Intervention Intervention

An art exhibition titled “Intervention Intervention” opened in Sydney this week featuring the works of 18 artists, engaging and exploring the realities of the Northern Territory Intervention.

The exhibition was organized to counter what the curators described as a whitewashing of the Intervention in the mainstream media and by Australian politicians.

The Intervention was implemented by the Howard government in 2007 and has not only been maintained but also intensified by the successive Labor governments.

The intervention has been condemned by the United Nations and was slammed by a UN special Rapporteur Professor James Anaya during his visit to Northern Territory in 2009, where he reported that the intervention is in breach of treaties to which Australia is a signatory.

The exhibition is a response by the artists about the little-known realities of the intervention, which have developed since 2007.

The artworks focus on the changes to welfare, law enforcement and land tenure. Under the intervention, whole Aboriginal communities have had their welfare payments quarantined, some moved off their land and stronger police and military presence.

In order to implement the Intervention the government was forced to suspend the Racial Discrimination Act as only Aboriginal people were targeted.


The government says the intervention was necessary to prevent the outbreak of child sexual abuse in some Northern Territory communities.

The exhibition developed out of a general feeling amongst the arts community of concern and despair about the injustices happening to the people affected by the Northern Territory Intervention.

The curators and artists acknowledge that there were serious issues of violence and alcohol abuse exacerbated by poverty amongst the targeted communities in the Northern Territory.

However, they say the intervention has failed to address these issues as well as the claims of child sexual abuse.

Moreover, the same measures have not been taken against non-indigenous communities where these problems occur. It is this stark discrimination that has led both domestic and international bodies to strongly condemn this government measure. 

Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex

By Angela Davis

Introduction:
Race, Prison and Politics in Australia

By Chris Cunneen

The following article by Angela Davis raises fundamental issues in relation to current trends in imprisonment in Australia. These insights need however to be placed within the context of the specific relationship which exists between Indigenous people and the criminal justice system in Australia. Davis draws our attention to the racialized assumptions about criminality prevalent in the US. In the Australian context, racialized assumptions about Aboriginal inferiority have been fundamental to the way Indigenous people have been treated by the colonial state: from the denial of Indigenous sovereignty, to imprisonment on reserves and the stealing of children, to current criminal law and practice which undermines Aboriginal governance and rights to self-determination. In contemporary Australia, racialization has enabled the massive criminalisation and imprisonment of Indigenous people throughout the country.

Prison privatization is a major issue in Australia too, as demonstrated by the announcement in early 1999 that the US Corrections Corporation Wackenhut is to build a new prison in Western Australia. Yet we should not ignore the fact that public prison construction also goes on unabated. In June 1999, it was announced that two new public prisons in New South Wales are to be constructed.

We should however note that there is no necessary direct correlation in Australia between States with high levels of Aboriginal imprisonment and high levels of privatization – yet. Victoria, for instance, has the highest level of privatization, but a relatively low rate of Indigenous imprisonment compared to Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales.

Prison numbers are influenced by both penal and sentencing policy, and particular sentencing policies can have foreseeable discriminatory impacts on political and racial minorities. We can accurately predict that the type of mandatory imprisonment legislation introduced in the Northern Territory^[1] will disproportionately impact on Aboriginal people because they are more likely to have a previous record and are more likely to be arrested for the types of offences defined in the legislation (such as property damage). Interestingly, fraud was excluded in the Northern Territory as a property crime punishable by mandatory imprisonment.

The move towards mandatory sentencing in Australia has been mild compared to the types of mandatory sentences imposed in the USA for drug offences and other ‘three-strike’ classified offences. Yet the movement towards this type of sentencing is gathering speed here at the very time that it is being questioned in the US because of its extraordinarily unjust and racist outcomes.^[2]

Over the last decade in Australia we have seen a seemingly inexorable rise in the number of Indigenous people in prison.^[3] Imprisonment rates for non-Aboriginal people have increased as well – but not nearly so rapidly. We have also witnessed further penetration of international corporations into the economies of the Australian prison.^[4] Although Victoria stands as an example of a highly privatised jurisdiction (with nearly half of its inmates in private facilities), we have still not gone as far down the road as the US in terms of integrating the prison system into the broader capitalist economy. Nor have we embarked on the same level of punitive sentencing policies. But the signs are there for anyone who cares to see.

Chris Cunneen is Director of the Institute of Criminology at the Sydney University Law School.

Masked Racism:
Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex

Imprisonment has become the response of first resort for far too many of the social problems that burden people who are ensconced in poverty. These problems are often veiled by being conveniently grouped together under the category 'crime' and by the automatic attribution of criminal behavior to people of color. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages.

Prisons thus perform a feat of magic. Or rather the people who continually vote in new prison proposals and tacitly assent to a proliferating network of prisons and jails have been tricked into believing in the magic of imprisonment. But prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings. And the practice of disappearing vast numbers of people from poor, immigrant, and racially marginalized communities has literally become big business.

The seeming effortlessness of magic always conceals an enormous amount of behind-the-scenes work. When prisons disappear human beings in order to convey the illusion of solving social problems, penal infrastructures must be created to accommodate a rapidly swelling population of caged people. Goods and services must be provided to keep imprisoned populations alive. Sometimes these populations must be kept busy and at other times - particularly in repressive super-maximum prisons and in Immigration and Naturalisation Service detention centers - they must be deprived of virtually all meaningful activity. Vast numbers of handcuffed and shackled people are moved across state borders as they are transferred from one state or federal prison to another.

All this work, which used to be the primary province of government, is now also performed by private corporations, whose links to government in the field of what is euphemistically called 'corrections' resonate dangerously with the military industrial complex. The dividends that accrue from investment in the punishment industry, like those that accrue from investment in weapons production, only amount to social destruction. Taking into account the structural similarities and profitability of business-government linkages in the realms of military production and public punishment, the expanding penal system can now be characterized as a 'prison industrial complex.'

The Colour of Imprisonment

Almost two million people are currently locked up in the immense network of US prisons and jails. More than 70 percent of the imprisoned population are people of color. It is rarely acknowledged that the fastest growing group of prisoners are black women and that Native American prisoners are the largest group per capita. Approximately five million people-including those on probation and parole-are directly under the surveillance of the criminal justice system.

Three decades ago, the imprisoned population was approximately one-eighth its current size. While women still constitute a relatively small percentage of people behind bars, today the number of incarcerated women in California alone is almost twice what the nationwide women's prison population was in 1970. According to Elliott Currie:

[t]he prison has become a looming presence in our society to an extent unparalleled in our history-or that of any other industrial democracy. Short of major wars, mass incarceration has
been the most thoroughly implemented government social program of our time.

To deliver up bodies destined for profitable punishment, the political economy of prisons relies on racialized assumptions of criminality - such as images of black welfare mothers reproducing criminal children - and on racist practices in arrest, conviction, and sentencing patterns. Colored bodies constitute the main human raw material in this vast experiment to disappear the major social problems of our time. Once the aura of magic is stripped away from the imprisonment solution, what is revealed is racism, class bias, and the parasitic seduction of capitalist profit. The prison industrial system materially and morally impoverishes its inhabitants and devours the social wealth needed to address the very problems that have led to spiraling numbers of prisoners.

As prisons take up more and more space on the social landscape, other government programs that have previously sought to respond to social needs - such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families - are being squeezed out of existence. The deterioration of public education, including prioritizing discipline and security over learning in public schools located in poor communities, is directly related to the prison 'solution.'

Profiting from Prisoners

As prisons proliferate in US society, private capital has become enmeshed in the punishment industry. And precisely because of their profit potential, prisons are becoming increasingly important to the US economy. If the notion of punishment as a source of potentially stupendous profits is disturbing by itself, then the strategic dependence on racist structures and ideologies to render mass punishment palatable and profitable is even more troubling.

Prison privatization is the most obvious instance of capital's current movement toward the prison industry. Government-run prisons are often in gross violation of international human rights standards. However, private prisons are even less accountable than governments ones. In March 1999, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest US private prison company, claimed 54,944 beds in 68 facilities under contract or development in the US, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Following the global trend of subjecting more women to public punishment, CCA recently opened a women's prison outside Melbourne. The company recently identified California as its 'new frontier.'

Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (WCC), the second largest US prison company, claimed contracts and awards to manage 46 facilities in North America, UK, and Australia. It boasts a total of 30,424 beds as well as contracts for prisoner health care services, transportation, and security. The stocks of both CCA and WCC have done extremely well recently. Between 1996 and 1997, CCA's revenues increased by 58 percent, from $293 million to $462 million. Its net profit grew from $30.9 million to $53.9 million. WCC raised its revenues from $138 million in 1996 to $210 million in 1997. Unlike public correctional facilities, the vast profits of these private facilities rely on the employment of non-union labor.

The Prison Industrial Complex

But private prison companies are only the most visible component of the increasing corporatization of punishment. Government contracts to build prisons have bolstered the construction industry. The architectural community has identified prison design as a major new niche. Technology developed for the military by companies like Westinghouse are being marketed for use in law enforcement and punishment.

Moreover, corporations that appear to be far removed from the business of punishment are intimately involved in the expansion of the prison industrial complex. Prison construction bonds are one of the many sources of profitable investment for leading financiers such as Merrill Lynch. One American telecommunications company charges prisoners and their families outrageous prices for the precious telephone calls which are often the only contact prisoners have with the free world.

Many corporations whose products we consume on a daily basis have learned that prison labor power can be as profitable as third world labor power exploited by US -based global corporations. Both relegate formerly unionized workers to joblessness and many even wind up in prison. Some of the companies that use prison labor are IBM, Motorola, Compaq, Texas Instruments, Honeywell, Microsoft, and Boeing. But it is not only the hi-tech industries that reap the profits of prison labor. Nordstrom department stores sell jeans that are marketed as 'Prison Blues,' as well as t-shirts and jackets made in Oregon prisons. The advertising slogan for these clothes is 'made on the inside to be worn on the outside.' Maryland prisoners inspect glass bottles and jars used by Revlon and Pierre Cardin, and schools throughout the world buy graduation caps and gowns made by South Carolina prisoners.

'For private business,' write Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans (a political prisoner inside the Federal Correctional Institution at Dublin, California) 'prison labor is like a pot of gold'. No strikes. No union organizing. No health benefits, unemployment insurance, or workers' compensation to pay. No language barriers, as in foreign countries. New leviathan prisons are being built on thousands of eerie acres of factories inside the walls. Prisoners do data entry for Chevron, make telephone reservations for TWA, raise hogs, shovel manure, make circuit boards, limousines, waterbeds, and lingerie -all at a fraction of the cost of 'free labor.'

Devouring the Social Wealth

Although prison labor - which ultimately is compensated at a rate far below the minimum wage - is hugely profitable for the private companies that use it, the penal system as a whole does not produce wealth. It devours the social wealth that could be used to subsidize housing for the homeless, to ameliorate public education for poor and racially marginalized communities, to open free drug rehabilitation programs for people who wish to kick their habits, to create a national health care system, to expand programs to combat HIV, to eradicate domestic abuse, and in the process, to create well-paying jobs for the unemployed.

Since 1984, more than twenty new prisons have opened in California, while only one new campus was added to the California State University system and none to the University of California system. In 1996-97, higher education received only 8.7 percent of the State's General Fund while corrections received 9.6 percent. Now that affirmative action has been declared illegal in California, it is obvious that education is increasingly reserved for certain people, while prisons are reserved for others. Five times as many black men are presently in prison as in four year colleges and universities. This new segregation has dangerous implications for the entire country.

By segregating people labeled as criminals, prison simultaneously fortifies and conceals the structural racism of the US economy. Claims of low unemployment rates-even in black communities-make sense only if one assumes that the vast numbers of people in prison have really disappeared and thus have no legitimate claims to jobs. The numbers of black and Latino men currently incarcerated amount to two percent of the male labor force. According to criminologist David Downes:

[t]reating incarceration as a type of hidden unemployment may raise the jobless rate for men by about one-third, to 8 percent. The effect on the black labor force is greater still, raising the [black] male unemployment rate from 11 percent to 19 percent.

Hidden Agenda

Mass incarceration is not a solution to unemployment, nor is it a solution to the vast array of social problems that are hidden away in a rapidly growing network of prisons and jails. However, the great majority of people have been tricked into believing in the efficacy of imprisonment, even though the historical record clearly demonstrates that prisons do not work. Racism has undermined our ability to create a popular critical discourse to contest the ideological trickery that posits imprisonment as key to public safety. The focus of state policy is rapidly shifting from social welfare to social control.

Black, Latino, Native American, and many Asian youth are portrayed as the purveyors of violence, traffickers of drugs, and as envious of commodities that they have no right to possess. Young black and Latina women are represented as sexually promiscuous and as indiscriminately propagating babies and poverty. Criminality and deviance are racialized. Surveillance is thus focused on communities of color, immigrants, the unemployed, the under-educated, the homeless, and in general on those who have a diminishing claim to social resources. Their claim of social resources continues to diminish in large part because law enforcement and penal measures increasingly devour these resources. The prison industrial complex has thus

created a vicious cycle of punishment which only further impoverishes those whose impoverishment is supposedly 'solved' by imprisonment.

Therefore, as the emphasis of government policy shifts from social welfare to crime control, racism sinks more deeply into the economic and ideological structures of US society. Meanwhile, conservative crusaders against affirmative action and bilingual education proclaim the end of racism, while their opponents suggest that racism's remnants can be dispelled through dialogue and conversation. But conversations about 'race relations' will hardly dismantle a prison industrial complex that thrives on and nourishes the racism hidden within the deep structures of our society.

The emergence of a US prison industrial complex within a context of cascading conservatism marks a new historical moment, whose dangers are unprecedented. But so are its opportunities. Considering the impressive number of grassroots projects that continue to resist the expansion of the punishment industry, it ought to be possible to bring these efforts together to create radical and nationally visible movements that can legitimize anti-capitalist critiques of the prison industrial complex. It ought to be possible to build movements in defense of prisoners' human rights and movements that persuasively argue that what we need is not new prisons, but new health care, housing, education, drug programs, jobs, and education. To safeguard a democratic future, it is possible and necessary to weave together the many and increasing strands of resistance to the prison industrial complex into a powerful movement for social transformation.

Angela Davis is Professor in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California and is also a former political prisoner and long-time prison activist. She visited Australia for the first time in May last year as a guest of the Sydney Writers Festival. On her trip, she also visited Mulawa Women' Detention Centre in Sydney and met a group of Indigenous women active in prison reform. She is currently working on a history of the penal system which will also discuss prisons in Australia.(see (1999) 4 (21) ILB 31. Angela Davis' article is reprinted from the US magazine Colorlines.

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^[1] National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, Bringing Them Home (1997) 528. Cf also George Zdenkowski, 'Mandatory Imprisonment of Property Offenders in the Northern Territory', (1998) 4 (17) ILB 15; 'New Challenge to NT Mandatory Sentencing' (1999) 4 (18) ILB 16; C Thomson, 'Preventing Crime or "Warehousing" the Underprivileged? Mandatory Sentencing in the Northern Territory', (1999) 4 (26) ILB 4.

^[2] M Tonry, Malign Neglect (1995).

^[3] C Cunneen and D McDonald, Keeping Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People Out of Custody (1997) especially Chapter 2.

^[4] See the special issue on prisons and privatization in Australia in (1999) 11 (2) Current Issues in Criminal Justice.

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Watchdog wary of terror review role

THE senior public servant earmarked as the first independent reviewer of Australia's counter-terrorism laws does not want the job.

The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Ian Carnell, fears the new role could compromise the independence of his office.

"I'm not thrusting forward and saying, 'I'm the best model to take it'," Mr Carnell said.

In what is set to become amajor embarrassment for Attorney-General Robert McClelland, Mr Carnell told The Australian that given the highly contentious nature of the counter-terrorism laws, he was concerned his office could become overly politicised.

continues here

See Also

UN Observer says govts are using terror to instill fear in communities

Katchafire Frisk Me Down

BOYCOTT RUSH LIMBAUGH

Inteligentaindigena Novajoservo:

http://indigenist.blogspot.com/2007/11/inteligentaindigena-novajoservo-boycott.html

Enough is enough. The Inteligentaindigena Indigenismo Novajoservo blog is calling for a nationwide boycott of the Rush Limbaugh radio show by the Native American community and all people who give a damn about accountability in media. I am calling on Native Americans to have enough respect for ourselves to stand up and call those who use such tactics to insult and diminish Aboriginal peoples and our struggles what they are. And I am also calling on White Americans to prove their professed detestation of anti-Indian racism and treaty rights by turning Limbaugh off.

Information provided by: Media Matters.org

Rush Limbaugh
rush@eibnet.com

Premiere Radio Networks
Premiere Radio Networks, Inc.
15260 Ventura Blvd. 5th Floor
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403

Main: (818)377-5300
Fax: (818)377-5333
Toll Free: (800)533-8686

The Rush Limbaugh Show
1-800-282-2882
rush@eibnet.com
fax: 212-563-9166

The Rush Limbaugh Show
1270 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
----------------------------------------------------

This is not the first time Limbaugh has attacked Native Americans. During a taping of his short-lived television show some years ago, I remember watching him present his version of “Uncle Tomahawk”, a caricature depicting a thick lipped and bug-eyed person of mixed Africa/Native America ancestry dancing in an outfit adorned by bones, beads and topped by a Plains Indian war bonnet. I was not amused but his studio audience could stop laughing and they continued to chuckle until the middle of the next segment.

Recently during his August 17th broadcast of his radio show, Limbaugh referred to Native Americans as “Injuns” suggesting that Aboriginal Hawaiian nationalists seeking passage of the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act or the ‘Akaka Bill’ of "…Simply trying to duplicate the actions taken by the American injuns, and get themselves set up so they have casinos over there?"

That’s just one illustration of the madness of Rush Limbaugh. Jose' Barreiro writing for Indian Country Today points out that Mr. Limbaugh has a long history of disparaging Aboriginals on his radio show from stating that "The American Indians were meaner to themselves than anybody was ever mean to them" to, “The people were savages. It's true, they damn well were. Scalping people."

It’s time to call White America on its rhetoric. Boycott Rush Limbaugh.

Since the White-owned and operated mainstream corporate media will not say anything to Limbaugh, we can. Boycott every station that airs this anti-Aboriginal bigot and those who continue to advertise on his shows. Spread the word that Natives and all people who give a damn about racial justice reject the racism promoted by Rush Limbaugh and his compatriots in American media.

Form committees to inform, educate and discuss solutions to fighting institutional racism in media and the continual insult of negative media representation of Aboriginals. Discuss with your children the history of ethnic marginalisation and genocide and how these words relate to today's Indian people. Do not expect or plead for assistance from the non-Native community. Get your own thing together and stop the genocide.

The Angryindian

High Court to be told HREOC responsible for Kevin Andrew's inciting racially motivated murder

To busy conspiring with and covering up Human Rights violations by John Howard and Philip Ruddock, HREOC President John von Doussa has given the the green light to John Howard's White Australia Policy

Community's anger spills over

Dan Oakes and Dewi Cooke
October 11, 2007

| Single page

"Bring my brother back," Liep Gony's younger
sister Michelle, centre, cries at his funeral yesterday.

Photo: Angela Wylie

Latest related coverage

• A senseless death in a safe suburb
• Analysis In time of strain, minister failing test of leadership
• Video Farewell to Sudanese teenager

FURY over Kevin Andrews' views on Sudanese immigrants has boiled over,
with community members lashing out at the Immigration Minister after
another violent attack on a Sudanese youth in Melbourne.

More than a week after Mr Andrews questioned the ability of Sudanese people
to integrate in Australia — and cited this as a reason for cutting the
African refugee intake — he has been accused of sparking racial
hostility towards Sudanese migrants.

Anger erupted on two fronts in Melbourne yesterday. In the west, where a Sudanese-born youth was viciously attacked by a gang on Tuesday, the boy and members of his family said they believed his attackers were influenced by the minister's remarks.

And in the south-east, where murdered teenager Liep Gony was farewelled in a harrowing funeral service, family members and a community leader demanded an apology from the
minister.

The president of Dandenong's Sudanese Community Association of Australia, Samuel Kuot, said other groups in Melbourne's south-east were turning against his people and they deserved an apology from Mr Andrews.

Speaking outside the Dandenong church where Liep Gony's funeral was held, Mr Kuot said Sudanese in Melbourne now felt unsafe after being singled out.

"The Sudanese community as well as the African community expect an apology from the minister," he said. "The community is angry. Many people are crying and emotional."

As Mr Gony was farewelled in Dandenong, police in the western suburbs yesterday appealed for witnesses to the bashing in Melton on Tuesday of 17-year-old Ajang Gor.

The Sudanese-born high school student was riding his bike home from his job at a fast-food restaurant with his brother at 4pm when he was set on by four men, who shouted racial slurs, then punched and kicked him and hit him with a bottle.

The attackers stole his wallet and phone, then sent racist text messages and made abusive phone calls to Ajang's brother, cousins and friends.

The messages included references to "black dogs" and "jigaboos", and having "knocked da f--- out of" Ajang.

Ajang, who fled Sudan with his four brothers when he was nine and spent seven years in a Kenyan refugee camp before coming to Australia, has lived in Melton for 10 months. He said he had always felt secure in the area until Tuesday.

Speaking yesterday after his release from Sunshine Hospital — where he was treated for cuts and bruises to his head and an arm — Ajang said he believed Mr Andrews' comments had created a climate in which such attacks could occur. "It's been said that we Sudanese are
misbehaving and that there is a higher rate of crime, but I'm not sure if all these accusations are right," he said.

http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/high-court-be-told-hreoc-responsible-kevin-andrews-inciting-racially-motivated-murder

Race looms ahead of Australian election (again)

By Rob Taylor

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's decision to freeze its African refugee intake is a sign race issues may taint looming elections, a political analyst said, as the country's rights watchdog on Thursday called the ruling "un-Australian".

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews on Wednesday said refugees from Africa -- including many from Sudan's conflict-torn Darfur region -- were not integrating in Australia, including communities in politically-sensitive regional electorates.

"The ugly issues of race have always bee n simmering in the background, if not the foreground. It's very hard not to see the timing any other way than playing fairly directly the race card," political analyst Norman Abjorensen told Reuters. Andrews, whose government faces re-election before December, said Sudanese gangs were causing criminal problems and Canberra would now accept refugees only from conflict areas nearer home, such as Iraq and Myanmar, until at least July 2008.

Human Rights Commissioner Graham Innes said there was no evidence Sudanese were causing more problems than other refugees.

"I think it is troubling to single out one community or group as not settling and integrating well and it is not the Australian way to deal with refugees," Innes told local radio. Abjorensen, from the Australian National University, said Andrews' decision pointed to a return of the race politics championed by firebrand Pauline Hanson a decade ago.

Hanson, 53, a former fish-and-chip shop owner turned lawmaker, will run for the Upper House Senate in the coming election. Earlier this year she called for an end to African and Muslim immigration and said her views still had wide support.

Abjorensen said the voters Hanson appealed to when she was first elected to parliament, targeting Asian immigration, were still "very much around", although many of her ideas had been absorbed by Australia's conservative government.

A government decision this year to seize control of remote aboriginal communities in the outback Northern Territory would appeal to "Hansonist voters" in the electorally critical northern state of Queensland, he said.

"I think the effect of Pauline Hanson and One Nation is still very much being felt," Abjorensen said.

Prime Minister John Howard, 11 years in power, secured a come-from-behind victory in 2001 after ordering the military to block boats carrying asylum seekers and send them for refugee processing in nearby Pacific nations Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

The hardline policy became known as the Pacific Solution and critics accused Howard of using race-based politics to haul back a polling lead by the opposition Labor Party and turn it into the biggest swing to an incumbent government since 1966.

Howard, 68, is well behind Labor in the leadup to this year's election and polls show he may lose his Sydney-based seat, which has been re-drawn to include many suburbs with large numbers of Asian immigrant voters.

Howard angered many Asian-Australians while in opposition in 1988 by warning the pace of Asian immigration was too fast, adding it not "wrong, racist, immoral or anything" for a country to decide its own cultural destiny.

http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnSYD10558.html

Community says no to kkkanberra

Russell Skelton, Amoonguna, Northern Territory
July 3, 2007


THE Howard Government's assessment of indigenous communities met its
first setback yesterday when a team of police, soldiers and social
workers were refused entry to the Amoonguna community south of Alice
Springs.

Community chief executive Barry Byerley told organisers the team was
not welcome until appropriate consultation had been made with the
community's 350 residents and the purpose of the visit fully explained.

"It was a ridiculous situation. We didn't want the team just barging
in without the people being properly briefed on why they were coming
and what was involved. It was the height of arrogance," he said.

Mr Byerley said the community, which recently won a local government
award for good governance, had been angered by the Federal
Government's decision to cut off funding for community development
employment programs (CDEP), which had forced more than 30 residents
back on the dole.

"They treat the community with contempt by failing to adequately
explain the loss of CDEP after just nine months and then they give us
only 24 hours' notice that they want to come into the community.
People are genuinely worried."

Mr Byerley said he had been told of the visit on Sunday, but had
objected strongly. A spokesman for the assessment team said he hoped
they would visit the community later in the week.

Amoonguna is the first community to refuse entry. Assessment teams
have visited six communities so far.

Marie Ellis, a traditional owner, endorsed Mr Byerley's stand, saying
a community meeting would decide whether the assessment team would be
welcomed on Thursday. "I don't know what will happen, it is up to the
people," she said.

Health centre manager David Evans said the community had taken a
strong stand on sexual abuse and had recently banned a convicted
pedophile from entering. "We also have one of the lowest rates for
sexually transmitted disease in the territory, it's around 3 per cent."

Meanwhile, a team visited Docker River and the tiny community of
Wallace Rockhole, west of Alice Springs, the first of eight expected
to be surveyed this week. A number of people expressed concern about
the lack of Aboriginal leaders in the assessment team and asked for
more details.

AFP officers are now being trained in NT law enforcement and cultural
considerations before they take up duties in the communities. The
first of them are expected to be deployed in Mutitjulu on Friday.

It is still unclear if the Federal Government's planned health checks
will be mandatory for children under 16. Both federal Health Minister
Tony Abbott and the chair of the Government's new task force, Dr Sue
Gordon, hoped they would be voluntary.

"That it's an across-the-board health check, to check eyes, ears,
nose, and if there is any thought that there may be some sexual
(abuse), then it has got to be done properly," Dr Gordon said.

www.theage.com.au

Demand Justice for Mulrunji

A grave injustice occurred today when and all white jury dismissed both charges against Snr-Sgt Chris Hurley in a mere three hours. Our urgent action in support of the ongoing campaign to stop Aboriginal deaths in custody is needed now!

Please support the following:

(1) Emergency protest – Friday 22 June, 12:30 pm, Old GPO for a speak out and march to State Parliament.

(2) Open organising meeting – Wednesday 27 June, 6:30 Solidarity Salon, 580 Sydney Road, Brunswick to mobilise the broadest possible support for a National Day of Action on July 14. Be there!

(3) National Day of Action – July 14th.

Pass this e-mail on to all of your networks NOW!

In solidarity
Alison Thorne
For ISJA – Melb
www.isja-msg.org

**********************
Demand Justice for Mulrunji
Mourn for the death of
justice in Queensland

Rally, Friday 22 June, 12:30 pm
Steps of the old GPO for a speak out and march to State Parliament

Wear black or Indigeno us colours.

? Implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in Custody in full!
? Establish elected community controlled civilian review boards to hold the cops to account ? No justice on stolen land

Called jointly by Indigenous Social Justice Association – Melbourne and Socialist Alliance

For more information contact:
Cheryl: 0401-806-331
Sean: 0428-160-661
Land lines: 9639-8622 or 9388-0062

**********************


Media Release - for immediate release
Wed June 20, 5:30pm

Hurley verdict a travesty for Aboriginal people
"Death of justice in Queensland"

"The acquittal of Snr-Sgt Chris Hurley - despite him admitting he caused Mulrunji's death, despite him changing his story, despite overwhelming medical evidence likening Mulrunji's fatal injuries to a high-speed car crash - is the lowest point in Australia's judicial system for Aboriginal people," said Aboriginal leader and Socialist Alliance Indigenous spokesperson Sam Watson, in response to the not guilty verdict in the manslaughter trial of Hurley.

"The police rallied around their own, fixed their story of 'a complicated accident', and the 12-member non-Indigenous jury agreed," Watson continued. "This jury decision has sanctioned the unlawful death of an Aboriginal person in police custody."

"The fact that the life an Aboriginal person was worth less than four hours consideration by the jury reinforces Townsville - named after one of the last slave owners Robert Towns - as a centre of anti-Aboriginal prejudice."

"We extend our sympathy and love to the family and community on Palm Island - they will need healing time. But around Australia, the Aboriginal community and non-Aboriginal supporters will rally and continue the struggle for justice. We make a promise to the family of Mulrunji and all families who have lost loved-ones in custody - Hurley and all police will be held accountable. There must be justice for all - whether you're born in Brisbane or on Palm Island."

"The Jury verdict ended one process, but the struggle for justice continues," said Watson.

An Indigenous rights demonstration planned to march on State Parliament at 1pm this Friday in protest at council amalgamations, will also take up the ongoing fight for justice for Mulrunji, with a minute silence for the 'death of justice in Queensland.'

Watson and other Aboriginal leaders have called for massive national protests on July 14, NAIDOC day.

"At end of day, all we ever ask is that those who are taken into custody come out alive, but in Queensland, this appears to be an impossible ask."

For information or interviews phone Sam Watson 0401 227 443 or Paul Benedek 0410 629 088

Pig gets away with murder

Hurley was 'acquitted', but we know who the killers are. No justice on stolen Land.

Police were not neutral in the conflict between settlers and Aboriginal people; instead they provided military reinforcement for the forced expansion of white settlement, thereby presiding over the wholesale destruction of Aboriginal society. The thoroughness of the destruction of Aboriginal life effected with the help of Port Phillip’s police is attested to by the fate of its Native Police Corps.

By the early 1850s, less than twenty years after the first police were sent to the district specifically to deal with the ‘Aboriginal problem’, there were so few Aboriginal people left that not only did the corps no longer have a reason to exist it was no longer even a possibility, there were so few Aboriginal people left (Bridges 1971: 130). Police today continue to aid the destruction of Aboriginal society: Aboriginal people are overpoliced as potential offenders, underserviced as victims of crime, and subject to police brutality (Cunneen 1990a, 1990b, 1990c; HREOC 1991: 79–104; 210–13; Amnesty International 1993).

In 1992 the Aboriginal adviser to the Victoria Police resigned, claiming he was subject to racist jibes and heard constant accounts of physical and verbal abuse of Aboriginal people by police (Age 6 November 1992: 3). Police, with their powerful position in the criminal justice system, are at the forefront of enforcing the racial prejudice of sections of the white community, and most obviously express race relations in practice.

http://www.aic.gov.au/conferences/hcpp/mcculloch.pdf

Hurley changes story in witness box

* Tony Koch
* June 16, 2007

THE Queensland policeman charged with the manslaughter of an Aboriginal prisoner on Palm Island in 2004 yesterday took the stand in court for the first time -- and immediately changed his story.

Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley had maintained that he fell "beside" Cameron (Mulrunji) Doomadgee after a scuffle in the Palm Island police station on November 19, 2004.

But in the Townsville Supreme Court yesterday he said statements he gave to detectives within 24 hours of the incident were wrong, conceding that "contact" between him and Doomadgee must have caused the injuries that killed the prisoner within an hour. He said he did not deliberately "knee-drop" on to Doomadgee's stomach.

But under cross-examination by prosecutor Peter Davis SC, Sergeant Hurley said that after hearing the medical evidence about how Doomadgee died, he now felt he "must have" come into contact with him when the pair fell in a "scuffle" in the corridor at the police watchhouse.

Sergeant Hurley is charged with unlawfully assaulting and killing Doomadgee, who he had arrested for swearing, and who had struck him with "a backhand punch" on his jaw as he was being taken from the police van into the police station and cell.

Evidence was given that a scuffle ensued but there were no eyewitnesses despite two police officers and an Aboriginal police liaison officer being within metres of the incident.

Sergeant Hurley, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges, told the court he was 2m tall and weighed 115kg, and the deceased was 1.8m tall and weighed 74kg. The policeman said the specific time when Doomadgee received the fatal injuries -- four broken ribs and a liver cleaved in two, resulting in him bleeding to death within an hour -- was "a grey area" in his memory.

But he said that after having listened to the medical evidence presented in court this week, he "must have" come into contact with Doomadgee and that "contact" caused the fatal injuries.

"I would say that sitting here today, if I didn't know the medical evidence or the evidence before the court this week, I would say I fell beside him," Hurley said. He later said: "I can say 100 per cent I didn't cause any deliberate force to Mr Doomadgee."

Mr Davis put to Sergeant Hurley: "Your Queen's Counsel (Bob Mulholland) said in opening your case that you had now come to grips with the fact that you caused the injury to Cameron Doomadgee that caused his death. Is actually what you came to grips with, that you now believe your body or some part of it has fallen so hard on Cameron Doomadgee's body, that it cleaved his liver in two and you just didn't notice?"

Sergeant Hurley replied: "No."

Mr Davis asked Hurley if it "entered his mind for a moment that (Doomadgee) could have been killed by a cleaved liver".

"No," he replied.

Mr Davis: "What happened is that you knee-dropped on him in an attempt to wind him -- tried to subdue him?"

Sergeant Hurley: "No."

Mr Davis: "And in doing that, you have killed him?"

Sergeant Hurley: "No."

Mr Davis: "And then you thought later he probably died from a heart attack -- why do I have to confess to dropping a knee into him?"

Sergeant Hurley: "No."

Evidence concluded yesterday and final addresses will begin on Monday.

Report says police persecute poor and Indigenous

when I find a copy of the report I'll post it up

Friday, 15 June 2007 8:35:23 AM

By Drew Cratchley

BRISBANE, June 145, 2007: Queensland's Indigenous people and the homeless suffer high levels of police harassment, according to a report by legal and community groups.

Commissioned by a coalition of legal organisations including the Queensland Council of Social Service (QCOSS) and community groups such as the Red Cross, the No Vagrancy report calls for a number of investigations into allegations police persecute the socially vulnerable.

Report chairpersons Bob Weatherall, an Aboriginal elder, and chair of Legal Aid Queensland Marg O'Donnell interviewed 131 people from Brisbane and Townsville living in poverty and surveyed 54 criminal justice professionals.

They found people experiencing poverty endure high levels of police interference in their lives, with approximately 75 per cent of interviewees making allegations of police harassment.

At least 20 people said they were frequently searched by police for no apparent reason, and some reported they had been strip-searched in public or by an officer of the opposite sex.

Many Indigenous interviewees said they believe police target them on the streets simply because of their skin colour.

"They think that anyone that's dark is Aboriginal, so they immediately think you're a crim or a drunk," one respondent said of police.

Launching the report in Brisbane yesterday, Magistrate Christine Roney, who runs a Special Circumstances Court in Brisbane to deal specifically with offenders from underprivileged backgrounds, described it as a "thought provoking and uncomfortable report".

She defended her involvement with the report, saying everyone needed to work together to solve ongoing social problems.

"It's very important to stimulate debate, and to continue talking to the community," Ms Roney said.

"There's a great deal of the report that is hard-hitting and controversial, and I've deliberately not commented about the role of other agencies."

Among the report's 20 recommendations is a call for an independent inquiry into policing the poor and the Indigenous community, as well as a Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) investigation into police powers related to search and seizure procedures.

Comment was being sought from Police Minister Judy Spence. - AAP

http://nit.com.au/breakingNews/story.aspx?id=11457