Why Christians Care About Human Rights

Transcription

1 Why Christians Care About Human Rights Rev. Elenie Poulos National Director, UnitingJustice Australia University of the Third Age Human Rights Forum St. Ives Uniting Church 20 November 2008 One day, years ago now, I woke up to see fences around the persecuted. Not the persecuted in countries like Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan where brutal regimes and dictators ruled, but the persecuted ones from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, here in Australia, locked up behind our fences. And not just any fences, razor wire fences. And then I noticed that there were children behind the razor wire. We heard that there were fences around these people because they had broken the law. They had come to our country by boat uninvited. We heard that they were probably terrorists. We were told that we should be afraid because there were hordes more of these people coming and they would be dangerous. And we knew that they were dangerous because we saw them throw their children into the sea. And I heard people around me calling for the persecuted ones to be kept behind the razor wire because they were here to take away all the things we valued in life our homes, our jobs and our feelings of safety. And I looked at the people around me as they looked behind the razor wire and into the faces of children. But it wasn t children they saw they saw the enemy who would one day rape their daughters and kill their sons. They looked behind the razor wire into the faces of illegals, worse than criminals and deserving of treatment harsher than criminals. The Rev. Bev Fabb was the Uniting Church Chaplain at the Port Hedland Detention Centre. One of the stories she tells of those times only about 6 years ago was about the Centre Christmas concert. There were about 120 children in the Centre at that time. This is what she wrote: A stage is set up and various groups have prepared items for the concert. The children all sit in the middle of the quadrangle, surrounded by

2 high fences topped with razor wire. They are dressed in their best clothes - girls in frilly dresses with bows in their hair, and boys in long pants and ironed shirts. They are very excited because tonight Christmas presents, donated by Mission Australia, are to be presented. The time finally arrives to give out the presents, and the children are called forward to get their presents by number. The guards called the children out to receive their Christmas presents by their ID number. Children were born in detention and grew up in detention. There was nothing about their experience which was not dehumanising, deliberately dehumanising. Human Rights Overboard, the report from the People s Inquiry into Detention, written by Linda Briskman, Susie Latham and Chris Goodard, is the most recent publication documenting what happened to people in Australia s immigration detention centres. The authors write that over 2000 children have been detained for an average of one year and eight months, including one child locked up for five years and five months before he and his mother were deemed to be refugees. 1 For her just released book about the refugee advocacy movement, Blind Conscience, journalist Margot O Neill interviewed Philip Ruddock who was immigration minister for 7 years from Edited transcripts of the interviews appear at the end of the book. They talked a lot about children in detention, including the case of Shayan Badraie who was a six-year old boy in detention for well over a year. Shayan s experiences in Villawood had left him in a catatonic state. He was secretly filmed and the story aired on Four Corners. When O Neill asked Mr Ruddock if there was anything he regretted about his time as Minister he said that there was just one thing the time he referred to Shayan Badraie as it in a television interview, 2 not just once but three times. 3 Australia is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 37 says: No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time. 1 p p p. 76 elenie poulos 20/11/08 2

3 Children were detained not as a measure of last resort but as first course of action. Asylum seekers, fleeing persecution, torture, imprisonment and death, who arrived here by boat were immediately imprisoned. Many spent years in centres that were harsher than our most secure prisons. The vast majority were eventually issued protection visas. They had committed no crime. They came here for our help and we locked them up as a matter of public policy purely for political gain. There was no reason to detain them. They had committed no crimes, they are entitled under international law to seek asylum, and Australia was by no means being flooded by refugees. In a brilliant essay which reflects on the post-september 11 world entitled Violence, Mourning and Politics, the philosopher Judith Butler, in her book Precarious Life, reflects on grief and loss and explores what basis for community we might find in our vulnerability to loss and the task of mourning that follows 4. In the violent context of today s world, she asks who is that we mourn for? who is it that we don t mourn? She writes, Who counts as human? Whose lives count as lives?... what makes for a grievable life? 5. Most Australians did not grieve the lives that were being decimated in our detention centres. Most of us did not see asylum seekers in detention centres as people whose human rights had been abused by public policy. We did not see it until we saw Cornelia Rau. The Uniting Church has, since its inception, voiced its commitment to human rights. In its Statement to the Nation at its inauguration the Church promised that it would oppose all forms of discrimination which infringe basic rights and freedoms. It promised to work for an end to poverty, racism and injustice and to stand up for such rights as religious liberty, civil and political freedom, equal educational opportunities and adequate healthcare for all. This support for human rights is based on how we understand the Christian faith. Christians believe that human beings are created in the image of God and that as bearers of God s image, we are inherently worthwhile and deserving of dignity and respect. Christians also believe that God exists in a community. The one God is a triune God, one in three persons. The very nature of God is social and communal. Humans, being made in this image, are inherently relational, finding life and sustenance in relationship and community. Being called into community with the whole of humankind as we are, when one person is diminished, we are all diminished. Christians are called to live as faithful disciples of Jesus who came to fulfil the hope of the prophets: to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the 4 p p. 20 elenie poulos 20/11/08 3

4 captives and recovery of sight to the blind and to let the oppressed go free. This is a mission to work for justice and resist injustice, and to stand in solidarity with the poor and the oppressed, knowing that as we feed the hungry, welcome the stranger and care for the thirsty, the sick and the imprisoned, we are responding to the image of Christ in every person and sharing the love of God, a love that is known by its compassion, hospitality and grace; a love of neighbour that is to be extended even to enemies. Christians also believe that we live in a world between the reign of God and the reality of sin. In a broken world not every person lives with dignity. People experience violence, poverty and oppression and history is rife with the horrors of genocide and war. Christians and the Christian church itself have, all too often, been responsible for colluding with and perpetrating violence and oppression. Church history is scarred by greed and fear and so we have, too often, failed in our mission of love. However, there have always been Christians committed to ending violence and poverty and in the last hundred years or so the church has been engaged internationally to this end. In 1937, representatives from churches around the world met to ensure that human rights were included in the United Nations Charter and the churches went on to play a significant role in the development of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Uniting Church believes that it has a responsibility to contribute to the building of societies in which all people are valued and respected. In the context of public policy and international humanitarian law, this means participating the development of systems, processes and structures, such as the international human rights system, that function to both protect and promote human dignity and peace, and hold all of us mutually accountable in this. In living out its faith and the promises it made in 1977, the Uniting Church has made strong and unequivocal statements of support for human rights. We have on numerous occasions drawn the attention of church members, the public and politicians to policies which have been implemented with inadequate attention given to civil and political rights; and to policies that have had a discriminatory and detrimental effect on distinct segments of the population, for example, people who are homeless, low-income workers, Indigenous Australians and refugees and asylum seekers, and policies that have impaired the right to a fair trial and to freedom of speech and association. While we may have believed that such human rights were safe in Australia, it has become clear that they are not adequately protected. Australia is the only developed democratic nation without some form of national legislative or constitutional human rights protection. elenie poulos 20/11/08 4

5 It is for all these reasons that in March 2008, the Uniting Church formally committed itself to support the development of a national human rights act for Australia. It is the first Australian church to do so. The Church believes that the process of developing such an act should begin with widespread and effective community and stakeholder consultation and we have committed ourselves to engage positively in any such public consultation. The Uniting Church will continue to encourage its members to model respect for human rights in our daily lives and to advocate for policies consistent with human rights standards and against human rights violations in all forms in all places. The recognition of human rights is an affirmation of the dignity of all people and essential for achieving peace with justice. But it is only as we work together, people of all faiths and none, of all ages and in every place, that we will see an end to greed, corruption, violence, persecution and exclusion and begin to see a world marked by justice and peace and imbued with the love of God. elenie poulos 20/11/08 5