CERD/C/62/D/26/2002 page 2 Annex OPINION OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION UNDER ARTICLE 14 OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION sixty-second session concerning Communication No. 26/2002 Submitted by: Stephen Hagan (represented by counsel) Alleged victim: The petitioner State party: Australia Date of the communication: 31 July 2002 The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, established under article 8 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Meeting on 20 March 2003, Adopts the following: Opinion 1. The petitioner, Stephen Hagan, is an Australian national, born in 1960, with origins in the Kooma and Kullilli Tribes of South Western Queensland. He alleges to be a victim of a violation by Australia of articles 2, in particular, paragraph 1 (c); 4; 5, paragraphs d (i) and (ix), e (vi) and f; 6 and 7 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. He is represented by counsel. The facts as presented 2.1 In 1960, the grandstand of an important sporting ground in Toowoomba, Queensland, where the author lives, was named the “E.S. ‘Nigger’ Brown Stand”, in honour of a well-known sporting and civic personality, Mr. E.S. Brown. The word “nigger” (“the offending term”) appears on a large sign on the stand. Mr. Brown, who was also a member of the body overseeing the sports ground and who died in 1972, was of white Anglo-Saxon extraction who acquired the offending term as his nickname, either “because of his fair skin and blond hair or because he had a penchant for using ‘Nigger Brown’ shoe polish”. The offending term is also repeated orally in public announcements relating to facilities at the ground and in match commentaries.