Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the first opportunity I've had to rise in this place, in the new parliament, to speak about a very moving community event I attended on 25 June 2022 with members of the Queensland Sudanese diaspora. It's a wonderful community in my home state of Queensland that contributes so much to our state. The purpose of the meeting was to consider human rights abuses that have been occurring in the nation of Sudan since the military coup on 25 October 2021. I should note that there were a number of community representatives from a number of different communities present at that get together, including senior representatives of the South Sudanese community and of the broader Australian African community.

On 25 October 2021, there was a military coup executed in the nation of Sudan and the declaration of a state of emergency. A report was done to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations in relation to what occurred on the ground between 25 October 2021 and 10 April 2022, and it is extraordinarily disturbing reading. What occurred on the ground during that period and what has subsequently occurred includes the excessive use of force and unlawful killings. Dozens and dozens of people have been killed, including children. There have been thousands of people injured. Deaths have occurred through the use of live ammunition against peaceful protesters, the use of tear canisters at short range—again against peaceful protesters—and through other excessive use of force.

There's also a recounting of arbitrary arrests and detention, torture and ill-treatment and enforced disappearance of democratic processes following the military coup, sexual and gender based violence of the most egregious kind—including events that occurred on 19 December last year where female protesters were actually gang raped by security forces after they'd been dispersed from a peaceful protest—the shutting down of all forms of communication and freedom of expression, and a range of other egregious human rights violations.

The community in Brisbane got together to draw attention to these human rights atrocities. It needs to be known by those members of the military dictatorship in Sudan that the world is watching. Our Sudanese diaspora is our human bridge between Australia and Sudan. We are watching what you are doing in Sudan. We are keenly interested. We stand shoulder to shoulder with our Sudanese brothers and sisters in terms of watching what is occurring on the ground.

I would like to conclude this statement by reading a few verses from a poem written by an extraordinary young man who is part of the Sudanese diaspora. He is a gentleman by the name of Mr Osman Garelnabi. He wrote a poem called 'Earth' in 2019 following the use of excessive violence against Sudanese protesters. I want to read a few versus of this poem. He's doing amazing work working with young people in our Queensland community. It reads:

I'm learning all the lessons I already know,

I've lost a lost a lot of brothers where so many go,

The chances of us rising up were very low,

But love can free the mind from this mental war,

  …   …   …

You started this war, but we'll never recede,

The blood of my bros are what I wear in my sleeves,

See I didn't come out of the dirt just to die overseas,

That's why our spirits will never decease,

I said I didn't come out of the dirt just to die overseas,

And so our spirits will never decease,

But just look how the system made us enemies,

They're chaining our brothers up without a reason,

And you thought that we'd never see freedom?

Convicting our brothers of treason, how?

When the earth is our land,

It's 'cause of our people you're breathing …