The following is abridged from an April 7 press release on behalf of Alyawarr walk-off spokesperson Richard Downs and senior Pitjantjatjara elder Murray George.
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A historic gathering, the National Aboriginal Customary Law and Culture Movement, will bring Aboriginal peoples and supporters together from July 6 to 9 at the Alice Springs showgrounds.
The planned convergence, supported by Aboriginal peoples and non-Aboriginal people from across Australia, is calling on the federal Labor government to bring an immediate end to the Northern Territory Emergency Response (the NT intervention) and to re-instate the RDA (Racial Discrimination Act) fully and unconditionally.
The RDA, which remains suspended with the full consent of the government, allows for the contentious and racially discriminatory aspects of the intervention to continue unabated.
Alyawarr spokesman Richard Downs, whose people walked off their community in protest against the intervention in July 2009, is calling for all people — Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal — to join together to rid Australia of racism and to ensure justice and equal recognition for Aboriginal peoples and the promotion of human rights for all.
"We welcome all people, all our brothers and sisters, to come and stand with us for four days in July", he said. "Let's send a clear voice to the Rudd Labor government, and to all future government leaders, that racism in all its forms will not be tolerated by the Australian voters.
"It's time we truly turned a new page in race relations in this country and lay the intervention to rest, and begin to see and treat each other as human beings, and our mother earth with respect.."
[For further information contact Richard Downs on 0428 611 169, Murray George on 0428 614 965 , or John Hartley, Yalanji, on 0424 943 990, email