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Tom — not his real name — became a “person of interest” after taking part in the G20 protests in Melbourne last November. This softly spoken 24-year-old, a postgraduate student at Sydney University, is one of the latest victims of the police-state laws that seem designed to intimidate activists from organising, or attending, protests.

OSLO — On May 23, 43 organisations signed a letter to the Moroccan government demanding an immediate end to its attacks on Sahrawi students. Since early May, Moroccan police have been on an offensive against Sahrawi students at colleges and universities throughout Morocco and Western Sahara. Dozens of students have been beaten, arrested and detained and there have been reports of sexual abuse and harassment of victims in hospital. On May 9, Sultana Khaya, while peacefully calling for the release of fellow students, was brutally attacked by police, leaving her blind in one eye. The violence is also disrupting students’ final preparation for June exams. The letter called on the Moroccan government to release the arrested students, guarantee the Sahrawi students’ physical safety and freedom of expression, prosecute those responsible for the violence, and “address the underlying legitimate grievances of the Sahrawi students by respecting human rights in occupied Western Sahara and allowing for a free, fair and transparent referendum on independence in the occupied territory”.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) could not be clearer: “The right to strike is one of the essential means available to workers and their organisations for the promotion and protection of their economic and social interests” (1983).

A few months ago, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton would have seemed the least likely Democratic presidential candidate to lead a congressional charge to repeal the authority of Congress bestowed in 2002 upon George Bush to wage war on Iraq.