Inspired by the extraordinary physical-theatre production called Honour Bound playing at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne until 1 October 2006, I here reproduce Guantánamo Bay detainee David Hicks’ affidavit describing his treatment while in US detention: DAVID M. HICKS, being duly sworn, deposes and says: 1. I am David M. Hicks, a Petitioner in 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 […]
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 […]
There are the moral and legal arguments in favour of human rights, which ought to be enough, but, let’s face it, sometimes it helps to come up with self-interested reasons for abusers to cease and desist and for governments to protect and promote. And in this geo-political clime, ‘national security’ is leverage par excellence. Here’s […]
Vying for the honour of the first human rights treaty of the 21st century is the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. After 25 years of work, the text of the draft convention has been passed by the UN Human Rights Council and now awaits adoption at the General Assembly […]
Eleven years after Europe’s largest mass murder since World War Two, there is the prospect of justice for the victims and survivors of the massacre of over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in the UN ‘safe haven’ in Srebrenica. The trial of seven former Bosnian Serb officers began last month at the International Criminal Tribunal for the […]
They did it. Negotiations of the UN ad hoc committee concluded successfully late on Friday with an agreed text to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Convention will be presented for adoption by the General Assembly in September. Says Committee Chair Don MacKay: “This marks a great day for the UN […]
Indian architect Miloon Kothari has been UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing since 2000. He has just concluded a visit to Australia to assess compliance with human rights obligations in relation to housing. Since ratifying the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1976, Australia has been obliged to fulfil […]
After 5 years of negotiations, there’s a race to find agreement among the UN’s 192 member nations on a treaty to protect explicitly the rights of people with disabilities in time to have it adopted at the next meeting of the General Assembly in September. Writes the UN’s Thomas Schindlmayr, who suffered a permanent spinal […]
I heard David Hicks’ defence lawyer, the affable Major Michael (Dan) Mori, speak in Melbourne today and (updating a previous post) he mentioned that Hicks’ British citizenship was revoked shortly after it was granted. Mori is pressing to have it restored. Mori emphasised the importance, in so politicised a case, of the Australian public (and […]
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