Dominic Hannigan (Labour)

I commend certain people in the media and the community on exposing the Government's cynical, calculated and disgraceful campaign.

Many Senators spoke about international human rights issues in Tibet, Burma and elsewhere. I ask the Minister of State to try to put some pressure on the EU to deal with the situation in north-east Sri Lanka. Approximately 250,000 people have been sealed into an enclave, in effect, by the Sri Lankan authorities. No journalists are being allowed into the region. I am concerned about what is going on in the enclave. We are all aware of how we missed the boat, to a large degree, when ethnic cleansing was occurring in places such as Rwanda. Pressure needs to be imposed at European and international level to ensure the Sri Lankan Government is in no doubt that it will be brought to account by an international court if it carries out any crimes during its current campaigns.

I would like to speak about the rights of prisoners. Like the Minister of State, I was glad to hear about the commitment given by the US President, Mr. Obama, to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre. I refer to a report on prison conditions that was published last year. It states:

[C]onditions were cramped with two prisoners being accommodated in cells of 8 sq. m. The pervasive smell from the use of chamber pots in each other's presence compounded these deficiencies. ... The delegation [to the prison] came across three prisoners ... sleeping on a mattress on the floor; at the time of the visit, food had been served without the chamber pots having been emptied and the air in the cell was rank and humid.

That report was written, not about a Cuban prison 3,000 miles from here, but about a prison three miles from here, Mountjoy Prison, a few streets away from where Senator Norris lives.