Israel has emerged as one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists, according to a newly released census compiled by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. (more…)
Tag: Human Rights
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Transcendence: Searching for light amidst horrors in Ukraine and Gaza
Is there any light in the Christian message in the face of the horrors in the Ukraine and Gaza? Apart from wishing peace on Earth does Christian belief actually change anything? (more…)
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Julian Assange: The state of play at the end of 2023
All sides of Australian politics have sustained pressure on the United States to drop the charges against Julian Assange. While the Cheng Lei experience might provide an instructive lesson on how to negotiate with what is a political charge, this may have to wait until after the 2024 election. (more…)
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Psychological torture to children in Gaza is genocide priming
Is there is a tipping point in Gaza when genocide will be unstoppable? The answer is tied to how long massacres run amok, and how deeply torture saturates children’s minds and imaginations. Each day nations pontificate over a permanent ceasefire is a massacre-torture day in Gaza. (more…)
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Is this what Australia has become?
On the eve of International Human Rights Day when invited to support the existing international rules-based order the United States’ leadership failed. Not only did their veto prevent a cease-fire in Gaza, but this powerful nation could not even offer an alternative path to protect humanity. Does the United Nations matter to the Australian Government? Will Prime Minister Albanese have the courage to confront Australia’s friend and ally about its diplomatic intransigence? (more…)
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Suffer the little children to come unto me…
Well, not so if they are Palestinian children that Israelis keep killing time and time again. It is part of what Israelis calls ‘mowing the grass’. (more…)
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Executive overreach in Australia has reached the levels of an autocracy
Last week Australians were forced to suffer through the spectacle of their parliament being dragged to a new low as the Coalition hammered the Labor government for not being better prepared for the prospect that the Commonwealth might lose the most recent High Court case about whether indefinite detention of refugees is unlawful or unconstitutional. (more…)
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America, why don’t you get your bloodied hands off Hong Kong
Weaponising human rights against the city and mainland China only becomes more farcical when the US and its close allies are busy violating them. (more…)
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These things don’t happen in a vacuum
Hamas’ Oct 7 attack on Israeli citizens was horrific. There are 2 things to bear in mind – firstly it didn’t happen in a vacuum and secondly the scale of the retaliations, the punishment, far outweighs the crime. (more…)
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West must acknowledge Israel’s rights are not untrammelled
Everyone’s talking points have in bold type – ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’. This simplistic American militarist jargon is treated as if there was an untrammelled right. International law hasn’t emerged to facilitate war, but to constrain it. (more…)
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Ending Jewish Israel’s domination a “re-humanising act”: UN Special Rapporteur
Invoking a “shared humanity”, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese called for a rehumanisation discourse in the Israel/Palestine conflict, in which ending Jewish Israel’s domination would be a re-humanising act for Jewish Israelis as well. (more…)
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Legal case set to expose Australia’s facilitation of war crimes
Is the Albanese government aiding and abetting the Israeli military and intelligence services in actions in Gaza which are serious violations of international human rights laws? (more…)
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Israel’s moral power ebbing away in a human rights catastrophe
Israel’s strategic choices, as Israelis see it, are rather like those sometimes argued for Australia. It wants powerful friends but cannot take them for granted. Ultimately it must depend on itself, if needs be alone. Surrounded by deadly enemies, it must make the cost of conquest so high, and so uncertain, that invaders are deterred. All the better when one has nuclear weapons, because its enemies must consider whether, if the survival of the state is in question, Israel would use them, whether on the battlefield or in the cities of the enemy. (more…)
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Grim milestone: Civilian deaths in Gaza exceed those in Ukraine
The number of civilians killed by Israel in Gaza, in three weeks, has now exceeded the number of civilians killed by Russia in 19 months of the Ukraine war. How likely is it that Western mainstream media will deem this milestone newsworthy?
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Israel has “Form” and much of it is brutal
Albert Einstein once said that Palestinians (Jews, Christians and Muslims alike) lived in peace and worked together before the European Jews were sent to Palestine. He also said that if Jews could not co-exist peacefully with Arabs “then we have learnt nothing in 2000 years of civilisation”. (more…)
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US must curb Israel’s revenge instinct, end Palestinian suffering by wielding its power for peace
The world is appalled that the US has backed a war of vengeance by Israel on the captive Palestinian population. A US-led global peace process is critical to ending decades of violence in the Israel-Gaza conflict. (more…)
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Blindly supporting Israel, the West abandons the values it claims to stand for
Leaders of the US, Britain, Australia and Western countries, instead of learning from history, are failing to bear their responsibility for the creation of an Israeli colonial regime in Palestine at the expense of the Palestinian people. Despite the massacres, ethnic cleansing, aggression, wars, occupation and gross violations of international law committed by Israel since its inception, Western countries, especially the group of Anglo Saxon countries of the so-called “Five Eyes”, whom I call the Five Eyes plus Israel, continue with their policy of blind support to Israel, giving it a green light to continue its policy of illegal occupation with impunity. (more…)
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For Washington, the US-Australia alliance counts for less than nothing
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will have plenty to talk about when he meets with US President Joe Biden this week. The Middle East, China, AUKUS and submarines will no doubt dominate the agenda. But there is one matter in respect of which Mr Albanese should insist on a quick resolution. That is the case of Australian publisher and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. (more…)
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Australia joins allies in moral failure of historic significance
Blame for what has and will unfold in Gaza will be shared with Israel by those States, all acting with presumed impunity, which blindly support Israel’s violations of international humanitarian law. (more…)
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Genocide: Israel uses cover of Gaza crisis to Judaise “Area C”
An aside to what is happening in Gaza is events occurring in the West Bank, where there has been little focus. Reports in recent days have drawn attention to attempts by settlers – read the Israeli government – to “Judaise” Area C and to push Bedouins out of the West Bank. (more…)
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Gaza genocide exposes fundamental bias in the state-corporate news media
On BBC Newsnight, host Kirsty Wark listened to Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK, describe how six of his family members had been killed by Israeli air strikes. Wark reacted oddly: ‘I’m sorry for your own personal loss. I mean, can I just be clear, though, you cannot condone the killing of civilians in Israel, can you?’ This captures an essential element of western media coverage in the region. (more…)
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“Extreme escalation”: Hospital destruction an unconscionable war crime
The Medical Association for Prevention of War renews its call of last week for the Australian government to express in the strongest possible terms that Australia supports the application of the rule of law impartially and in all circumstances, and explicitly condemns violations of it not only by Hamas but also by Israel in the horrific war unfolding in the Middle East. (more…)
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You reap what you sow in Israel
“Freedom is never given. It must be taken.” (Ursula Le Guin) . You cannot be well in a home you stole. (more…)
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Saving Israel and Palestine through the UN
Following Hamas’s heinous attack on innocent Israeli civilians, senior Israeli military strategists are threatening the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. This would be another Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe), akin to the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and land in 1948. If Israel commits massive war crimes in Gaza in the face of global calls for restraint, Israel would put its fundamental national security at risk. (more…)
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Palestinian genocide: History whispers until it shouts
There is a genocide happening on our watch. Can we rally from the brink of despair? (more…)
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Palestine’s unending torment: A stain on the world’s conscience
Mainstream Western coverage of the recent Hamas foray into Israel and its aftermath has been marked by sensationalism, lack of historical context, and superficial moralising. (more…)
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100 years of ethnic cleansing: Quo Vadis Palestine
Israel has spoken of “erasing Gaza”. Don’t turn away. Stop. And think about what that might mean. (more…)
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Voices of women, life and freedom battle sadism in Iran
In Australia, in the 25th year of the award of the Sydney Peace Prize, attention has at last been turned to a country, Iran, ruled by fear. The award-winning Iranian born British activist and actress Nazanin Boniadi will receive the 2023 Sydney Peace Prize ‘for drawing attention to human rights violations in Iran, for lending a powerful voice to support for Iranian women and girls in their Women, Life Freedom Movement.’ (more…)
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Deafening silence as Israel kills over 320 children in Gaza
“Where is the outrage we saw when Israeli children were killed?” asked a co-founder of IfNotNow. (more…)
