Human rights and community groups have condemned Acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack for comparing the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests to last week's deadly storming of the US Capitol, demanding he withdraw the "deeply offensive" comments.
Key points:
- Amnesty International called for Mr McCormack to be "condemned in the strongest terms"
- Labor has called the comments dangerous and disappointing
- A spokesperson for Mr McCormack says violence is condemned in all forms
Five people died in the insurrection on Capitol Hill, which unfolded after Mr Trump addressed thousands of protesters, repeating unfounded claims that the contest was stolen from him due to widespread election fraud and irregularities.
Mr McCormack, who is acting Prime Minister while Scott Morrison is on leave, was on Monday asked whether US President Donald Trump should be removed from office for fuelling the violent scenes.
"It is unfortunate that we have seen the events at the Capitol Hill that we've seen in recent days, similar to those race riots that we saw around the country last year," Mr McCormack told the ABC's RN program.
The death of George Floyd — a black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Mr Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes — prompted hundreds of protests across the globe against police brutality and institutional racism.
Mr McCormack's attempt to compare those protests with the US Capitol riots drew immediate outrage from Amnesty International, with the human rights organisation's Indigenous Rights Lead Nolan Hunter saying Mr McCormack "must be condemned in the strongest terms".
"The Acting Prime Minister must immediately withdraw his deeply offensive comments that compared the violent attacks on the US Capitol to the historic and important Black Lives Matters movement that swept the world last year," Mr Hunter said.
"To call the Black Lives Matters movement 'race riots' proves that the Acting Prime Minister ignored the incredibly important message that it shared."
The Aboriginal Legal Service also criticised the comparison, tweeting: "It's a disappointment (to say the least) to see the Acting PM mischaracterise our fight for justice as 'race riots'.
"Our demand that Black lives be valued and defended against state-sanctioned violence is in no way comparable to attempts to violently overthrow an election."
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Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers also weighed in, describing the comments as dangerous.
"It's been very disappointing to hear the acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack, try to draw some sort of similarity between Black Lives Matter protests and the insurrection we saw in recent days with the storming of the US Capitol," he said.
In a brief statement, a spokesperson for Mr McCormack said: "Violence is violence and we condemn it in all forms."
Last year, Mr McCormack came under criticism during an episode of Q&A, when he falsely claimed the second coronavirus outbreak in Victoria was because of a Black Lives Matter rally in Melbourne.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMicGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIxLTAxLTEyL21pY2hhZWwtbWNjb3JtYWNrLWNyaXRpY2lzZWQtY29tcGFyaW5nLWJsbS1wcm90ZXN0cy1jYXBpdG9sLXJpb3QvMTMwNDkzMjLSASdodHRwczovL2FtcC5hYmMubmV0LmF1L2FydGljbGUvMTMwNDkzMjI?oc=5
2021-01-11 18:44:00Z
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