Human Rights Day Protest stops traffic

11/12/2004

Evening peak hour traffic outside Flinders Street Station ground to a halt on Friday, December 10, as human rights supporters commemorated International Human Rights Day to drive home to Australians the denial of human rights to asylum seekers by the Australian Government. [Press release | Photos] According to Refugee Advocate Jack H Smit from Project Safecom "Human Rights Day in Australia leaves much to be desired".

The protest called attention to Sri Lankan Asylum seekers Facing Imminent Deportation. "Australians need to know about the denial of liberty, security and freedom of speech to these Sri Lankans, as well so many others seeking asylum in Australia," said Lauren Ireland from the Refugee Action Collective.

In Baxter Detention Centre Acts of extreme distress are spreading amongst Iranians in detention. At least 8 Iranians have sewn their lips together. The hunger strike is at a desperate stage as it enters it's second week. [ Full Report ]

In early December Refugee Activists in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne had their houses ransacked by Australian Federal Police and immigration officials, resulting in the arrest of two people without valid visas, and four people being summonsed to appear in court on charges related to identity fraud (identification for smuggling asylum seekers out of the country). Melbourne refugee activist Jerome Small said that for him it was a matter of why people helping desperate people were being treated as criminals. "And who are the real criminals when the Government locks up people until they are driven to starvation?"

[Baxter Watch | Refugee Action Collective (Vic) | Project Safecom | Brisbane Actionweb for Refugee Collaboration | Indymedia Migration Page]

Liberal and Labour unite to attack internet freedoms

10/12/2004

Australian internet users and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have seen a massive assualt on their freedoms in the last couple of days with the Liberal and Labour parties combining to support a bill bringing in harsh new copyright legislation and a Surveillance Devices Bill.

This development gives the government and copyright holders sweeping new powers to attack "potential" violations of copyright, goes further than is required by the US/Aus "free trade" agreement, and goes further than US Copyright law itself! The agreement also went well beyond what Australia had even signed up to in the highly criticised WTO agreement on trade related aspects of intellectual property rights, known as TRIPS.
Read more including speech by Greens Senator Kerry Nettle

The Surveillance Devices Bill regulates the use of surveillance devices (data, optical, listening and tracking devices) by law enforcement agencies and greatly expands the powers of electronic surveillance of individuals. It also significantly widens the circumstances in which they can be used and the types that can be used.

Assessment by Electronic Frontiers Australia | Internet Industry Association press release | Creative Commons | Pirate Pride

West Papua: thousands face genocide by Indonesian military

09/12/2004

from the newswire
As you read this, in the remote Highlands of West Papua, the Indonesian- occupied western half of New Guinea island, up to 15,000 Papuan refugees are huddling together to keep warm in caves or make-shift shelters on the frozen foothills of the glacier-topped Puncak Jaya -- at 5,000 meters high, the tallest mountain in Australasia. They are starving and terrified.

Sometime last week, they were herded into the mountains like cattle by Indonesian soldiers firing machine guns at them from helicopter gunships as they ran for their lives. For now, we can't be sure exactly how many Papuans have been shot dead, but we know the names of some of them. We do know that at least two elders, a church pastor, a woman and two children - unarmed, innocent civilians -- were gunned down in cold blood by Indonesian soldiers as they fled. [Full story (Nov 27)] [Attack on West Papuans]

[Eye-witness account from Puncak Jaya (Dec 2) | Message from Jungle (Dec 6) | Sydney IMC on West Papuan Independence Day (Dec 1)
Independent News Sources:
[Forum for friends of Peoples close to Nature | West Papua News]

Global Insights 5

08/12/2004

Global Insights is a video compilation of local and international news, actions and resistance. It is a show case of what people around the world are doing, in so many diverse ways, to stand up for what they believe in and to try to effect change.

Global Insights 5 focusses on the "war on terror", refugees and globalisation from the period 2001-2004 and includes action from Europe, South America, North America, Middle East, Australia and West Papua.

Global Insights 5 screens 7pm at Kaleide theatre, RMIT, Swanston st on Wednesday 15th December.

Access News and list of content | Ska Tv | Oceania Newsreal

Action Against War Profiteers

05/12/2004

On Friday December 3rd actions occurred in both Sydney and Melbourne against Kellog, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of the Haliburton corporation. The actions were to protest the obscene war-profiteering that KBR have engaged in during both the current war in Iraq and the global 'war on terror'.

Both KBR and Halliburton have benefitted massively from the war and occupation in Iraq. They have been awarded no-bid contracts worth US$7 billion by the US government. These contracts have been paid for through the sale of Iraq's oil.

In Melbourne ANZ offices were also occupied due to their complicity in the Iraqi occupation through their participation in the Trade Bank of Iraq.

Action Reports : Melbourne | Sydney

Occupation Watch | War Profiteers | Disobedience

Species biodiversity under threat by human impact

02/12/2004

Recently in Bangkok, the World Conservation Union conference released a Red List of Threatened Species. Estimates reveal a total of 15,589 species face extinction. One in three amphibians, like the Baw Baw frog from Mt Baw Baw, and almost half of all freshwater turtles are threatened, on top of the one in eight birds and one in four mammals known to be in jeopardy. In Australia land clearing is the biggest threat to Australia's wildlife.

In New Zealand, a prominent scientist has warned that large areas of the world may be rendered uninhabitable this century unless urgent action against climate change is taken.

[Discuss | World Conservation Union]

Eureka 150 years: Howard snubs Australian history

02/12/2004

"It really is a remarkable state of affairs when the Head of State of The Australian Commonwealth, John Howard, snubs a major historical event such as the 150-year anniversary commemorations of the Eureka Stockade" said Jack Smit of Project Safecom Inc.

Politicians and academics discussed Eureka and its meaning at the Releasing the SPIRIT of Democracy Conference at Ballarat University (Full registration cost $660). The high cost of the conference spawned a series of Alternative Democracy Forums and dialogue and a protest outside the conference in Ballarat.

The relevance of Eureka is made plain by Joe Toscano in a letter to the Age where he describes the incidents that contributed to the rebellion on Palm Island last week as being eerily familiar to the events that unfolded in Ballarat 150 years ago. A call has been made for an apology from the Victoria Police for their role in the Eureka Massacre in 1854.

[Reclaim the radical spirit of Eureka | Eureka Rising | Eureka Dawn Walk - Dec 5 | 2003 feature]

Death in Custody Sparks Riot on Palm Island

29/11/2004

Update Dec 1. Aboriginal leader calls for national action day | Police use stun guns and semi- automatic weapons on Palm Island

On the 19th November, on Palm Island, a community just off the east coast of Townsville, an Aboriginal man by the name of Cameron Doomagee was arrested, just over an hour and a half later he was dead in a police cell.

In response to the Coroner's autopsy report which found that the death was an accident hundreds of people rioted setting fire to the court house and other government buildings and storming and torching the police station.

The Island has been placed in a state of emergency and more than 100 police have been sent to the Island.

18 members of the Aboriginal community appeared in the Townsville Magistrates Court on Monday.

[ National Indigenous Human Rights Congress Statement ]
[ Indymedia feature | National Indigenous Times | BBC report ]

Peace Activist Acquitted

24/11/2004

from the newswire
Peace activist Pretam Kaur was today acquitted in the Melbourne Magistrates Court of criminal damage after she wrote the killing has started in red paint and placed red handprints on two statues outside the US Consulate in Melbourne last year. She also avoided a restitution bill of over $9000 for the alleged clean up costs.

The incident occurred in a spontaneous moment of grief upon Ms Kaur being told of the outbreak of war on Iraq on 20 March 2003. Ms Kaur had been maintaining a vigil with others outside the US Consulate in the hope that the war would not begin. When she was told that it had she took a pot of water based paint that she had been using to make protest signs and applied it to the statues.

Magistrate Hodgens who heard the matter found that damage had been caused by Ms Kaur’s actions but that she had not intended it. [FULL STORY]

[ Women For Peace | Peace Protestor Charged | High Noon for Haliburton ]

Minister Deported Sick Man Against Medical Advice

23/11/2004

from the newswire
Minister Vanstone has ordered the deportation of a man, diagnosed by Professor Patrick McGorry of the University of Melbourne, Department of Psychiatry, as suffering from a major depression and requiring treatment as an inpatient in a hospital. A previous attempt at deportation on 19/10/04, failed when the man became extremely distressed and threatened to harm himself. Malaysian Airlines have now refused to carry the man 'in spite of long and deep discussions with DIMIA'. [Full Story]

It now appears the man was deported by force on 23 November.

[Deported To Danger Report | Asylum Seeker Resource Centre | Refugee Action Collective (Vic)]