John Menadue
Publisher and Editor
Callum Foote
Associate Editor
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Category Archives: Human Rights
Morrison’s selective attitude to human rights
Article 1 of the UN Charter declares objectives to promote and encourage respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion. But the Morrison government ignores the abuses of its … Continue reading
Posted in Human Rights, Politics
20 Comments
An Australian Muslim view on atrocities committed in Afghanistan
There are widespread calls for investigations into atrocities committed by foreign forces engaged in Afghanistan for almost two decades following Australia’s public release of a shocking report on Thursday 19 November 2020 alleging unlawful killings of civilians by elite Australian … Continue reading
Posted in Human Rights
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What it means to be a Palestinian child in Israeli military court
Each year 500–700 Palestinian children under the age of 18 are arrested, the majority of the children are tried in military courts that do not meet international fair trial standards.
Posted in Human Rights, World Affairs
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Susan Ryan. A formidable and compassionate advocate on human rights.
Susan Ryan, the minister for education in the Hawke Government and the pioneer who brought Australia its Sex Discrimination Act, died very recently. This is a remembrance from a friend.
Posted in Human Rights, Politics
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Dan Oakes, Witness K and Bernard Collaery
Dear Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, please demonstrate that the decisions whether or not to prosecute, and the decisions to continue the prosecutions of Collaery and K, are not influenced by possible political advantage, disadvantage or embarrassment to the Government. … Continue reading
Posted in Human Rights, Politics, Top 5
15 Comments
The strategic aspect of human rights: a tool of hegemony
With America’s fading hegemony, new regional powers with regional hegemonic aspirations are displaying their ideas about human rights; ideas based on their particular historical, cultural, political, and religious experiences.
Posted in Human Rights
7 Comments
Witness K and Bernard Collaery: An Unjust Prosecution Gets Even Worse
The prosecution of former ACT Attorney-General, Bernard Collaery, and his client, Witness K, continues to play itself out before the ACT Supreme Court. This is a legal fiasco of the first order. The prosecution should never have commenced.
Posted in Human Rights, Politics
3 Comments
In Defence of Nomadic “Mere” Hunter-Gatherers
We increasingly hear people say that traditional Aboriginal societies were “not mere hunter-gatherers”. Unwittingly, this phrase downgrades the mobile foragers who occupied Australia on the eve of colonial occupation of their territory (and for tens of millennia before). The yearning … Continue reading
Posted in Human Rights, Indigenous affairs
5 Comments
What happens when we treat aged care residents as “consumers” (Inside Story Sep 14, 2020)
Decades of misguided policy sowed the seeds of a human rights disaster.
Posted in Health, Human Rights
1 Comment
The Stalinist Trial of Julian Assange (CounterPunch Sep 7, 2020)
Having reported the long, epic ordeal of Julian Assange, John Pilger gave this address outside the Central Criminal Court in London on September 7 as the WikiLeaks Editor’s extradition hearing entered its final stage.
Posted in Human Rights
4 Comments
Police state governance and the civil liberties of an MP
In disdain for human rights and to display power, governments deploy police forces to harass or arrest citizens, and then justify their actions with claims about the influence of foreign forces.And it’s happening right now in Australia.
Posted in Human Rights, Politics
4 Comments
Australia’s fathers day shame
On this coming Father’s Day I want to salute three fathers whose sons, who have not broken Australian law, were and are betrayed by the Australian government: Terry Hicks, John Shipton and Khalil El-Halabi.
Judicial independence: the Nazi or the Australian way?
In an age when the Parliament nearly always does the bidding of the elected government and in a country which, uniquely amongst democratic nations, has no Bill of Rights, the courts are vitally important as a protection against arbitrary power.
Posted in Human Rights, Politics
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Being old and disabled in the time of COVID
The Prime Minister has apologised for the number of deaths in residential aged care during the COVID disaster. But he hasn’t apologised for the large number of people in residential aged care who don’t need to be there.
Posted in Health, Human Rights, Politics
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‘Rage against the dying of the light’ in the way we treat elderly people
The alienation of elderly people from social life is abundantly evident in the impact of coronavirus on society as it exploits the vulnerable and defenceless.
Posted in Health, Human Rights
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Uighur Poets on Repression and Exile (NYRB August 13, 2020)
The shocking dimensions of China’s repression in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region are now beyond dispute.
Posted in China, Human Rights
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Are the ‘big four’ accounting firms above the law?
In 2004, the federal parliament passed the Age Discrimination Act, making age discrimination in employment, education and the provision of goods and services unlawful. But the major accounting firms seem to think it doesn’t apply to them.
Posted in Human Rights, Politics, Top 5
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Indian Australians: supporting Black Lives Matter will make us feel we belong
In The American Bazaar on 20-07-20 Revathi Siva Kumar asks: “Have the people from the land of Mahatma Gandhi done enough for the oppressed African Americans? How many of them stood in solidarity with the protesters against police brutality and … Continue reading
Posted in Human Rights, Indigenous affairs
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Time for ALL to think about race in Australia
Do Black lives matter in Australia? Race is surely this nation’s primal wound. But the actions of those with most power to lead or inspire this nation are not reassuring.
Posted in Human Rights, Indigenous affairs
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Lessons from the Cambodian genocide: 45 years on
Learning the biggest lesson of all from the Cambodian genocide – the need to make Responsibility to Protect (R2P) genuinely effective – means above all mobilizing the political will to make something actually happen when it must.
Posted in Defence and Security, Human Rights, Politics
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The Power of Attorney and abuse of the elderly
Australia has a long way to go and COVID is lifting the scab revealing how neglect and absolute indifference have exposed these communities of older people to an end of life nightmare.
Posted in Health, Human Rights, Politics
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‘I am exercising my rights as a citizen(of Israel) and they are treating me like the enemy’ (Plus61J Media 23th of July, 2020)
“I also want to build a better society, and that has to include caring, compassion, equality and peace with the Palestinians.”
Posted in Human Rights, Politics, World Affairs
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The dragon in the room next door
He’s one of China’s most high-ranking and experienced diplomats yet he was caught on TV squirming when confronted by video showing manacled men shunted onto trains. The prisoners were alleged to be Chinese Uyghur, a Muslim ethnic group.
Posted in China, Human Rights
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Prospects for refugees and migrants if the population bomb goes bust
The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) says that the UN projections up to 2100 for global population growth are about 2 billion too high, because fertility rates almost everywhere are dropping much faster than expected.
Posted in Human Rights, Immigration, refugees
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What is to be done with the Chinese in Oz.
“Men, or rather monsters, on horseback, armed with bludgeons and whips, with a fiend-like fury, securing the unfortunate creatures by taking hold of their tails and pulling their heads so that they came with their backs to the horse and … Continue reading
Posted in China, Human Rights
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Issues with the Chinese diaspora’s political participation
Australia’s public diplomacy agenda does not seem to have translated into concrete policies in regard to the Chinese diaspora, argues this excerpt from a submission to a current Senate inquiry.
Posted in Human Rights, Immigration, refugees
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It’s time to stop locking up 10-year olds
Australia still allows children as young as 10 years old to be arrested by Police, sentenced to prison by Courts, and locked in a cell. On 27th July, Governments around Australia will have the opportunity to change that.
Posted in Human Rights, Indigenous affairs, Public Policy
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Australia’s national security laws leave us on a similar path to Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s new national security laws are attracting well-deserved condemnation. It’s a pity that there hasn’t been greater recognition that Australia’s own national security laws share some common features with those in Hong Kong.
Posted in Defence and Security, Human Rights, Politics, Top 5
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Australia’s pro-Israel media fights facts and ends careers
The day after Scott Morrison set the date for the mid-May 2019 federal election, Labor lost one of its star women performers. International lawyer Melissa Parke, the Member for Fremantle, a shrewd “get” by Kevin Rudd back in 2007, announced … Continue reading
Posted in Human Rights, Politics, Top 5
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Moslem MP branded a terrorist. Is there a fair go?
Armed police and a media lynch-mob terrorised Labor Upper House MLC Shaoquett Moselmane, his family, neighbours and friends. His parliamentary rights, civil liberties, privacy and reputation have been trashed.
Posted in Human Rights
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