By Sonia Nair. Human rights’ stories centred on child protagonists have become increasingly prevalent, as writers delicately trace the exploitation of their civil liberties and the ensuing acceptance and desensitisation that accompany these atrocities in a self-perpetuating cycle of poverty, deprivation and barbarism. Sudanese writer Majok Tulba did it in Beneath the Darkening Sky with […]
There has been some progress towards achieving due process for Australia’s “legal black hole” refugees.
Armed violence kills more than half a million people each year, small arms being responsible for a great proportion of these deaths. As Stephanie Koorey recently noted in Inside Story, while small arms and other conventional weapons do not cause wars, they do contribute to the “outbreak, intensity and duration of conflict”. As a consequence, […]
By Sonia Nair. “People smugglers are engaged in the world’s most evil trade and they should all rot in jail because they represent the absolute scum of the earth. People smugglers are the vilest form of human life. They trade on the tragedy of others and that’s why they should rot in jail and in […]
By André Dao As we head to the September election, we can be sure that the political rhetoric surrounding asylum seekers will only get worse. Just yesterday, the Liberal Party posted an ad on social media that casually linked boat arrivals with street crime in Western Sydney – despite the fact that of 12,100 asylum seekers released […]
By Sienna Merope Australia’s current mandatory detention policy not only breaches our legal and ethical obligations, it is also a colossal waste of money. Mandatory detention of what the Federal Government likes to call “Irregular Maritime Arrivals” was first introduced in 1989. Under the policy, all asylum seekers who arrive by boat are put in […]
By Jessica Szwarcbord In our second review of human rights in the media we look at Victoria’s new trial plan on how to deal with “aggressive beggars”, asylum seekers arriving in numbers more than double this time last year, and rock art at risk in the face of uranium mining. A new trial by the […]
By Athena Rogers. When the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975, millions of Cambodian men, women and children were forced into the countryside where, if they survived starvation, disease and the brutality of the Comrades, they were forced to tend the rice fields day and night. Patricia McCormick’s Never Fall Down recounts the story of […]
By Jessica Szwarcbord. Paula Gerber and Melissa Castan, of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, have pulled off an editorial feat. They have birthed a five-hundred-and-fifty-five page monster and managed to make her a kind one. Contemporary Perspectives on Human Rights Law in Australia is a more interesting read than the typical law textbook […]
By Sam Ryan. Welcome to our first monthly review of human rights in the media – what’s being reported and how? To kick off we take a look at coverage of children self-harming in detention and Geert Wilders’ visit, as well as minority representation on Australian TV. Children self-harming in detention On 18 February the Darwin […]
By Reynah Tang. This article is part of our February 2013 focus on Religion and Human Rights. Together with the Law Council of Australia, the Law Institute of Victoria strongly supports the consolidation of Commonwealth anti-discrimination laws. The enactment of the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012 [Bill] should create a more consistent, efficient and effective regime […]
By Rose Hunter. I should start with the disclaimer that I’d never heard of the “West Memphis Three” before I saw this film, nor of the documentary series that told their story, the Paradise Lost trilogy. However, this meant that the documentary style and revelations in the film were all the more convincing when delivered as […]
