Very recently in visiting jails to speak to our incarcerated souls about alternative pathways to education I came across a number of Indonesian souls taking an English class. I asked them what they were in jail for.
Apparently, the score of Indonesian prisoners I came across at a particular Perth jail were arrested and charged and sentenced for fishing in Australian waters while they were on board boats transporting Asylum Seekers to the safety of Australia. These are poor Indonesian fishermen who merely fished. So what?
I was appalled to learn they have been sentenced generally up to five years. For what? For being a fisherman and in fishing in the Earth’s waters? For being poor?
Recently we were outraged, and rightly so, for a New Zealand anti-whaling protester brought before a Tokyo Court for harm he allegedly inflicted on a Japanese crewman. Let us not forget there is ramming of large ships on the open seas by the Sea Shepherd and good on them. However how can we bleat about this New Zealander’s rights while in this country we are cruelly sentencing poor Indonesian fishermen to five years jail? Are we nuts? I was so riled when I witnessed their plight that I screamed out at the utter wrongness of their sentence and that I wanted to march them out. My companion on our visit to the jail had to wisely calm me down.
The Senate must call upon the Government to release these poor Indonesian fishermen and return them to their impoverished families. The Senate must undertake an Inquiry into Australia’s conduct towards the impoverished fishermen who presumably trespass into Australian waters and remedy the management of their predicament without cruelly incarcerating them.
Gerry Georgatos
Senate Candidate WA
Ecological, Social Justice, Aboriginal Party
Media Contact: Gerry Georgatos – 0430 657 309
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