Another day and another serious allegation: A former Serco employee at Curtin Detention Centre says treatment of detainees by some staff members was “outrageously brutal” and they were bullied constantly. Seven asylum seekers were flown from Curtin and put in isolation on Christmas Island on Tuesday night because of increased tensions at the remote centre,…
Showing all posts tagged human rights
BDS isn’t akin to Nazi Germany and damn those who say so
My following essay appears in New Matilda today: Equating the BDS movement with Nazism is both offensive and outrageous. So why aren’t members of the Jewish community speaking out on this, asks Antony Loewenstein Joseph Stalin changed his name and so did New South Wales Federal Greens MP Lee… Rhiannon. Stalin, writes Alan Howe, executive editor…
KBR is company that needs investigation and yet officials love ’em
KBR is a leading contractor that operates in America, Australia and across the world. Its human rights record is constantly found wanting time and time again and yet governments continue giving them contracts. That’s privatisation on crack. Read this and weep: The skirmishing has not yet subsided in the high-profile suit brought by Jamie Leigh…
One Australian politician who rightly sees Israel as rogue state
Well, that’s my words, not his, Labor MP Doug Cameron, but his comments on this week’s ABC TV’s Q and A were rare for a mainstream politician: Look, I think the issue of Israel and Palestine is huge in terms of trying to get world peace. I think Israel have had a massive amount of…
Romance of Hamas dwindling in Gaza?
When I was in Gaza in mid 2009, life was difficult for the residents due to the Israeli and Egyptian imposed siege. Outright hatred for Hamas was rare. Times may be changing: A budding middle class in the impoverished Gaza Strip is flaunting its wealth, sipping coffee at gleaming new cafes, shopping for shoes at…
Australia’s future is not ignoring human rights in the region
My following book review appeared in yesterday’s Sydney Sun Herald newspaper: There Goes the Neighbourhood Michael Wesley (New South Books, $32.95) Australia’s insecurity in the Asia-Pacific region is legendary. Over decades prime ministers and commentators have urged a close relationship with Washington while remaining open to romance with leading powers such as China to buy…
Murdoch is a man of upstanding virtue, says Murdoch man
Surely quote of the week: Mr Murdoch has never asked any journalist to do anything improper. Unless, of course, by “improper” you mean bomb Muslim countries in the name of “freedom”.
Private companies doing rather well in anti-immigration wave moving across world
Disaster capitalists look for ways to make money from misery, crisis or fear. The growing wave of anti-immigration sentiment sweeping the world suits such companies just fine. It’s an area I’m investigating for a forthcoming book and this New York Times piece perfectly captures the mood in Britain; the dangerous nexus between government rhetoric, firms…
Jews have a choice over Palestine and silence equals complicity
Roger Cohen has been writing in the New York Times for some time about the responsibility of Jews not to remain silent in the face of Zionist occupation and violence. It’s a rare voice in the American mainstream. His latest missive, while dismissing boycotts as apparently morphing into anti-Semitism which ignores the failure of the…
Breaking news; Afghan Hazaras are human beings still being oppressed in their country
I’ve just received this message from a refugee activist in Perth, Western Australia. It’s a release from the… Coordination of Hazara Refugees in Curtin immigration detention centre, a remote camp away from public view.… Freedom It is known to all and history has also proven that Hazaras have always and systemically been target of national, religious…