It seems I’ve upset a man who rather likes Zionist occupation and dislikes my recent ABC piece on the UN Palestine bid and BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] against Israel. In this week’s conservative Spectator magazine, a column by Rowan Dean, headlined, “Three words you’ll never hear from Loewenstein and his BDS pals”, rehashes every…
Showing all posts tagged human rights
Two, vastly different ways to report on asylum seekers
Today’s Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph in Sydney leads with this “exclusive”, deliberately designed to make readers angry towards these supposedly greedy refugees: Buying cigarettes and tobacco for immigration detainees is costing taxpayers more than $1.4 million a year. While the federal government spends millions on anti-smoking campaigns, the cost of keeping up detainees’ habits costs about…
The ongoing pain of Iranians to find a better life without the mad mullahs
A new Iranian film, Asghar Farhadi’s Nader and Simin: A Separation, captures the painful moment: The grim irony at the heart of Farhadi’s film is that the angst and perplexity are the fruit of a “sacred” republic of ideals. Here is the signal failure of the ideological state that Ayatollah Khomeini set up thirty-two years…
Global launch of “On Utoya: Anders Breivik, right terror, Islamophobia and Europe”
6.30pm – Wednesday 26 October 2011 – Upstairs at the Norfolk Hotel in Sydney 305 Cleveland Street. Cnr of Cleveland and Walker Streets. See a map of the location here. We are appreciative that the book will be launched by: Lee Rhiannon, Greens Senator, Australian Parliament Antony Loewenstein, Independent freelance journalist and author of My…
A man out to save young, innocent lives in Asia
My following book review appeared in last Sunday’s Sydney Sun Herald newspaper: The Grey Man John Curtis (Macmillan, $34.99) Al-Jazeera reported in 2008 that the child sex trade in Cambodia was rampant, fuelled by local interest and Western tourism. In 2007, Cambodian authorities arrested only 21 people for sex crimes with children and many brothels…
British government happy to redraft law to protect Israeli war criminals
Electronic Intifada reports: Legal mechanisms developed after the end of the Second World War to more easily prosecute war criminals are now being taken off the books to preserve Israeli impunity from… accountability. In the aftermath of the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes an outraged international community demanded justice — a demand that resulted in the…
Washington happy to arm thugs, despots and crooks (yet still talk democracy)
Really: American arms merchants enjoyed a dominant year in 2010 as the United States was responsible for selling more than half of all weapons worldwide. Although U.S. arms exports actually declined last year, compared to 2009, the dramatic drop in global arms deals resulted in American suppliers controlling 53% of the market (up from 35%…
Australia is world leader in terrorising refugees with Serco
This feature in the New York Times yesterday is devastating; a thorough examination of the realities in Australia, America and Britain of using unaccountably thuggish firms, such as Serco, to imprison asylum seekers while governments get “tough” for a public allegedly baying for blood and secure borders. It’s all a sham, of course, with no…
Another day and yet more misery caused by Serco
This week two media reports that highlight the mental anguish caused by the Australian government contracting Serco to “manage” its refugee crisis. This story on Radio National Breakfast deals with the remote centre in Leonora, with woefully under-trained or untrained Serco staff having to deal with traumatised asylum seekers. On ABC AM, Australia’s Human Rights…