It took 76 years and one day since his abduction on the orders of Stalin during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), but on June 17 all parties of the Catalan left came together in Barcelona to recognise the contribution to the Catalan and Spanish working people of revolutionary fighter Andreu Nin.
At midnight on June 16, 1937, Nin, the general secretary of the Workers Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), was abducted by Stalinist agents outside the POUM鈥檚 headquarters.
970
Prominent human rights advocate, Julian Burnside, QC, was scathing in his assessment of both the major parties and mainstream media鈥檚 approach to asylum seekers in a public address at the invitation of the Townsville branch of Amnesty International on Jun 14.
Burnside told the audience that 鈥渂oth parties are trading in human misery in order to win or retain power鈥 and mainstream media have to stop spreading the message that asylum seekers are illegal.
For much of the past two years, Israel stood sphinx-like on the sidelines of Syria鈥檚 civil war.
Did it want Bashar al-Assad鈥檚 regime toppled? Did it favour military intervention to help opposition forces? And what did it think of the increasing visibility of Islamist groups in Syria? It was difficult to guess.
About 40 people gathered in Raintree Park, Darwin, to mark World Refugee Day on June 20.
Larrikiah woman June Mills opened the gathering with a rendition of Arafura Pearl, and an explanation of the Aboriginal practice of welcoming strangers to their land. Other speaker included Greens councillor Robin Knox, Tamil-Australian lawyer Kajaliny Ranjithkuma and Reverend Basil Schild.
A minute鈥檚 silence was held for the 62-year-old refugee from Afghanistan who was found dead at Darwin鈥檚 Wickham Point detention centre on June 15.
Sireen Khudiri is a 24-year-old Palestinian teacher, human rights activist and political prisoner. She studied computer science at the Open University in Tubas, on the West Bank.
Khudiri is an advocate of the rights of children in the Jordan Valley in the West Bank to have a decent education and has been active in non-violent campaigns against the abuses imposed by the Israeli occupation authorities.
Khudiri also writes to publicise the struggle of the Palestinian people for their rights.
Many protests took place last week. There were protests against government inaction on the climate emergency, against the mass sackings by a bank making record profits and a sad vigil for a 26-year-old Hazara man who died in an Australian immigration detention centre. More protests were also planned for refugee rights, Aboriginal rights and in solidarity with the new people's power movement in Turkey united around the defence of Gezi Park. This is not unusual in Sydney these days. There is a lot to protest about today but most of these campaigns are quite small.
Stop Income Management in Playford released this open letter on June 17.
***
We the undersigned call for the suspension of the federal government鈥檚 compulsory income management, expanded to Playford and four other sites as part of programs that began in July last year.
We believe compulsory income management is humiliating, unfair, and unlikely to improve quality of life for recipients or their children.
We note the lack of solid evidence that this policy achieves its goals, and fear this approach will be counterproductive.
Australian foreign minister Bob Carr is nothing if not committed to humanitarian causes. And anyone supporting humanitarian causes cannot be anything but especially concerned about the situation facing the people of West Papua.
And so it was that Carr bravely spoke out against the 鈥渃ruel鈥 forces oppressing the long-suffering Papuan people: the international solidarity movement with the Papuan people's struggle against Indonesian occupation and for self-determination.
Minetu Larabas Sueidat is a young Saharawi woman living in refugee camps in Tinduf in the south-west of Algeria. Western Sahara, the land of the Saharawi people, has been occupied by Morocco since 1975. In 1991, the United Nations brokered ceasfire between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front that supposed to include a referendum on self-determination, which has still not occurred.
About 400 people filled the Fitzroy Town Hall for the launch of the 鈥渢rains not toll roads鈥 campaign on June 13.
The Yarra City Council organised the launch to advocate for a rail line from the CBD to Doncaster Hill, as well as to oppose the state government鈥檚 proposed East-West road link.
Edward Snowden said on June 17 that it was as a compliment to have former US vice President Dick Cheney call a 鈥渢raitor鈥 for leaking classified information from the National Security Agency. Sowden, who has been charged with espionage by US authorities, made the comment in a June 17 live web chat with investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald hosted by The Guardian.
When I asked Margarita Windisch, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Wills, to explain why she became an activist, the answer was simple.
She said, 鈥淟ife is very political, like it or not. So it鈥檚 better to get into the fray and fight for what we want and what the planet needs than to leave it up to a small rich minority who will put their bank accounts before humanity. That鈥檚 what I decided to do anyway and have never looked back.鈥
- Previous page
- Page 2
- Next page