Human Rights
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Challenging the “Uyghur genocide narrative”
The “Uyghur genocide narrative” is falling apart and Jaq James, an Australian socio-legal research consultant is one of the main architects of the collapse. Continue reading »
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Australia and the suspended U.N. Inspection
It always helps to have your own house in order before criticising another’s. With other nations, Australia has in recent times been a constant critic of the human rights record of numerous nations, particularly that of China. However, it was Australia itself who last month was subject to a critical report from the U.N. Committee Continue reading »
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Last week, a NSW court jailed me for 15 months for a peaceful climate protest. Hear my story
If you are reading this, then I have been sentenced to prison for peaceful environmental protest. I do not want to break the law. But when regular political procedure has proven incapable of enacting justice, it falls to ordinary people taking a stand to bring about change. Continue reading »
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Australia excoriated over refusal to allow UN torture committee to visit places of detention
Australia is a party to the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Pursuant to the terms of the Convention, the UN has established a Sub-Committee for the Prevention of Torture (SPT). The Committee’s mandate is to prevent torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. It pursues that mandate through visits to member states. Member states are obliged Continue reading »
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The Guardian could help Assange by retracting all the lies it published about him
The Guardian has joined The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País in signing a letter from the five papers which collaborated with WikiLeaks twelve years ago in the publication of the Chelsea Manning leaks to call for the Biden administration to drop all charges against Julian Assange. This sudden jolt of mainstream Continue reading »
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Enough is enough for Albanese on Assange: our allies may respect us if we say this more
The Prime Minister’s surprise revelation that he has raised the case against Julian Assange with US officials and urged that charges of espionage and conspiracy be dropped opens up many questions. Continue reading »
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Women on Death Row in Singapore: how gender discriminations create a ‘double punishment’
Women on death row in Singapore face a stark reality of isolation, harassment and intimidation. Singapore’s enthusiastic application of the death penalty, particularly, for minor drug offences, has recently garnered the spotlight after Singapore have executed at least 11 men since March 2022. Continue reading »
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Joy and a troubled conscience at the Qatar World Cup
I will be watching some games – but I will do so with a bad conscience! Continue reading »
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Sending a 13-year-old Indonesian child to an Australian adult prison
Sentencing 13 year old children to adult jail is injustice of the highest order. On some lists Australians are world leaders in shame. Like locking up and brutalising children as Four Corners has shown – and not only our own. We’ve treated Indonesian kiddies just as badly. Continue reading »
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School education: designed to fail?
Education, more properly learning, has been subject to numerous inquiries and reforms. In Australia and elsewhere the policy debate is framed in the context of school and preparation for employment, a job. Intervention by governments over the last 50 years has been substantial and mostly unproductive. Continue reading »
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Ethiopian Civil War and its manufactured humanitarian crisis
The brutal internal conflict between Ethiopian national forces under the leadership of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has inflicted untold suffering on millions of innocent people. Continue reading »
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What about the Taiwanese?
What you think of the story in the Indo-Pacific, connecting the US, Australia, China and Taiwan, depends on how you start telling it. Try the top line of both international human rights covenants: on civil and political rights, and economic, social and cultural rights, respectively. “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of Continue reading »
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The Albanese reset: Stopping boats while treating onshore asylum seekers decently
In his message for this year’s World Day of Migrants and Refugees which is entitled ‘Building the future with migrants and refugees’, Pope Francis says: ‘No one must be excluded. God’s plan is essentially inclusive and gives priority to those living on the existential peripheries. Among them are many migrants and refugees, displaced persons, and Continue reading »
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Asian Media – Rule of law declining internationally
In Asian media this week: Cambodia retains sorry legal status Continue reading »
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The costs of cruelty: Egypt profits, Israel colludes, Gazans pay
To enter the large open prison known as the Gaza Strip, hundreds of Palestinians travel daily from Cairo to Rafah on the Egyptian Gaza border. A car journey of 450 kms through the Sinai desert, in summer temperatures hovering around 40C, takes at best seven hours and must negotiate numerous Egyptian military checkpoints. Continue reading »
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A murder with US collusion to reflect upon
On the 17th of January, 1961, the first elected Prime Minister of newly independent Democratic Republic of Congo, was assassinated with the direct involvement of the Belgian government and collusion of the United States (Damian Zane, BBC, 20/06/2022). It is a damning indictment of the European and American claim to human rights and democratic values. Continue reading »
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War crimes whistleblower McBride faces life sentence: Must watch interview!
Last week, the moral fibre of Australia’s political and judicial system was put to its latest test when war crimes whistleblower David McBride was put on trial. He faces up to 50 years in prison. Watch McBride tell his remarkable story here. Continue reading »
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There is no hope in a Voice to Parliament
The Voice to the Australian Parliament provides no hope and no future for First Nations imprisoned by ongoing colonialism. It will not work towards de-colonisation in Australia. In practice it will support colonial decision making which affects Aboriginal lives in the distant metropolis of Canberra. Continue reading »
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Australia’s problem with torture
Casting a keen eye over the human rights obligations of a state is tantamount to rummaging through untended, mouldering laundry. Often, the promise to wash such neglected items has been delayed or postponed. The reasons are often many, and not always insensible. And whose right is it to go through such things anyway? Continue reading »
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Ethiopian, Eritrean atrocities in Tigray: who cares, it’s an African war
Fighting and famine in Tigray is described by the London Observer as ‘the most lethal anywhere in the world.’ Continue reading »
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How Israel practices apartheid
Between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, Israel has built and reinforced a single regime of rule to ensure Jewish Israeli supremacy and domination over the indigenous Palestinian people, who are politically and geographically fragmented into different categories in which they have lesser, little, or no rights in comparison to Israeli Jews depending on Continue reading »
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Australian media think that only China has a human rights problem
Australia has a mixed relationship with the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Irritation, dismissal and even the occasional openly hostile comment, have registered. But in 1994, the Toonen decision filtered through the Australian legal process, leading the federal government to remove archaically noxious provisions in the Tasmanian criminal code criminalising sodomy. Continue reading »
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Mexico honours Julian Assange
Julian Assange’s family, his father John Shipton and his brother Gabriel Shipton, have returned from Mexico where they were invited to attend the celebrations of Mexico’s Independence Day by the Mexican President, Andreas Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is affectionately known as AMLO from his initials. Continue reading »
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The best journalists are persecuted and despised
The best western journalists are overwhelmingly despised while the worst are acclaimed millionaires. Western civilisation is built on lies, dependent on lies, powered by lies. Don’t seek widespread approval. It’s worthless. Continue reading »
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The Sabra and Shatila massacre is personal
These last few days, as they do every year, weigh heavy on every Palestinian’s heart. For me, and my family, the heaviness is also personal. Continue reading »
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UN report on Xinjiang is depressing in more ways than one
‘May” is such a wonderful word in the English language. It can support perhaps the deadliest of accusations but can simply be justified by “Hey! I said ‘may’, didn’t I?” Continue reading »
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Modi’s India gets a free pass on Human Rights – but not China!
The people of Jammu-Kashmir are at a critical juncture in their struggle for justice. Despite the fact that they live in the most militarised region on earth, experience shocking human rights abuses, and have been given a genocide warning by Genocide Watch, few Western countries have acted. It’s time for the Australian government to speak Continue reading »
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Uyghurs and the Bachelet report
As UN high commissioner for human rights Michelle Bachelet has released the report of her office into human rights concerns in China’s Xinjiang province. Amongst other things it accuses officials in the province of torturing Uyghurs detained for suspected dissident crimes. Continue reading »
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It’s all political: Julian Assange appeals his extradition
Julian Assange’s legal team has taken its next step along their Via Dolorosa, filing an appeal against the decision to extradite their client to the United States to face 18 charges, 17 based on the odious US Espionage Act of 1917. Continue reading »
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Pakistan floods -The wealthy pollute the world and the poor suffer
Global capitalism is ‘a giant poverty producing machine, masterful in its methods of pitting the poor against the very poor or flinging crumbs to the wretched so that they dissipate their energy fighting one another.’ Continue reading »
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