SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON RACISM TO VISIT AUSTRALIA

12 April 2001





The Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia, Maurice Glele-Ahanhanzo, will visit Australia at the invitation of the Federal Government from 22 April to 10 May 2001.

Through this visit, the Special Rapporteur will learn of governmental policies and measures aimed at guaranteeing the rights to equality and non-discrimination of indigenous Australians and people from culturally diverse backgrounds. Professor Glele-Ahanhanzo will also use this opportunity to acquaint himself with the Federal Government’s policy of multiculturalism.

The Special Rapporteur is scheduled to meet with officials and parliamentarians at the Federal and State level in Sydney, Cairns, Thursday Island, Darwin, Alice Springs, Melbourne and Canberra.

He will also hold consultations with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) and the Aborigines and Torres Straits Islander Commission (ATSIC); representatives of indigenous communities; human rights non-governmental organisations; religious groups, as well as interested individuals.

The Special Rapporteur will submit his findings to the General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights, which will meet respectively in September 2001 and March 2002.

Since his appointment by the Commission on Human Rights in 1993, Mr. Glele-Ahanhanzo, a Professor of constitutional law and member of the Constitutional Court of Benin, has visited Brazil, Colombia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Kuwait, Romania, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States.


* *** *