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RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Africans Target of Racism, Harassment by Police

Stephen de Tarczynski

MELBOURNE, Australia, Apr 12 2010 (IPS) - The police “picked me up, they put me in the back of the car. Then they took me to (locality withheld) and beat (expletive) me, and they left me there,” a young person of African background said in a new study into the treatment of youths of African background by Australian police in Melbourne.

The ‘Interventions into Policing of Racialised Communities in Melbourne’ report, released in mid-March, is part of a project into racism here managed by three community legal services in Australia.

It found that young African-Australians in the country’s second-largest city are over-policed, that police harassment and violence is either under-reported or inadequately investigated by the relevant oversight bodies, and that police often resort to hostility and aggression when young people assert their rights.

Thirty youths, 27 males and 3 females aged 15 to 27, were interviewed for the study. Many had Sudanese or Somali backgrounds.

Most of them had been subjected to negative and often violent experiences with Victoria state police officers, including harassment, racist comments and serious assaults. None were identified in the study for fear of potential police retribution.

One interviewee reports being racially abused, spat on and slapped around the head by police before being taken to a police station where he was “beaten up for about ten minutes.”

After being released though the station’s rear exit, the youth re-entered the building at the front entrance, telling the officer on duty that he wished to make a complaint. According to the youth, the officer then “called one of the coppers that were beating me up. Another copper came in and goes to me, “If you don’t get out of here now, I’ll pull you back in’. And I left.”

Tredwell Lukondeh, president of the Sydney-based Federation of African Communities Council (FACC), says that he is not surprised by the report’s findings. “What is surprising is the degree to which the report highlights the problems. We do have concerns from various community leaders about the issue in question,” Lukondeh told IPS.

The FACC, which groups African groups from around Australia, is now collating data regarding police treatment of African-Australians to present to both the police force and the state government. But Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland argues that police have done much to strengthen relations with different ethnic communities, including the African community. These efforts include community forums, the appointment of more multicultural officers, police-youth camps and joint sports activities.

Overland says that tension between police and young immigrants “is not a new problem.”

“With every wave of migration we’ve had problems with youths. If you go back far enough it was the Italian wave, the Greek wave, the Vietnamese wave and what we’re seeing now is a wave of migration coming out of Africa. And predictably we’re seeing tensions with youth,” Overland told the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s local radio in March.

While no African nation was among the top 10 source countries of the more than 158,000 people migrating permanently to Australia in the 12 months prior to Jun. 30, 2009 – the latest period for which figures are available – Australia’s African community has swelled in recent years.

Africans have figured prominently among recent visa recipients under Australia’s humanitarian programme, which is reserved for refugees and others requiring protection.

Nationals of Sudan, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Liberia and Sierra Leone were among the top 10 countries of origin for humanitarian visas granted in the 2008-2009 year.

Although Lukondeh admits that police have taken positive steps to address issues with African-Australians, he believes that much more can be done. “We should establish that corridor of learning about the cultural background of new immigrants. It is very important because, in essence, it’s that ignorance that enflames these problems,” said the FACC president.

Any progress made by police efforts to create better relations appears to be undermined by the report’s findings as well the revelation of a racist email circulating among Victoria police officers.

While Overland has vowed to take action against officers in the wake of the report “if there is evidence to support those allegations,” up to 100 officers are purported to be under investigation in relation to the email, which local media have reported depicts a man being tortured.

The report into police treatment of youth of African backgrounds comes as the furore over allegedly racially motivated attacks on Indians in Australia – and Melbourne in particular – appears to be fading.

It follows November’s findings by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) – a statutory body responsible for media regulation – that three popular Melbourne television broadcasters breached the Commercial Television Codes of Practice in 2007 in reports regarding Sudanese refugees in Melbourne’s south-east.

ACMA found that the news reports of channels Ten, Nine and Seven, which focused on racial tensions, gangs and the decision by the government of former Prime Minister John Howard to reduce the intake of African refugees, were inaccurate.

Ten and Nine breached the regulatory body’s fair and impartial requirement for news presentations. “ACMA considered that both of their segments contained an unfair selection of material, were unfairly juxtaposed and created an unfair presentation, overall, of Sudanese people as being particularly prone to commit violence and crime,” said ACMA’s statement.