Aboriginal fury over topless ban
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A dancer of the Wik tribe performs outside Parliament in Canberra in this file photo.
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SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Aborigines in central Australia are furious after police interrupted a traditional dance featuring topless women, saying they will file a formal complaint to an anti-discrimination body.
A group of Aboriginal women from Papunya, a remote community near Alice Springs, were practicing a dance in a public park last week ahead of a performance in Sydney when police asked them to stop, the commissioner of an elected Aboriginal council said.
"They were just starting to paint the young girls up when police officers approached them on motorbikes and one happened to be an Aboriginal (community police officer)," said Alison Anderson, a senior representative of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.
"This is really insulting that an Aboriginal man approached a group of Aboriginal women. This is part of our law, this is part of our culture, this is what makes us Aboriginal," she told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio Friday.
In traditional Aboriginal society, there are often strict rules preventing members of the opposite sex viewing one another's ceremonies and dances.
Anderson said she was planning a formal complaint about the dance ban to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
When the commission receives a complaint it attempts to conciliate between the two sides, but if unsuccessful the Aborigines could seek to file charges in the federal court under Australia's 1975 Racial Discrimination Act.
The Central Land Council, an Aboriginal representative body, called immediately for police to apologize.
"This is part of our culture and thousands and thousands of people around the world have seen Aboriginal ladies dancing without their tops, on television, theaters and many public occasions," chairman Kunmanara Breaden told reporters Friday.
"This issue needs some common sense and the minister for police should be ringing his workers now and telling them to stop being stupid and grow up."
The police said they hadn't received any complaints and defended the officers' actions.
"While police are sensitive to cultural issues which arise from time to time, we support the actions of one of our members to move the women on," said acting Commander Southern Region Trevor Bell.
Copyright 2004 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
