Israel for decades. And Ronald Reagan loved apartheid South Africa.
Showing all posts tagged human rights
Why Macy Gray should not play Tel Aviv; occupation rules
Max Blumenthal has become one of the leading American Jewish voices against Israeli oppression.
Serco misbehaving and avoiding responsibility (as usual)
When a British multinational is being paid hundreds of millions by the Australian government to imprison asylum seekers, some kind of responsibility should be expected. Alas, these two examples below show that the company is either outsourcing key tasks to a volunteer company or involved in abuses in remote detention centres. One: When it was…
Being opposed to Australia dumping refugees in East Timor
We don’t want to be a post-colonial power (more than we are already): Refugee groups have called on the Australian government to scrap its proposal to build a “regional processing centre” in Timor-Leste. “The regional processing centre proposal was always about Australia avoiding its obligations to asylum seekers under the Refugee Convention,” said Ian Rintoul,…
Portrait of an Egyptian hero
He’s just one fine man. I met and spent time with Hossam elHamalawy in Cairo during the research for my book The Blogging Revolution. Thinking about this over the last week, I’m proud to have documented the then small but growing movement of web dissent in the US and Israeli-backed dictatorship. It was those seeds…
Rape of the third world continues apace in PNG
The toxic mix of Western multinationals, private security and a thoroughly poor nation: Private security personnel employed at a gold mine in Papua New Guinea have been implicated in alleged gang rapes and other violent abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Porgera mine has produced billions of dollars of gold…
How can one be non-partisan when discussing war crimes in Sri Lanka?
Curator of the Galle Literary Festival, Shyam Selvadurai, answers a host of questions about the event. Once again, it’s clear that our boycott call has placed necessary focus on Sri Lanka’s human rights abuses: Q: There were also reports of a panel on media freedom, which was eventually cancelled. What went wrong there? A: We…
Sri Lankan elites crave “normality” post Tamil massacres
The significance of the Galle Literary Festival statement that I signed recently is now clear; it’s caused massive debate at the event itself and forced the question of Colombo’s appalling human rights record to the fore: During a lunchtime session at the Galle Literary Festival, one isolated-looking teenager sat among the audience. He watched for…
Thanks for taking stand against Colombo’s bloody hand
Why political statements can matter: The main reason for the disappearance of a journalist is an investigation he carried out on the alleged use of chemical weapons by Sri Lanka forces, says his wife. Sandhya Ekneligoda, the wife of the disappeared political columnist and cartoonist Prageeth, says his husband went missing after he published a…
Lit Fest in Sri Lanka is making political statement
What is the aim of a petition challenging the human rights credentials of a literary festival? Especially one held in a police state such as Sri Lanka? To foster debate, outrage and decisions. One can’t be neutral in such matters. This story is therefore very encouraging: Does it make sense to defend freedom of speech…