Good on those brave souls raising the issue of privatised asylum seekers. In a real democracy, we would be able to visit people technically under our care: Protesters have knocked over a fence at the Curtin Detention Centre near Derby [in Western Australia], with as many as 40 defying police orders to stay away from…
Showing all posts in June 2019
American attempts to understand post 9/11 world muddled and criminal
The evidence, via Wikileaks, just keeps on coming: The documents also show that in the earliest years of the prison camps operation, the Pentagon permitted Chinese and Russian interrogators into the camps — information from those sessions are included in some captives’ assessments — something American defense lawyers working free-of-charge for the foreign prisoners have…
Wikileaks reveal how Hicks and Habib were abused in our name
The cases of two former Australian Guantanamo Bay prisoners, Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks, have received fresh oxygen after the release of their files by Wikileaks today. I’ve extensively covered them both over the years (Habib and Hicks) and one thing stands out; the sheer dishonesty of Western defenders of the policy and the callous…
This is what the Palestinian Authority is good at; flying first class
This Newsweek profile/interview with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas simply shows an elite Palestinian elite utterly out of touch with Palestinians on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza. The focus isn’t on ending the occupation or stopping daily Zionist incursions into Palestinian territory. This Palestinian leadership has become drunk on Israeli and American largesse;…
Occupation stories from deep inside normal Palestinian lives
Life in Palestine is often transmitted to the West by people who don’t live there, merely passing through. Father Peter Bray, the Vice Chancellor of Bethlehem University, has regularly written missives about the reality under occupation. Here’s his latest: Easter Sunday 24th April 2011 Again I send special greetings on Easter Sunday from here in…
How America really feels about those chained in Guantanamo Bay
A place of torture, deprivation, lack of judicial oversight, a gulag and utterly deplorable. Welcome to the US empire: Al-Qaeda terrorists have threatened to unleash a “nuclear hellstorm” on the West if Osama Bin Laden is caught or assassinated, according to documents to be released by the WikiLeaks website, which contain details the interrogations of…
Arab officials invited to British royal wedding
The Angry Arab expresses the appropriate response: They are asked to bring buckets of blood from their victims. Here’s the list.
Insider’s view of Libya’s unlikely revolutionaries
UK Guardian journalist Chris McGreal – whom I know and respect from his fine reporting in Palestine and South Africa – writes about the latest revolution; Libya: Few revolutions have been more inspiring. After years of reporting uprisings and conflicts driven by ideology, factional interests or warlords soaked in blood — from El Salvador to…
Asylum seeker anger explodes across Australia (while Serco ignores humanity)
What do we expect when we treat people like animals to be locked up indefinitely while our too-few-officials manage the problem, often receiving “intelligence” from the very regimes from which people are fleeing? A number of asylum seekers are continuing a hunger strike into a second day at the Curtin detention centre in Western Australia’s…
Serco’s rhetoric and reality in Australia vastly different
I’ve reported over the last months the very difficult situation for staff and refugees at Sydney’s Villawood detention centre due to federal government bungling and Serco mismanagement. The Australian reported my comments today about the latest uprising in Villawood. Welcome to Australia’s dysfunctional (and entirely avoidable) asylum seeker “crisis”. In light of these troubles, it’s…