Page 2797 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 October 1992
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and further noting -
(4) that the ACT Legislative Assembly Branch of Amnesty International has requested the Assembly to express concern on behalf of the citizens of the ACT regarding the present state of human rights abuses in Uganda.
Resolves to convey to the Ugandan Government its concerns about on-going human rights violations and in particular -
(1) urges the Ugandan Government to ensure that the army respects the rule of law;
(2) expresses concern about the use of serious charges as a pretext for detaining suspected opponents or critics, and the widespread use of detention without charge or trial and about summary and unfair trials of soldiers under military law, especially those which lead to executions;
(3) urges the Ugandan Government to fully implement the international human rights treaties which it has acceded to, and to submit its periodic reports on the implementation of these treaties (the Convention Against Torture and the African Charter on Human and People's Rights); and
(4) urges the Ugandan Government to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Madam Speaker, I move this motion, in essence, on behalf of my fellow co-conveners of the ACT Legislative Assembly branch of Amnesty International - namely, Mr Connolly and Ms Szuty - and on behalf of all the members of the Assembly branch of Amnesty International. Members will be aware that this branch has existed now for some time. Amnesty International has arms in a similar form in most or all Australian parliaments.
Those branches are very important in working towards the promotion of human rights around the world, and I believe that the ACT Assembly branch has no less a role to play in that respect than do the others. Our branch is a branch which typically includes not just members of the Assembly but also staff members and other workers within the Assembly precincts. It is my hope and the hope of the Assembly's branch of Amnesty that the motion which appears on the notice paper today will articulate the concerns, both of members of this Assembly and of Canberrans more generally, about the position of human rights in Uganda.
Today, Madam Speaker, is African Human Rights Day. It is unusual to discuss international matters in the Assembly outside the adjournment debate. But I think there is good reason today to be embarking on this discussion. First of all, it is African Human Rights Day; but it is, more importantly, a day on which we can take advantage of the broader campaign being conducted by Amnesty International to promote a focus on Uganda and on the position of human rights in that country. It is intended to do something very practical about a serious human rights problem in that place.
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