#Human Rights
Target:
Navi Pillay UN Human Rights Commissioner
Region:
Australia
Website:
www.concernedaustralians.com.au

Navi Pillay, a former South Africa High Court Judge, is the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. She will visit Australia in May.

This follows several years of criticism regarding Australia’s poor human rights record and last year’s visit to Geneva by Aboriginal elders who raised the Northern Territory Intervention with the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

The Northern Territory Intervention imposed in June 2007, without consultation or the consent of Aboriginal people, continues to be a source of grave injustice. It has overridden the rights of the people, placed their culture and languages in jeopardy while removing their control over their land and communities.

The legislation passed by Parliament in June 2010, Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act) Bill 2009, has entrenched discrimination in Australian law and ensured that the Racial Discrimination Act, reinstated on 31 December 2010, is unable to protect Aboriginal people from measures that discriminate against them.

The UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has recommended to the Australian Government that legislative amendments be made to protect and restore the rights of Northern Territory Aboriginal people including provisions to ensure the Racial Discrimination Act overrides other legislation which may be discriminatory.

You can help by signing this letter requesting Navi Pillay to address these issues with the Government, urging them to turn around the blatant human rights violations embedded in the Northern Territory Intervention.

The closing date for signatures is the 7th May 2011.

To: UN Human Rights Commissioner

Dear Navi Pillay,

Welcome to Australia.

We are calling on you to encourage Government to end the Northern Territory Intervention and to restore the rights of Aboriginal people. The people were not consulted before the Intervention nor have they given their consent to it.

Control over land and communities must be returned to Aboriginal people. Changes to the law are urgently needed to restore and protect the rights of Aboriginal peoples in the NT to determine their own futures. We ask you for your assistance.

The Restore Human Rights to the Northern Territory Aboriginal People petition to Navi Pillay UN Human Rights Commissioner was written by 'concerned Australians' and is in the category Human Rights at GoPetition.