A row erupted here yesterday over a police ban on traditional Aboriginal women doing as they have done for 70,000 years -- dance topless in public.
Aborigines are furious that a group of traditional Aboriginal women were moved on by police, including an Aboriginal officer, from a public park in Alice Springs last week because they were dancing without their tops.
The women pointed out that dancing topless is part of Aboriginal culture and millions of people around the world have seen them dancing like that on television, such as at the opening ceremony for the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
The women, from the remote Aboriginal community of Papunya near Alice Springs, were practising the traditional ceremony ahead of an exhibition performance in Sydney.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) commissioner Alison Anderson said she is considering an urgent, formal complaint to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
Anderson, ATSIC's only female commissioner, said she would defy authorities to dance topless at a ceremony in Alice Springs this afternoon.
"This is part of our law, this is part of our culture, this is what makes us Aboriginal," Anderson told ABC radio.
"They were just starting to paint the young girls up when two police officers approached them on motorbikes and one happened to be an Aboriginal.
"One would have thought that APCO [Aboriginal community police officers] get employed to teach white police cultural stuff. This is really insulting that an Aboriginal man approached a group of Aboriginal women.
"These women have been at the forefront of land rights, native title."
The Central Land Council, which represents traditional owners, called on the local authorities to reconsider the ban and for an immediate apology from police.
"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," CLC chairman Kunmanara Breaden said.
"Just a few weeks ago, the Warumungu ladies welcomed the [Adelaide-Darwin] train to Tennant Creek -- dancing without their tops -- and everybody loved it.
"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 stood by their officers' actions.
Acting Commander Southern Region Trevor Bell said police had yet to receive a formal complaint.
"While police are sensitive to cultural issues which arise from time to time, we support the actions of one of our members to move on [the women]."
He said any member of the public was entitled to pursue a complaint through the proper channels.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS