Human Rights
-
Occupation: are we indifferent to the cruelty imposed on Palestinians?
The actions of Israeli Defence Force troops last Wednesday — entering the Jenin refugee camp and killing nine Palestinians — seemed inexplicable from the brief reports I heard on the ABC and SBS. Continue reading »
-
Explaining Israel’s oppression: cruelty, evil, apartheid and colonisation
On January 27, Israeli forces kill 10 Palestinians in Jenin, including two youths and an elderly woman. The following day a lone Palestinian gunman shoots dead seven Israelis as they leave a synagogue in a settlement in East Jerusalem. Continue reading »
-
90 seconds to midnight: what the Doomsday Clock means in 2023
We are now at the most dangerous moment in history. We face multiple existential crises that are not under control, but growing more acute, while failures of leadership become more damning. We have no time to lose. Continue reading »
-
Zionist protesters in Tel Aviv forgot their Palestinian neighbours
The classmates of 7-year-old Rayan Suleiman sit near his body during the boy’s funeral in Tuqu, a village south of the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Continue reading »
-
Fear to criticise Israel fosters racism and apartheid
An extremist Israeli government insists that apartheid policies will be permanent, that the 2022 slaughter of Palestinians will be repeated, that settler stealing and violence will be ignored and international law derided. In these circumstances, surely no Australian citizen, let alone a politician, could justify such policies? Continue reading »
-
Killing Times: Indonesia grapples with legacy of government-organised mass murder
When is a purge a genocide? When a young Australian researcher finds solid evidence that’s long eluded international scholars, proving the minds of millions have been poisoned with lies. Continue reading »
-
Cricket Australia’s ‘Afghanistan problem’
In cancelling its scheduled March series of three one-day matches against Afghanistan, Australian Cricket takes us into familiarly problematic territory. It brings to mind the battle, fought for two decades against South Africa’s apartheid regime, where cricket and rugby boycotts played a significant role. Continue reading »
-
Neocons and the Ukraine Coup – a repost from Feb 23, 2014
Exclusive: American neocons helped destabilise Ukraine and engineer the overthrow of its elected government, a “regime change” on Russia’s western border. But the coup and the neo-Nazi militias at the forefront also reveal divisions within the Obama administration, reports Robert Parry. Continue reading »
-
The deadliest year for West Bank Palestinians since the second Intifada in numbers
Middle East Eye analyses figures of record Israeli violence in 2022 in which the majority of victims were civilians, including children and journalists. Continue reading »
-
As crimes of apartheid worsen, the West’s exceptionalism toward Israel must end
Israel’s new administration will be one that does not conceal its intention to preserve and further entrench the apartheid tyranny over the Palestinians, while fully cultivating Jewish supremacy as a political and legal credo. Continue reading »
-
A tale of two genocides: Xinjiang and Khalistan
In how we respond to allegations of genocide, there are double standards and hypocrisy in Washington, London, Ottawa and Canberra. Continue reading »
-
Democratic Socialism in Australia: reverse privatisation, embrace neutrality
Capitalism and “liberal democracy” are failing and destroying our world. In this, the second in a three-part series, we explore how Australia can halt the decline by reversing privatisation of public utilities and embracing a foreign policy based on neutrality. Continue reading »
-
Best of 2022: 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 »
-
Nobel recipients’ humanity is in stark contrast to Putin’s bestiality
During days preceding a festive period, the world watches the contrast between the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize recipients’ hopes for humanity and the bestiality of a Russian President’s war in Ukraine. Representing their respective civil society organisations in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, three brave individuals have been rewarded for their human rights-based opposition to the Continue reading »
-
Indonesian sex ban: One law for us, another for them?
It seems Indonesia’s new bonk-ban laws are discriminatory and racist. Bad news if you believe legal systems should be impartial, but good tidings for ‘bule’ (white skin foreigners). So sayeth a governor. Continue reading »
-
11,000 children killed or maimed in Yemen: UN report
“Ultimately,” said the UNICEF chief, “only a sustained peace will allow families to rebuild their shattered lives and begin to plan for the future.” Continue reading »
-
It’s time to seek the human story of Syria
The mainstream media has presented a picture of Syria that is cartoonish, brutal and ugly. Instead of a bohemian woman artist or a women’s choir singing from the Tales of Hoffman (or millions of other potential ‘human stories’), a bloody, exclusivist ‘revolution’ has been exalted by journalists in a way that entrenches patriarchy and ignores Continue reading »
-
Dr Paul Collins and population ethics
A new discussion paper on population ethics written by Catholic historian Paul Collins on behalf of Sustainable Population Australia is as radical as it is worthy. Continue reading »
-
Thinking differently about peace and security, lessons from Costa Rica
World-wide threats to life on earth imply a desperate need to think differently about peace and security. Costa Rica teaches how. Continue reading »
-
The crisis in youth justice?
If ever we need a federal government to intervene in a human rights crisis in this nation, then it is now. There are almost daily headlines about the appalling abuse of children in detention centres and the preparedness of state governments, and the Northern Territory to cynically and callously play the ‘law and order’ card Continue reading »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »