Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are joined today by a very eminent group of Cambodian community and religious leaders, and I begin by welcoming them. We are joined by a number of venerables, firstly, who lead the spiritual and religious life of Cambodian-Australians from temples around the country: the Wat Buddharangsi, the Khmer Buddhist Centre and the Dhamaran Buddhist Temple are located in my electorate, but we also have venerables here from the Wat Monirangsi, the Wat Eysan Meanchey, the Wat Canberra and the Wat Bonyrigg in other parts of the country. We welcome you to our parliament and thank you for being here.

The Cambodian community in Australia is also blessed by some incredibly driven and passionate community leaders who are engaged in political life both at home in Cambodia and here in Australia. We have leaders with us today such as Hong Lim, the state member for Clarinda and parliamentary secretary, who is Australia's first Cambodian-born member of parliament—a fine achievement. We have Councillor Youhorn Chea in the gallery, a community hero, a City of Greater Dandenong councillor and a former mayor; and we have Councillor Meng Heang Tak, who is a current councillor, a younger leader and another former mayor who is already a respected and distinguished person. I want to acknowledge you in the gallery. I also acknowledge Mr Meng Bunglay, Mr Sarun Keo, Ms Sivorn Pung, Mr Samreth Sothi, Mr Korb Sao, Mr Drin Men, Mr Pheakdie OK, Mr Meng Eang Thae, Mr Thearak Boun and Mrs Darany Khiek. To all of those in the delegation who have joined us, thank you so much for being here, and sourn sva-kum—welcome to our parliament.

I want to express my very deep concern about ongoing human rights abuses in Cambodia, and the delegation today have talked extensively about what they see as a very serious deterioration in the human rights situation there. I make that statement on behalf of the people I represent in Hotham, and include in that the many thousands of Cambodian-speaking and Cambodian-born people that I represent. A lot of those constituents fled the Khmer Rouge, and members of parliament may not remember this but two million people died under Pol Pot's regime—a quarter of the Cambodian population at the time. But this is a community that came to Australia, and by God they have made good Australians. They have worked hard, sent their children off to school, to university, and right around my electorate and beyond we see extraordinary achievements being made by people from the Cambodian community. But what they see when they get back to their sovereign country is a deteriorating human rights situation which is of very deep and grave concern to Australian Cambodians.

Prime Minister Hun Sen seen and his ruling party have targeted Cambodia's opposition, activists, intellectuals, people working in human rights and those fighting for a free and fair democracy. The right to protest is routinely suppressed. Corruption is a cancer in Cambodia. The country now ranks 156th out of 176 countries on the corruption index. It is the single most corrupt country in South-East Asia. What chills us most is the suppression of democracy. We saw in the 2013 elections some very concerning things. Probably the worst incident was the shooting of five garment workers who were just expressing their civil rights and protesting in the streets. They were shot dead. I spoke out against the violence at that time, and since then things have deteriorated further.

I want to mention Dr Kem Ley, who was a prominent Cambodian political activist and in a sense became an icon of this movement of people who are fighting for fair and free elections in Cambodia. Dr Kem Ley came to Australia last year. He returned to Cambodia, he spoke out against the Hun Sen regime and days later he was shot dead in broad daylight near Phnom Penh—he was assassinated. This is an extraordinary violation of the rights of Cambodians to exercise their rights in a fair and free democracy, and we absolutely reject that. Dr Kem Ley's widow, Madame Bou Rachana, and their five children have been granted visas to visit Thailand. They have applied for refugee status in Australia and I have written to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection asking that he look favourably upon that application.

I have sat with Cambodian leaders in the past and Cambodian leaders today, and I have felt their utter despair about what is happening in their country. Their message today to us was incredibly clear—they want us to stand up, they want us to say something and they want us to join them in this fight for a fair and free democracy. These fundamental human rights are what we should all expect as human beings. In closing, Australia trov te chhor cheamouy bong bron Khmer yeung knoung ka proynt samrab prochea thibathey yute tor. Thank you so much for being here today.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would also like to acknowledge our guests in the gallery. I hope their visit to parliament has been successful today.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a liberal democratic country whose culture is underpinned by valuing pluralism, tolerance and mutual respect for all people, it saddens me to see the human cost where these values are not observed across the world today. This is very much following on from the previous speaker's address.

There have always been increasingly alarming reports out of the Russian province of Chechnya of homosexual men being captured and tortured in prison camps, and families being encouraged to kill other members to protect their honour. Independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta found that dozens of men aged between 16 and 50 have mysteriously disappeared off the streets. Among them were well-known faces on local television and religious leaders.

The camps in the town of Argun have reportedly become a cesspit of inhumane abuse. Men are taken outdoors and beaten several times a day whilst also enduring electric shocks. NGOs are helping Chechens to flee the region, including 20-year-old Ilya. Even though he is now almost 2,000 kilometres from the Chechen capital, Ilya still panics each time a car drives past the secure house. In October he was taken into a field and beaten by three men in military uniform, leaving a huge scar along the side of his jaw.

Chechnya's leader has mandated that women must wear the hijab in public places and has endorsed polygamy. In light of these arrests, Kadryov denies the accusations, asserting simply that homosexuals do not exist in his country as a justification for what is going on.

Sadly, similar signs are now coming out of Indonesia. In recent days we have seen the public caning of two men for engaging in consensual sexual activity in the province of Aceh. The two men in their 20s have done no harm to others, and yet have become the target of their neighbours acting as vigilantes and local authorities seeking to impose barbaric law. Similarly, in the past few days there have been mass arrests of around 140 homosexual men in Jakarta. These tactics are being used as the basis for intimidation against people who have committed no crime. It follows the arrest of 14 other men in a hotel in Surabaya only last month.

These tragic examples, of course, do not sit in isolation. Throughout much of Africa, homosexual acts are a crime, with the most egregious in the Middle East coupled with brutal punishments including the death penalty using degrading and painful methods reflecting the cruelty of Islamist militant groups in the region.

As difficult as it is, we must always be mindful to be strategic and targeted in our advocacy to address these crimes. Being loud is not the same as being effective, particularly when it comes to protecting people from discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation. Indonesian writer Hendri Yulius said on ABC's Radio National recently in response to a question about whether improvements in rights for homosexuals in Western liberal democracies was contributing to this crackdown:

The globalisation of LGBT rights, including the legalisation of same-sex marriage in the United States, also contributes to the rise of anti-LGBT attitudes … Most of the anti-LGBT arguments revolve around westernisation, and how we have to counter westernisation of our country. This is the number one reason behind it.

As we found in Uganda in the past, public advocacy by Western governments can be used as a weapon to reinforce the justification for crackdowns and make situations worse.

I am proud to be part of a government that has been unafraid to directly tackle some of these governments and work with others to stand up to this sort of barbarism. I particularly want to congratulate the work of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, for her targeted, strategic and precise advocacy as the foreign minister and also for working with other countries towards a coordinated response. I do encourage the foreign minister to continue on this path and use any method or option available to her to be effective. But we must also condemn these governments. I hope that all members and senators will join with me in this expression.

There is something we cannot ignore in all of these acts. There is a common thread underpinning these wicked acts: the application of extremist versions of Islamic theology to justify the deliberate and malicious targeting of homosexuals. I have previously spoken in this place and others about the same rationale being used to target, mistreat and kill women and Christians.

Freedom sits in a context underpinned by our values of the dignity of all people and their liberty to pursue their life, their opportunity, their enterprise and their happiness. That is why I will never be a culture relativist; it is why I am a cultural conservative. Our liberal democratic culture underpins the freedoms that so many of us enjoy and do not lead to the abuse of the law to target particular minority groups and send them through punishment. Other cultures, unfortunately, do not value these principles in the same way that we do. History shows the price always falls hardest on minorities and those who do not neatly conform to cultural values. That is why we must condemn these acts. It is also why we must always stand up for our culture, our values and our way of life.