CANBERRA, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations human rights panel has rebuked the Australian government over its treatment of Aboriginals, local media reported on Saturday.
At the release of a report from the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in Geneva of Switzerland, one of the authors said discrimination has become "embedded" in the Australian way of life.
Committee member Patrick Thornberry lamented the fact that the Australian constitution lacks any entrenched protection against racial discrimination, which had led to a kind of structurally embedded discrimination in the way the Aboriginal intervention was being handled in the Northern Territory.
"That may be a certain disappointment, if I may say so, that this issue particularly to do with Aboriginal communities - it could have been handled in a more sensitive and culturally sensitive way," Thornberry told ABC Network on Saturday.
The 18-member committee of independent experts on racism told Australia to do more to integrate recent immigrants from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and other Muslim countries and tackle racism against Indigenous people in Australia.
Suggestions included negotiating a treaty with Indigenous Australians, giving them better access to legal aid and tackling laws in the Northern Territory that discriminate on the basis of race.
