The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) has endorsed the Criminal Code Amendment (Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes) Bill 2024, which seeks to remove the Attorney-General’s power to block prosecutions for genocide and atrocity crimes.
APAN President Nasser Mashni today testified at a parliamentary hearing on how this amendment, introduced by Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe, would eliminate political barriers to justice and ensure accountability for victims of genocide.
Mr Mashni stressed that this reform was crucial for upholding Australia’s international legal commitments, preventing the politicisation of justice, and ensuring impartial prosecution of atrocity crimes.
He highlighted the Australian Government’s inconsistent response to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, compared to its strong stance on Russia, as evidence of the need for human rights and international law, not political considerations, to form the basis of all Australian action to prevent genocide.
With Israel’s genocide in Gaza having killed more than 39,363 Palestinian, injured more than 90,923 people, and with at least 10,000 people still buried under rubble, presumed dead, the urgency of this action is clear.
Australia must not only remove political interference from its legal processes for prosecuting genocide and other atrocity crimes, but must immediately:
- expand its sanctions to include other Israeli individuals and entities involved in Israel’s illegal occupation, its genocide in Gaza and its apartheid across Palestine;
- cancel the DGR status of any Australian charities that contribute to, support or benefit from Israel’s illegal settlements;
- impose a two-way arms embargo;
- urgently review with a view to suspending any Australian trade, military and other relationships or agreements with Israel;
- Investigate and prosecute dual citizens who have travelled to serve with Israel’s Occupying Forces.
Quotes attributed to APAN President Nasser Mashni:
During the past 10 months, we’ve witnessed the politicisation of genocide prevention in Australia through a reluctance to condemn Israel and a calamitous failure to impose sanctions or a two-way arms embargo on this rogue state.
In fact, genocide prevention has been so politicised in Australia that it’s ‘baked into’ the domestic implementation of the Genocide Convention, in the form of the Attorney-General’s power to veto the prosecution of genocide.
Australia talks the talk when it comes to upholding international law and preventing and punishing genocide, but certainly in the case of Palestinians and First Nations people on this continent, it is not walking the walk.
Human rights and the sanctity of human life must be the only priorities when it comes to preventing genocide – they must not be subordinated to politics, international relations, economic or military ties, or geopolitical agendas.
We wholeheartedly support Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe’s proposed amendment and urge the government to adopt it as a vital measure for securing justice for Palestinians and First Nations on this continent, and for all who have been the victim of atrocity crimes.