The media is beginning to pick it up.... The Canberra Times Monday, 4 September, 2000 Germans told of poor Aussie rights record By EMMA MACDONALD A German human-rights organisation has criticised Australia's treatment of Aborigines in a mass mail-out to 50,000 German residents and its team of Olympic athletes and officials. The mail-out began last week and will continue throughout the Olympics. The Goettingen-based Society for Threatened Peoples undertakes up to four mass mailings on human rights each year, and is using the Sydney Olympics to launch an attack on the Australian Government. The society has campaigned on human-rights offences in Chechnya, Kosovo, and China. The society, which was started in 1968 by students in response to the war in Biafra, Nigeria, has a membership of about 7000. Letters were mailed to the German athletes at their home addresses and will be forwarded to them at the Olympic village in Sydney. They said, "Use your visit to Sydney to learn about Australia's rich cultural variety. Perhaps you might even meet the women and men representing the other Australia?" The letter said Australia had a poor record on indigenous human rights, and the reconciliation process started in 1991 had stalled since the Howard Government took office. The society's indigenous people's desk chief, Dr Theodor Rathgeber, said the campaign would show the Australian Government that there was a lot of concern in foreign countries about Aborigines, and that it needed to "pay more attention to demands made by indigenous Australians". The society, which has offices in Switzerland and Luxembourg, is a non-political and not-for-profit organisation. Numerous indigenous organisations have contacted the society in recent years, and it was asked to help draw world attention during the Olympic Games to the violation of indigenous rights. The society said it had been monitoring indigenous Australians for 20 years. In its letter, it called for: An official apology from the Howard Government for the genocide. The Native Title Amendment Act to be overturned. The United Nations to make discrimination against Aborigines one of its main themes next year. The International Olympic Committee to take seriously the principles set out in its charter and in future examine the human rights situation in host countries by giving those concerned and non-governmental organisations a public forum. European governments to make no economic agreements with Australia as long as the Federal Government refused to subscribe to the human-rights clause of the European Union. The letter said, "The findings of Australian studies, some of them even official inquiries, have found Aborigines being disadvantaged in many social areas such as schooling, jobs and health care." It also outlined concerns over mandatory sentencing and deaths in custody. German athletes have been asked to show solidarity by showing the German flag with the Aboriginal flag as they share the same colours. The society has offered to help German athletes make contact with Aborigines. ------------------------------------------------------ RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/
