Home > Asia Pacific |
Letter to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
Human Rights Watch - December 17, 2007
The
Hon Kevin Rudd MP
Prime
Minister
Parliament
House
CANBERRA
ACT 2600
Re: Australian foreign policy with regard to Burma, China, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea and Australian domestic policy on counter-terrorism, refugees, indigenous Australians, and same-sex relationships
Dear Prime Minister Rudd:
Congratulations on your recent election as Prime Minister of Australia.
We write to you outlining key areas of foreign and domestic policy where we believe that Australia can and should do more to promote and protect human rights. On foreign policy, Australia is a significant political actor and donor in the Asia-Pacific region, so your government is well placed to play a leading role in promoting human rights at a regional and international level. Over the past decade, the Australian government was notably absent or obstructionist in such efforts. The significant international attention paid to your signing of the Kyoto Protocol and your statement at the Bali conference on climate change shows the clout Australia has and the ways in which it can be put to good use.
Any promotion of human rights, of course, begins at home. Your government has an opportunity to distinguish itself on domestic issues by reversing some of the previous government's policies that undermined basic rights in areas such as refugees, indigenous Australians, counter-terrorism, and discrimination against same-sex couples.
Australian foreign policy
Burma
Your new government should redouble efforts to pressure the brutal military government in Burma, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), to respect human rights and begin a genuine transition to civilian rule. The brutality of the crackdown on peaceful protestors, monks, and nuns in September 2007 must not be forgotten. Human Rights Watch welcomes efforts by the Australian government to curtail the financial power of the SPDC, its leadership, senior officials, and their financial supporters through Reserve Bank restrictions on money transfers. We also welcome the decision to deny the appointment of a former Burmese army officer to the post of Burmese ambassador to Australia. We call on your government to pursue other measures which will continue to pressure the SPDC to reform, including:
For more than 20 years, Human Rights Watch has investigated and documented extensive human rights violations in China. These include violations of freedom of religion, freedom of expression and labor rights, media and internet censorship, and forced evictions of people from their homes. As a fluent Mandarin speaker with a longstanding interest in human rights in China, you surely understand the severity of the current situation there. Under your leadership, we expect Australia to play a major role in raising human rights concerns with China's senior leadership in Beijing. The strong trade relationship between Australia and China, which subordinated human rights concerns in the last government, should instead be an avenue to raise such concerns, as will be the period before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. As a matter of priority, we urge you to publicly as well as privately raise the following concerns with Chinese officials at the earliest opportunity and call on the Chinese government to:
Australia's military links with Indonesia's special forces, Kopassus, are of serious concern given Kopassus' long history of human rights abuses in East Timor, Aceh, and Papua. We welcome your comments, made in 2003 as Opposition Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, against the decision by the Australian government to resume links with Kopassus.
You have talked about the need to expand Australia's counter-terrorism cooperation with Indonesia. In doing so, you should recognize that essential efforts to reform the Indonesian military to make it more accountable have stalled. For example, a 2004 law (Law No. 34/2004) mandated an end to the military's involvement in business, and set a five-year deadline, until 2009, for the Indonesian government to take control of all the businesses the military owns or controls. Yet a draft government decree selectively defines "military business" to cover only a few companies and ignores business activity carried out by military foundations and cooperatives, gutting the reform process before it has truly begun. Meanwhile, military profit-making continues. In May 2007, Indonesian marines in east Java killed four villagers, including a pregnant woman and a three-year old, in a land dispute tied to the Navy's local business interests.
This is a crucial test of military reform in Indonesia, but much remains to be done to turn the promise of the 2004 law into real change.
We call on your government to:
Human Rights Watch welcomes the strong commitment of Australia to sustainable development in Papua New Guinea and to address the country's rapid increase in HIV/AIDS. Recent research by Human Rights Watch shows that police violence in Papua New Guinea is systemic and widespread, particularly against vulnerable populations such as children, sex workers, and men who have sex with men. This violence has a significant negative impact on the development of a functioning justice system and on the response to the country's rampant HIV/AIDS epidemic.
As the largest donor of foreign aid to Papua New Guinea and given the central role that Australia has played in training and developing the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary, the Australian government should be more proactive in addressing widespread police violence. To this end, it should:
Counter-terrorism
Australia should amend its counterterrorism legislation to bring it into compliance with international human rights standards. The case of Dr. Mohammed Haneef, an Indian citizen who was detained without charge for almost two weeks in July 2007 under the 2005 Anti-Terrorism Act (he was then charged, but the charges were dropped), highlights the need to revisit Australia's approach to counter-terrorism. In order to combat terrorism more effectively, the government should reaffirm its commitment to human rights principles.
Human Rights Watch recommends that Australia reform the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2005 in the following ways:
Human Rights Watch welcomes the pledge by the Labor Party to end the "Pacific Solution" policy by closing the Nauru and Manus Island processing and detention facilities and to replace the temporary protection visa scheme. We are pleased to note that your government already granted political asylum to seven Burmese refugees who spent more than a year on Nauru Island, and we see this as a very positive sign of your intention to restore Australia's reputation as a country that provides refuge to the persecuted.
In order to ensure that Australia's refugee policy respects human rights and meets international obligations, we call on your government to:
The quality of life for most indigenous Australians remains unacceptably low, with a 17-year gap in life expectancy between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, an infant mortality rate that is almost three times higher than the general Australian population, and rates of death from treatable and preventable conditions such as diabetes and respiratory illness ranging from three times to eight times higher than for non-Indigenous Australians. Although they live in one of the world's wealthiest countries, most indigenous Australians do not have access to adequate health care, housing, food or water. Human Rights Watch welcomes your commitment to close the gap in life expectancy, and to formally apologize to indigenous Australians for the Stolen Generation of indigenous Australian children. We call on your government to act immediately to:
Australia
was at one time at the forefront of international efforts to recognize
the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) citizens. Over
the past decade its record on this issue has fallen behind many other countries.
The lack of legal recognition of same-sex relationships under federal law
means that these Australians and their children face disadvantage and exclusion
on a daily basis. We welcome the commitment by the new government to tackle
this discrimination by implementing the recommendations of the Human Rights
and Equal Opportunity Commission's (HREOC) report, "Same-Sex: Same Entitlements."
We call on the new government to remove all discrimination against same-sex
couples by:
Enacting
legislation as a first-term priority that implements the recommendations
of the HREOC report, so that same-sex couples and their children have equal
access to benefits and entitlements in areas such as public sector superannuation,
the Medicare and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme Safety Nets, income tax,
and child support;
Providing
for effective educational programs to ensure that all those affected by
the HREOC reforms are aware of the changes, particularly Commonwealth employees
and agents who will be responsible for administering the new laws;
Introducing
federal anti-discrimination legislation that prohibits discrimination on
the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity;
Amending
the Marriage Act 1961 so that civil marriage in Australia is available
to any two persons, regardless of their gender.
We
thank you for your attention to these issues, and hope that your recent
election will mark a turning point for Australia's record on human rights,
both domestically and abroad. We look forward to a constructive relationship
with your government.
Sincerely,
Kenneth
Roth
Executive
Director
Human
Rights Watch
Cc:
Click here for archive of statements and press releases |