Nine refugees held in the Northern Immigration Detention Centre in Darwin staged a protest on top of a building in the centre鈥檚 compound on March 15 after they witnessed Serco guards assault another detainee.
The refugees 鈥 who are Rohingya people, an ethnic minority in western Burma 鈥 told refugee advocate Carl O鈥機onnor on March 16 that the protest was sparked by a physical assault on another Rohingya detainee.
鈥淥ne man was refused rice in the mess room,鈥 the refugees said. 鈥淥ut of frustration he broke a glass. He was then chased down and tried to escape from two Serco guards.
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As the United States and Britain look for an excuse to invade another oil-rich Arab country, the hypocrisy is familiar.
Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is 鈥渄elusional鈥 and 鈥渂lood-drenched鈥, while the authors of an invasion that killed a million Iraqis, who have kidnapped and tortured in our name, are entirely sane, never blood-drenched and once again the arbiters of 鈥渟tability鈥.
But something has changed. Reality is no longer what the powerful say it is.
Of all the spectacular revolts across the world, the most exciting is the insurrection of knowledge sparked by WikiLeaks.
Emboldened by the successes of Muammar Gaddafi鈥檚 forces in Libya, a number of Arab regimes have escalated crackdowns on pro-democracy protests while the world鈥檚 media was focused on the earthquake disaster in Japan.
With the exceptions of Libya and Iran, the governments brutally cracking down on their citizens have received minimal criticism from the West.
Calls for 鈥渞estraint on both sides鈥 obscure the fact that it is governments armed with weapons made in the West ruthlessly attacking mostly unarmed people.
This video is from a protest by homeless people on 14-4-11 in response to plans by the state government to sweep homeless people off the street during the October CHOGM summit.
After waiting many months for a decision regarding their visas, several asylum seekers held on Christmas Island received rejection letters on March 16 from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.
In the early hours of the next day, between 50 and 150 asylum seekers broke through iron gates and escaped the detention centre. Though the private Serco guards immediately tried to catch the escaped detainees, they were largely unsuccessful.
About 100 protesters gathered in Brisbane Square on March 18 to protest the repression of pro-democracy protesters in the Gulf nation of Bahrain.
Rallygoers chanted 鈥淔reedom for Bahrain! Stop the Saudi Arabian invasion.
Yunes Ali, a representative of the Bahraini community in Brisbane, welcomed the support from all who attended the rally, and declared that the democracy movement in Bahrain could not be divided into religious categories. 鈥淣o Shiites, no Sunnis. Only Bahrain,鈥 he said.
About 2000 mainly young Palestinians rallied in Gaza City on March 14. Waving Palestinian flags, they called on Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah to end their divisions, for democratic elections for the Palestinian Authority (PA), and for the end to Israel鈥檚 occupation of the West Bank and siege on Gaza.
Thousands more marching across Gaza the next day and 8000 people protested in Ramallah in the West Bank for the same demands.
On March 13, more than 100 people attended the first organising meeting of Stop CSG Illawarra, a residents鈥 group campaigning for a moratorium on coal seam gas mining (CSG).
Six activists arrested in Harare, along with 39 others, were finally granted bail on March 16 after a month in jail. The activists were arrested for attending a video screening of footage from the people鈥檚 uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.
However, the six need to raise US$12,000 to pay their bail 鈥 far more than they can afford. An appeal is being launched internationally to raise the funds needed to pay the activists鈥 bail (see below for details).
The bail conditions require the six to surrender passports and travelling documents. They must report three times a week to the police.
The Socialist Alliance and the Communist Party of Australia have released the following joint statement of left organisations and individuals about the March 26 NSW elections.
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The NSW Labor Party is facing a trouncing in the March 26 elections because of the problems that have arisen from the ALP鈥檚 corporate profits-first, "economic rationalist" agenda.
In the process, it has carried out a privatisation spree, most recently selling off our state's retail electricity assets for next to nothing.
Facing public anger and concern over the nuclear meltdown unfolding in Japan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced temporary shutdown of several nuclear reactors.
On March 12, more than 60,000 anti-nuclear protesters in the south-western state of Baden-Wuerttemberg formed a 45 kilometre human chain from Stuttgart to the Neckarwestheim 1 nuclear plant.
Smaller protests took place in more than 450 towns and cities across Germany, anti-nuclear organisation Irradiated said. More protests are planned for March 26.
The ability of real politics to focus debate is impressive. The climate movement has long debated what policy mechanisms can best combat climate change.
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