Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Saturday, I joined the young men and women from Amnesty International Parramatta outside Parramatta Town Hall for the Write for Rights event. They were collecting signatures to raise the profile of some people under terrible circumstances such as the Cambodian housing activist, Yorm Bopha, imprisoned on charges for peacefully protesting against forced evictions; Dr Tun Aung, a Burmese community leader sentenced to 17 years in prison; an Ethiopian journalist, Eskinder Nega, serving an 18-year prison sentence for terrorism, after criticising the government and supporting free speech.

This is a fine group of mainly young men and women. I congratulate Sabrina, Karamzo, Sampada, Pritha, Rima, Lauren—who is the community liaison person for Amnesty International Parramatta—Brian Amanda, Catherine, Esther and Bela. They were all out there collecting signatures to raise the plight of these people with the broader community. They are a great young group, who care about the plight of people around the world and are doing a great job in raising issues of human rights in the Parramatta electorate. I commend them for their work.