HRA MEDIA RELEASE:
EMAIL STATEMENT FROM ASYLUM SEEKERS INSIDE SCHERGER WHO ARE HUNGER STRIKING - 6TH DAY
NUMEROUS PHONE CALLS.
11:30AM EST AUSTRALIA
The Human Rights Alliance Media Release:
19.7.2011
Overnight the Christmas Island Detention Centre roof protest escalated with the response a severe lockdown. Christmas Island Detention Centre is now as bad as Woomera and Baxter. UN Observers must be located in these unlawful Detention Centres.
The Christmas Island roof top protest unnecessarily escalated and once again there was no appropriate de-escalation, mitigation or humanity.
While Kevin Rudd announced a crackdown on tobacco advertising and increased sales tax on cigarettes, attention was diverted from the elephant in the livingroom: climate change and addiction to coal. At the same time Friends of the Earth Australia denounced the development of two new coal export terminals near Bowen in North Queensland, insisting the expansion of Queensland's biggest contributor to climate change must come to an end. Adding an extra $2 sales tax a pack to cigarettes is a diversion from the real problem: Australia's multi-billion dollar addiction to coal. What Kevin Rudd needs to do is put a $35 per tonne carbon levy on coal to send a significant message to business and the public on climate change and public health.
Related: Punishing the people who stand up for the common good | Conservationists and scientists angry at Rudd retreat on climate | Crikey: Pity the coal lobbyists are more powerful than the tobacco lobbyists
