Amnesty International called it "shocking and preventable." On 27 January 2008, Australian indigenous leader and land rights activist Ian Ward — "one of the last nomads born in the Gibson Desert" — died in custody.
The Warburton man was being driven 915km from Laverton in the Western Desert to Kalgoorlie for a mention in relation to […]
Adolf Hitler is said to have assumed impunity for his Final Solution with a rhetorical, ‘Who remembers Armenians?’ His dismissive reference to the 1915-18 genocide of some 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman empire overlooks the genocide of 750,000 Assyrians by the same regime.
The Christian population of the Middle East — from the Copts in […]
The highest international authority on civil and political rights has found Australia is violating the rights of a Bangladeshi asylum seeker detained for nearly seven-and-a-half years.
Danyal Shafiq, 34, was raised in an orphanage in Bangladesh. Fearing torture, harsh imprisonment or death at the hands of either Bangladeshi police or the Sharbahara Party, he fled to […]
Iraqi refugee Mohammed Sagar (pictured), the last person detained by Australia on the island of Nauru, is to swap Pacific heat for Nordic sleet — and freedom. Despite winning a court order forcing the Australian Government to reveal why this undisputed refugee is still imprisoned after more than five years, Sagar has been offered […]
Congratulations to Scott Parkin (pictured), Mohammed Sagar and Muhammed Faisal, who today won their bid to find out what the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation has against them. The Federal Court has decided that they are entitled to know the reason why, in Parkin’s case, he was thrown out of the country, and in the case […]
Australians are asked to trust their government. Despite evidence of government lies — in matters as grave as whether to wage war — Australians are expected to trust that the government knows what’s best for them and will act in their interests, all the while violating rights and withholding evidence.
Three recent stories illustrate the point:
Texan […]
UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, had this advice for governments at the UN High-Level Dialogue on Migration and Development held in New York this month:
Governments have to protect migrants against discrimination, racism and xenophobia, in particular by taking effective measures to protect migrants from human rights violations and abuse.
It is also vital that Governments educate the […]
Have you received a reply from Australian Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone?
I wrote to the Minister regarding the fate of Mohammed Moussa Nazaree and Yacoub Baklri, among others, and have received a reply from her Assistance Secretary (sic.), John Okely. His letter of 5 September makes no mention of Nazaree and Baklri, Afghan asylum seekers detained […]
The Back Pack Health Worker Team (BPHWT), a Thai NGO established by Burmese expats in 1998, provides primary health care and health education to rural and conflict-ridden areas of Burma. They have 70 teams of 2-5 health workers trying to meet the health needs of some 140,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the east of […]
A friend of mine has sent me some good news about girls in Afghanistan: they are for the first time playing competitive football in Kabul, at the Ministry of Defence sports field, no less.
Presenting a trophy to the Maiwand team, the UN Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan, Ameerah Haq, noted that five years ago, girls […]