[recoznet2] "Welcome to pain, welcome to sadness ..."
THE AGE `Welcome to pain, welcome to sadness ...' By DENNIS SCHULZ GROOTE EYLANDT Saturday 26 February 2000 It was the final chapter in a young, sad life. A white Toyota four-wheel-drive carried the body of the 15-year-old to the church and he was laid to rest among the gum trees near a swollen creek in the tropical heat of Groote Eylandt. More than 200 mourners sat in the shade outside the Angurugu Anglican Church, listening to the service as a didgeridoo played. The boy's suicide in a Darwin juvenile detention centre has sparked debate from Canberra to the United Nations in New York about the rights and wrongs of mandatory sentencing. The boy, whose first name is being withheld to observe Aboriginal custom, was serving a 28-day sentence for stealing pens and paint and breaking some windows. His funeral marked the end of a week in which discussion of the NT Government's controversial policy of giving the courts no choice but to impose jail sentences for property crimes turned bitter. His grandfather, Murabuda Warramarrba, summed up the day. "Welcome to pain, welcome to sadness, welcome to grief," he said. --- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words:unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/
[recoznet2] Human Rights contacts
from reconnet.. Now that Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, has agreed to take a personal interest in the Mandatory Sentencing issue, we have the opportunity to relay relevant information direct to her in person. I have been given two fax numbers for Mary Robinson by the United Nations Office in Sydney, one for her New York office, the other for Geneva. At this point, I have succeeded in making contact with New York on (0011) 1212-963-8019 and the correct Fax Number in Geneva for Mary Robinson, High Commissioner for Human Rights is (0011) 4122-917-9012. If you are sending her a message, try in the evenings during their office hours. and... The email address for the UN Human Rights Secretariat in Geneva (International Covenant for Civic and Political Rights) is <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words:unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/
[recoznet2] Canadian fight
Hi, this is a canadian organization which seems very interesting. Could you help ? Or be helped by it ? Best regards from France, Bernard Blanc. From: Cherri Grills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Organization: The Council of Canadians To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Dear Bernard, Thank you for your interest in our organization. Founded in 1985, The Council of Canadians is today Canada's pre-eminent citizens' watchdog organization with 100,000 individual members. The Council came to prominence in its fight against free trade but has since broadened its mandate to include a wide range of pro-Canada activities. Whether it's fighting the banks, campaigning for heath care or rallying support for public pensions.Our most current campaigns include: Genetically Engineered Food, Protecting Canadians Water from bulk export and the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. The Council is a national body with its head office in Ottawa and nearly 50 local chapters. It is strictly non-partisan, the organization lobbies MS's, produces top-notch research, runs national petitions and letter writing drives and does extensive work in the media - all with the goal of preserving Canada's social programs, culture, wilderness and sovereignty. If you would like more information on the Council or any of the campaigns, please let me know, send me your address with the request and I will mail you the material. Sincerely, Cherri Grills Development Officer [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words:unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/
[recoznet2] Racialised Punishment and Mandatory Sentencing in Australia [long]
An essay written for a British journal by Suvendrini Perera reposted from Christine Howes' list Racialised Punishment and Mandatory Sentencing in Australia (Written for the UK journal Race & Class) Suvendrini Perera Write of life / the pious said Forget the past / the past is dead But all I see / in front of me Is a concrete floor / a cell door / and John Pat Agh! Tear out the page / forget his age Thin skull they cried / that's why he died! But I can't forget the silhouette Of a concrete floor / a cell door / and John Pat Jack Davis Jack Davis's lament for John Pat, found dead in a West Australian prison cell at age 16, was dedicated to 'Maisie Pat and to all mothers who have suffered similar loss', thus linking this individual killing with those of numerous other young indigenous men in the Australian penal system, young men whose names have become only too familiar in a litany of pain, injustice and death. David Gundy aged 29; Robert Walker, aged 25; Eddie Murray, aged 21; Malcolm Smith, aged 28; Daniel Yock aged 18. And many more. A new name was recently added to this register of death, that of 15 year-old boy, found hanging in his room while in juvenile detention. But this death, though part of a chillingly well known sequence, also foreshadows new, even more frightening possibilities. It is the first fatality to result from mandatory sentencing laws recently introduced in Australia's Northern Territory (NT). Under this law a minimum jail sentence is mandatory for 'property offences' (or in the case of juveniles for a second conviction), leaving judges and magistrates with no option but imprisonment for the most trivial of acts. A homeless indigenous man has been imprisoned for stealing a towel off a clothesline to dry himself, an apprentice for kicking a light bulb in an argument with his boss. According to William Jonas, 'A 24-year old indigenous mother who received a stolen can of beer worth $2.50 and an 18-year old man who stole a cigarette lighter and then obeyed his father and admitted it to the police, were each imprisoned for 14 days. A 15-year old Aboriginal boy who broke a window after hearing about the suicide of a close friend was sentenced under mandatory detention for damaging property, then he attempted suicide.' In the case of the 15-year old boy from Groote Eylandt, the offence was the theft of pens, texta and paints. For this he was sentenced to a mandatory 28-day sentence in a juvenile detention centre in Darwin, two hours away by plane and worlds removed from his accustomed home. Here, he was apparently sent to his room one evening for refusing to help clean up after dinner. Five minutes later, he was found hanging on the sheets from his bed. Defenders of mandatory sentencing cling to the argument that the law applies alike to offenders of all racial and ethnic groups and is therefore not discriminatory -- Anglo-Australians are also subject to mandatory sentencing for minor offences. But this 'colour-blind' conception of the law ignores the structurally racialised nature of the penal system in colonising societies like Australia and the United States. In this racialised system, as the findings of a Royal Commission into black deaths in custody revealed, a jail term has specific, devastating consequences for indigenous peoples. The impact of imprisonment on indigenous Australians cannot be separated from a linked historical and ongoing sequence of race, incarceration and punishment. In her essay 'Racialised Punishment and Prison Abolition' Angela Davis provides an alternative to Foucault's genealogy of the prison with its obliviousness to questions of race. A different genealogy of the prison in the U.S. Davis writes, 'would accentuate the links between confinement, punishment and race. At least four systems of incarceration could be identified: the reservation system, slavery, the mission system, and the internment camps of World War II. Within the U.S. incarceration has thus played a pivotal role in the histories of Native Americans and people of African, Mexican and Asian descent. In all these places people were involuntarily confined and punished for no other reason than their race or ethnicity'. A racialised genealogy of the Australian prison system shows that since colonisation, the history of institutionalisation and incarceration of indigenous peoples has taken varied forms -- expulsion away from traditional country to distant camps and reserves as the most productive lands were claimed for sheep and cattle grazing; incarceration in detention centres or penal settlements such as Palm Island for people deemed intractable or uncooperative, and above all, the systematic forced removal of children for con
