Prof. James Anaya, the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous
Human Rights is visiting various centres in Australia over the next two
weeks. His task will be to report back to the UN.
Several thousand people and organisations in Australia (including ANTaR) have signed a
letter to the UN Special Rapporteur.
The letter requests Prof Anaya to:
* encourage the Australian Government to respect and recognise the
views of all Aboriginal people through new and genuine negotiation with
Aboriginal elders
* insist that human rights principles as outlined in the UN Convention against Racial Discrimination be applied
* encourage the Government to re-instate the Racial Discrimination Act without discriminatory “special measures”
We believe that the strategies in the NT that will work will be
ones which respect Indigenous people and engage in genuine and
empowering partnerships with them. Current, belated efforts to make the
NT Intervention legislation conform to the Racial Discrimination Act do
not reflect this approach.