Kimberley Land Council to ask UN forum to condemn Indigenous community closures

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Guardian

Kimberley Land Council to ask UN forum to condemn Indigenous community closures

Land council says proposed closure of up to 150 Aboriginal communities contravenes UN declaration on the rights of the Indigenous person

Calla Wahlquist
Thursday 9 April 2015 02.02 EDT


[font size=1]
Australians in London in March protesting against the planned closure by the Western Australian government of up to 150
remote Aboriginal communities. Photograph: Mark Kerrison/Demotix/Corbis
[/font]
A United Nations forum will be asked to condemn the proposed closure of up to 150 remote West Australian Aboriginal communities later this month.

Representatives from the Kimberley Land Council will travel to New York for the 20 April meeting of the permanent forum on Indigenous issues and will propose an intervention condemning both the proposed closures and the changes to the Aboriginal Heritage Act, which they say are contravene the UN declaration on the rights of the Indigenous person.

The land council’s chief executive, Nolan Hunter, said the proposed closures contravened article 10 of the declaration, which states that Indigenous people shall not be forcibly removed from their land or relocated without their free, prior and informed consent; and article 26, which states that Indigenous peoples have the right to the ownership, use, development and control of their traditional lands.

“Basically we are saying that, contrary to the popular belief, Aboriginal people do have rights,” Hunter said.


Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/apr/09/kimberley-land-council-to-ask-un-forum-to-condemn-indigenous-community-closures

[merrily]

1. I am very tempted to make a politically incorrect post--and not to

the detriment of aborginal people, either. But, I am going to resist that temptation.