There was a Palm island ‘death in custody’ rally and protest at parliament house in George street Brisbane at 9am Thursday 17th June 2010.
Nearly six years after the death of Mulrunji, the CMC report into the police handling of Mulrunji’s murder was presented to the speaker at 9:30am.
The Premier, Attorney General and the police minister made the terms of reference of the CMC inquiry very narrow. The CMC could only look at the police investigation into Cameron Doomadgee’s death.
In effect the CMC report isolates the blame on individual police, including the police commissioner but ignores the complicity of the judiciary and the executive in this process. It was the executive that ordered a state of emergency when not a single police officer had been harmed, it was the judiciary who presided over and jailed Palm island people for standing up for their civil rights.
The failure of this process is that there is no criticism of the judiciary in the report, no reflection on the failure of the parliament nor is there any analysis of the cover-up by the executive arm of government — the police ministers and the Premiers, Beattie and Bligh.
Yet many Palm Islanders, young and old, were terrorised by police after their brother, Mulrunji, was murdered by Hurley. Many were sent to jail. One of the aboriginal leaders, Lex Wotton, remains in Stuart Creek prison in T’vlle to this day.
The judiciary and government have committed grave injustice through delays, cover-ups, allowing criminal conspiracies by police to save Hurley.
Gracelyn Smallwood, a Birigubba woman from Nth Qld, activist, nurse and academic spoke out at Mulrunji Forum at parliament on 17 June 2010 after attempting to gain access to the parliament to witness the CMC being presented.
Ian Curr
June 2010
Seven (7) police officers were mentioned in this report.
Those police must be charged.
The Doomadgee family must have justice. Snr Sgt Hurley must be charged.
Someone has to be responsible for the cell death of Mulrunji Doomadgee in 2004.
This struggle goes on !! No more deaths in custody! Police must be held to account
Contact – Sam Watson 0401 2274 43
Check out the podcast http://theparadigmshift.podbean.com/
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW9hLPYgStY]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asU_acZj-pY]
said Conservative Prime Minister last night (15 june 2010).
Why can’t Qld Premier Anna Bligh say the same thing about police actions on Palm Island in November 2004?
Why can’t she stand up in the parliament and take a leaf out of what the Tory Cameron said to the British parliament?
Anna Bligh should begin by saying that police killing of Mulrunji ‘was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong.”
Then the Premier should tell the Qld parliament that the declaration of a state of emergency and the subsequent sending of SAS police onto Palm to terrorize the indigenous population was also wrong.
But, after 6 long years, the Qld government remains silent, even in the face of the findings of police misconduct by the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC).
Ian Curr
June 2010