Utoo Radio with Other News Sources - September 23, 2024 - Aboriginal elder Jim Everett-Puralia Meenamatta has been issued a fresh warrant for his arrest after refusing to appear in court.

Everett, 81, was supposed to appear in court on Monday to face charges over anti-logging action by the Bob Brown Foundation in Tasmania.

He claimed that the Australian law does not apply to him and that Aboriginal people have never made any agreements to be citizens.

Former federal Greens leader Bob Brown defended Everett, stating that First Australians never ceded the country and logging of native forests is illegal.

Everett was arrested and charged with trespassing in March over an anti-forestry protest in the Styx Valley of the Giants in southern Tasmania. He has been banned from entering Forestry Tasmania's permanent timber production land, which constitutes over 800,000 hectares of public forest in the state.

Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre campaign manager Nala Mansell called for the trespass charge to be dropped, stating that white people's power over Aboriginal people should have some flexibility.