Aboriginal victory: Palm Island cop charged
Dave Riley & Anthony Murray, Brisbane
26 January 2007
26 January 2007
A major victory has been won by the Aboriginal movement in Australia. The Queensland attorney-general's department has decided that Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley will be charged with manslaughter over the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee. Mulrunji, an Aboriginal man, died in police custody on Palm Island in 2004.
The decision was made after a report by former NSW chief justice Sir Laurence Street found there was enough evidence to charge the officer. This was in contrast to the recommendation handed down by the state's Director of Public Prosecutions Leanne Clare, which had ruled that Hurley was innocent of wrongdoing.
Murri activist and Socialist Alliance member Sam Watson remarked on January 28: "In this national campaign for justice, people from across the broader community mobilised, marched and stood in solidarity with the Doomadgee family and the people of Palm Island. It was only because of that high profile and passionate campaign that the Queensland government was forced to commission a second review of the decision not to charge Chris Hurley."
But Watson added: "We also must remember that there are four fresh graves on Palm Island that are there as a direct result of that one incident. No matter how many police will be charged or how many years they are sent to jail, our people will still stay in those graves. They have been lost to us forever."
While Hurley has now been suspended, on January 26 ABC News reported the police union's Denis Fitzpatrick as saying that "police right across this state are furious" and that the state's 9200-strong police force could strike over the decision.
According to Watson, "the Queensland police union is outraged because their previous licence to bash and terrorise Indigenous people is at risk. But the movement must maintain the pressure for justice for Mulrunji. Only when those who brutalise Indigenous people actually pay for their crimes and only when police are held criminally accountable for their actions will justice have been done."
Watson concluded: "Justice for Mulrunji also means justice for those who protested against his death in custody. We will fight for the quashing of the charges and convictions against the Palm Islanders who rose up at his death and for the resignation of the incompetent and partisan Leanne Clare.
"We will continue to monitor police activity right across our communities to ensure that no person or family will ever have to endure what the people of Palm Island have been subjected to for so many years."
The news that Hurley would be charged was greeted with a massive outbreak of cheers, applause and the cry of "justice!" when it was announced by Andrew Boe, Palm Island council's legal adviser, to the 700 people gathered at Brisbane's annual Invasion Day rally on January 26.
"The one thing I have been looking for", Boe told the rally, "is a just result according to law and today is the first hope that this is going to occur".
The announcement changed the focus of the rally to a more conscious celebration of Aboriginal resistance. Since many Indigenous activists had come to Brisbane for the protest from communities across Queensland and New South Wales, Invasion Day also presented an opportunity to discuss and plan ahead.
Lyle Monroe from Moree urged the rally to use the success in securing a charge against Hurley as a catalyst for reuniting Indigenous political activists on the east coast of Australia.
"This day is the day of the invasion and the massacre of our people and that will continue unless we on the east coast of this country stand up constructively with the intestinal fortitude to say 'No more!'"
Prior to the rally, 40 Aboriginal activists and their supporters had gathered at the central Brisbane post office to commemorate Dundalee — an aboriginal warrior executed in 1855 by the colonial authorities for defending his land and culture.
Invasion Day events continued throughout the day, with a march following the rally and a concert at Musgrave Park.
From: Australian News, Green Left Weekly issue # 696 31 January 2007.
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