Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to highlight a tour that is currently underway by Lorena Pizarro, a human rights activist from Chile. Ms Pizarro is President of the Association of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Chile. She is the daughter of Waldo Pizarro Molina, detained and disappeared since 15 December 1976. His daughter-in-law Jane Bernarto Abdinano has been detained and disappeared since 5 May 1976.

The Association of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Chile began as a group of women who came together in the 1970s. These women would go to the places where they thought that their loved ones had been detained at the time of the military dictatorship that began in 1973. They would go to places such as the national soccer stadium, where thousands of political prisoners were held, as well as hospitals in order to obtain any information they could about their family members. During those early years, they began to go together to these places to feel safer, because during the dictatorship anyone could be arrested and subsequently disappeared.

One of the main reasons for the formation of this group was to find the whereabouts of loved ones. Today its members seek to find justice for all human rights violations that took place at that time. They also campaign for those who are responsible for committing these crimes to pay for what they have done by being imprisoned. Once the dictatorship had ended in 1990, the association continued its work to seek justice for those who have disappeared. The association is an important voice for those families who have had a family member disappeared and also an important voice in righting the wrongs of the past in Chile.

In particular, one of the issues which are being highlighted by Lorena Pizarro on her visit is the campaign to extradite Adriana Rivas. Adriana Rivas is a Chilean national who has been living in Australia and who is facing charges in Chile with respect to torture. In March last year the ABC's Foreign Correspondentprogram revealed that Ms Rivas was living in Sydney's eastern suburbs and working as a nanny. She had been in Australia 1978 and was arrested while on a trip to back to Chile in 2006. This is a unique case in that extradition is sought after criminal proceedings were fully underway. Ms Rivas fled Chile in 2010 while on bail, awaiting trial. She is a fugitive from justice. It is alleged in the criminal proceedings in Chile that Ms Rivas was involved in the interrogation and immensely cruel torture of at least 12 victims of the Pinochet regime by its secret police. There is no doubt that these matters need to be brought to the attention of the government and there is no doubt that the request with respect to an extradition, which I understand is in place and has been in place for well over 12 months, needs to be acted upon. The fact is, particularly in a situation where Ms Rivas was actually midway through criminal proceedings in Chile when she absconded, there is no doubt that she should be returned. I call upon the government to consider this as a matter of urgency and to ensure that Adriana Rivas is returned to Chile in order to face a court and a jury of her peers.