginal issues" in democratically elected countries like Australia. He said the role of UN human rights committees was to deal with the human rights issues arising out of those treaties, and not with general political issues that might arise in a country that was a party to the human rights treaties Australia had signed. Asked if all human rights issues in Australia were minor, he said: "If you are comparing it with arbitrary arrest, detention and execution, and having your arms chopped off for belonging to the wrong political party, then almost every issue in Australia seems to pale into insignificance." But Mrs Robinson warned that the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, would face international criticism when he attended the Millennium Summit of the UN in New York next week, because it would focus "on ensuring universal ratification of the main treaties". "I think it would be tragic if a country like Australia, because it has been criticised by a treaty body, should respond in an over-defensive way ... It's obvious that the strengths of a vibrant civil society are there in Australia, and that's the best corrective to an over-defensive response of a government. "Australia, up to now, has had a very good record. I would hope that there might be a reconsideration of the Optional Protocol for the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women," she told the ABC. The head of the UN's treaty division, Mr Palitha Kohona, told the Herald in New York that the Government's refusal to sign the protocol put the country's good human rights record at risk. "Australia is one of the better countries on human rights, but it is also very quick off the mark to go and beat others around the head for breaking the rules," he said. "So, it should be mature enough that when someone else criticises its record it doesn't just go off and sulk, but takes that criticism on board and does something to improve its standing." The Government announced a review of Australia's co-operation with UN human rights monitoring early this year after UN criticism of the mandatory sentencing of children. It also emerged yesterday that the Minister for Immigration, Mr Ruddock, will go to the UNHCR's executive committee in Geneva in October to lobby for a ruling that could allow the Government to reject as many as half the boat people being given refugee status. It appears likely the Government will announce a harsher regime in detention centres, involving more substantial fencing and jail-like facilities, after violence at the Woomera Detention Centre. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
