Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I join, from this side of the chamber, in the words of the member for Ryan in acknowledging the passing of Dr Liu—a well-respected man and well loved as the father of Chinatown. As an MP representing the other Chinatown, in Sunnybank, I acknowledge his great contribution to Queensland.

I also rise today to table a petition—before the press gallery gets excited, it is a much more serious petition. It is concerned with serious violations of human rights in Bangladesh. The petition reads:

Extrajudicial killing, attack on peaceful demonstration and suppression of media is rampant. Thousands of general people, journalists and opposition activists are being tortured and jails hold three times more detainees than capacity.

The petition was put together by residents of the Moreton and Rankin electorates concerned about the serious violation of human rights in Bangladesh. I met with representatives; I will not name them all, because they are actually concerned about their family members being tracked down by the government in Bangladesh. They showed me photographs. They told me horrible tales of death, destruction, detention and, in fact, massacres mentioned by Amnesty International.

I commend this petition to the parliament and hope the government does what it can to ensure that the human rights in Bangladesh are protected.

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