As someone who believes in the responsibility of artists and intellectuals to take a stand against tyranny, this news is positive: Indian-administered Kashmir’s first major literature festival has been cancelled after local writers and artists said it would give the false impression that basic freedoms are allowed in the troubled region. The Harud literary festival…
Showing all posts tagged human rights
Who would like to provide PR for a brutal, US-backed dictatorship?
PR Watch has the news: Bahrian’s Sunni-led monarchy has hired the Washington, D.C. PR firm Qorvis Communications at a rate of $40,000/month to help improve its image after the Bahraini government, struggling to suppress a Shia-led protest movement, attacked the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders (DWB). The group offers medical care to injured protesters who…
This is Australia’s past and future?
My following book review appeared in last Sunday’s Sydney Sun Herald newspaper: The Protectors Stephen Gray (Allen & Unwin, $29.99) “Mainstream Australia is equivocal about the apology [to the stolen generations] at best.” It’s a provocative start to a work that aims to understand the motives of the farmers, politicians and public figures who took…
Climate change linked to rising violence and private firms will benefit
People will be insecure and demand “security”. Private firms will provide this, for the rich, of course. Climate change will barely be addressed, wild weather will only worsen but gated communities will become far more common in the Western world. Democracy Now reports: A new study has found that war is associated with global climate.…
At least one Australian politician stands up for Palestine
Bravo Lee Rhiannon and as always the Murdoch Australian is incapable of framing this movement as anything other than outright anti-Semitism: Greens senator Lee Rhiannon has again refused to back away from the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign, despite opposition from her leader, Bob Brown. Her comments came as a group of federal MPs…
Why Palestinian children rightly hate Israel
An occupying nation that loves colonisation of Palestinian land needs to continuously find new ways to humiliate the “natives”. Read on: The boy, small and frail, is struggling to stay awake. His head lolls to the side, at one point slumping on to his chest. “Lift up your head! Lift it up!” shouts one of…
PressTV interview on BDS, Palestinian rights and faux anti-Semitism
The debate around Israel/Palestine in Australia has descended into calling critics (and backers of BDS) Nazis. Yes, that dignified. And the Zionist establishment is leading the charge, completely undermining its argument that the memory of the Holocaust should be holy. For them, Israel must be protected no matter what, even if dead Jews must be…
BDS activists aren’t Nazis and neither are any mainstream leftists
Following my article this week damning the Jewish, political and media establishments for shamefully comparing BDS against Israel to Nazi Germany, I’m not alone in my concerns:
Concern for Tamils in Sri Lanka isn’t a new worry
A newly released Wikileaks cable from early 2007 shows how the US was allegedly worried about Colombo’s attitude towards Tamils from years ago and yet during its brutal civil war against the minority tacitly backed the bogus “war on terror” that saw tens of thousands of Tamils murdered. If only Sri Lanka had oil, like…