Human Rights Alliance media release: It is not right that the truth is not being said and what is right still waits

Indonesian children continue to languish in Australian adult prisons. The HRA can confirm that conversations took place between the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and their Indonesian counterparts, between Foreign Minister Bob Carr and similarly with his predecessor, Kevin Rudd and their Indonesian counterpart - commencing in July last year and till very recent, regarding the release of the Indonesian children and Schapelle Corby.

"Diplomacy is the assembly of conversations, and conversations have objectives. Indonesia in particular has tried to remedy Australia's incarceration of their children in adult prisons by diplomatic channels and not in the public domain. The Indonesian government is understandably upset at the incarceration of their children which is a hot issue in their domestic newspapers and a hypocrisy that has raised the ire of Indonesian public servants," said Gerry Georgatos

"I am aware of the conversations in terms of them having been confirmed as they have occurred and which have been confirmed to me by Indonesian consular officials, Ambassadorial personnel and from our folk within the Indonesian Foreign ministry, and who we have worked with in the long drawn out campaign to release these children," said Gerry Georgatos

"From a humanitarian perspective we are happy to hear the sentence reduction to Schapelle Corby, however the release of these children should never had been intertwined. The children should never have been in adult prisons, never charged, never arrested and Australia should never have contravened and breached its laws and polices that required the children to be sent home as there is no prescription in the relevant Act to charge them and hence the consequent policy is that if there is any doubt to their age hence to err on the side of caution and return them home."

Ali Jasmin and the two others recently released have served 2.5 years in adult prisons and still remain children - it disappoints us that we have heard Liberal parliamentarians say that they should not have been released and that they have not been punished enough - this is appalling attitude and disregards the facts; including that they are children.

"If the reverse predicament applied - if Australian children were in Indonesian adult prisons there would be outrage, outcries, our politicians up in arms and an international incident, there would be no diplomatic channels," said Gerry Georgatos

The Attorney-General Nicola Roxon should release the other 22 children who have been presented to her office in submissions for review - they should be released today, not tomorrow or next week, however today.

There are also other children - age disputes - in our custodial jurisdictions who have not had submissions provided on their behalf to the Office of the Attorney-General - they too should be released or in the least a national review of all Indonesian prisoners urgently undertaken with independent bodies coordinating it such as the Australian Human Rights Commission, the Inspectors of Custodial Services and with the mandatory involvement of Indonesian Consular officials.

Anyone who argues that it does not matter who is right and wrong in how some of these children have been released, while others languish, anyone who argues that it does not matter that it took a deal or an assembly of conversations and the art of implications and imputations to release some of these children by the goodwill shown to Schapelle Corby hence allows for similar predicaments to reoccur - the government now needs a Bill (the Minors Bill) to be passed protecting the rights of children who arrive on our shores, in that there are appropriate age-determination protocols which must be engaged and that never again shall Australia incarcerate children in adult prisons.

Media contact:
info@humanrightsalliance.org

Gerry Georgatos
PhD Law researcher Australian Custodial Systems, Australian Deaths in Custody
0430 657 309