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'Ordinary' Britons call on Blair to stand up for Aboriginal rights

November 1997 - National Indigenous Working Group on Native Title (NIWG) - Media Release - International human rights groups delivered some 500 letters, faxes and e-mails to Prime Minister Tony Blair from 'ordinary' Britons protesting against an Australian Government plan which will deny basic human rights to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Representatives of Amnesty International, Survival International and Anti-Slavery International will deliver the British protests to No. 10 Downing Street at 1:15 pm on Wednesday, 26 November, before making statements to the press.

The human rights groups will ask Mr Blair to take the protests to the Australian Prime Minister John Howard, and to question Mr Howard on the contradiction between his plan and international human rights standards.

According to Dr Heinz Schurmann-Zeggel of Amnesty International, the Howard plan - known as the Native Title Amendment Bill - will probably put Australia in breach of international law.

"The Bill is likely to breach both Australian anti-racism laws and international human rights treaties to which Australia has committed itself," said Dr Schurmann-Zeggel.

"By determining and limiting property rights on the basis of peoples' race, it also could have wider implications for the enjoyment of Aboriginal cultural and religious rights. The Government appears to be acting against the advice of human rights law experts - even among its own staff - that the Bill is potentially in breach of international law."

The British protests come in response to an appeal run by Survival International and the National Indigenous Working Group on Native Title (NIWG), an Aboriginal coalition formed especially to fight the Bill.

Source: National Indigenous Working Group on Native Title (NIWG)

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