Indymedia Australia | News and views from the progressive grass roots.

Another suicide attempt at Nauru Detention Centre

Submitted by Gerry Georgatos on Thu, 25/10/2012 - 10:57am

An Iranian asylum seeker on Nauru attempted to hang himself on Tuesday night. He was rescued by guards and fellow detainees. This is the fourth attempted suicide on Nauru since the start of the Gillard government's Pacific Solution 2.0.

Meanwhile the number of hunger strikers on Nauru is also growing.
Asylum seekers on Nauru told the Refugee Action Coalition that there
are now 6 or 7 people on hunger strike, at least one of them now for
14 days. “More people are joining the hunger strike,” they said, “We
think there will be more day by day.”

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September 28, 2013 - John Pat Day shall be a national remembrance with thousands marching

Submitted by Gerry Georgatos on Thu, 25/10/2012 - 9:59am

Gerry Georgatos
Image courtesy Margaret Bertling
John Pat, who was killed by off-duty police officers in Western Australia's Roebourne in 1983 will be remembered in a National John Pat Day next year. Marches and rallies will take place in every major city and in many towns across the nation. It will be 30 years since September 28, 1983 when his life was extinguished during a brutal beating by an inebriated racist police officer. Last week The National Indigenous Times visited Roebourne and met with John Pat’s mother, Mavis Pat.

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Australia

Western Australia

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The Judge is wrong - Tell it to Malala, to Soraya, to the many dead and tortured

Submitted by Gerry Georgatos on Tue, 23/10/2012 - 10:07am

Judge Stephen Scott during sentencing of an Iranian-Australian (to 14 years) for his role in assisting Asylum Seekers to our shores (others mistakenly ill-define this as 'people-smuggling') said that there were greater risks for Asylum Seekers fleeing by boat than there are in if they remained in the country they were fleeing from.

The sentenced man was jailed for his part in several voyages in assisting people to Asylum, one which tragically ended in the 2010 Christmas Island disaster where thereabouts 50 people drowned.

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Prime Minister Julia Gillard

Australia's cluster munitions shame

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 22/10/2012 - 3:01pm

October 21, 2012 - By Michael Mullins, Editor of Eureka Street - Reposted here by their kind permission

After Australia was elected a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council on Friday, Foreign Minister Bob Carr said: 'It's the world saying "we see Australia as a good country, a fine global citizen".'

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Prime Minister Gillard on the call for Treaty: “THERE WILL BE NO BITS OF PAPER!”

Submitted by Gerry Georgatos on Sun, 21/10/2012 - 4:49pm

Gerry Georgatos - (courtesy of The National Indigenous Times - nit.com.au)
“There will be no bits of paper,” said Prime Minister Julia Gillard, as Acting PM, on December 28 2009 in response to a call for a Treaty by SA’s Kaurna Elder and national CEO of the Aboriginal Political Party, Lynette Crocker.

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Australia

South Australia

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Nauru - Governments normalising racism while people suffer and die - "there is the smell of death here"

Submitted by Gerry Georgatos on Sun, 21/10/2012 - 11:35am

Gerry Georgatos
The veils and layers of racism are myriad – a trickle of humanity flees from persecution and horrific conditions, from civil strife, to our shores and Australian Governments react with racism, fall into the trap of justifying their racist actions, deeds and words and then normalise the racism and stereotype peoples.

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Elder appalled by UN vote

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 19/10/2012 - 6:57pm

Toowoomba, 19 October 2012 - - Aboriginal Elder and activist Michael Ghillar Anderson says he’s incredibly disappointed that Australia has been successful in its bid for a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Mr Anderson, the last surviving founder of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra and leader of the Euahlayi Nation, says he’s surprised that the UN’s member states have failed to see that Australia continues to be, under law, a colonial state of England.

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Last ditch Aboriginal effort to block UN Security Council seat

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 17/10/2012 - 7:04pm

17 October 12 - - An Aboriginal sovereignty movement is making a last ditch effort to stop Australia getting a seat on the UN Security Council, where voting begins tomorrow (Thursday).

Michael Ghillar Anderson, Chair, Interim National Unity Government, Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia and Leader of the Euahlayi Nation, has sent the letter below to all UN Ambassadors in New York.

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Understanding Brian Butler and Lateral Love

Submitted by Gerry Georgatos on Fri, 05/10/2012 - 1:59pm

William Brian Butler was born 13th September 1938 at the Bagot Detention Centre in Darwin, Northern Territory

My mother Emily Anne was born Annie Lawrie and my grandmother Eliza Gordon was born Lady Wilson and are of the Aranda tribe and my grandfather Toby is of the Luritja tribe from the Uluru and Areyonga areas.

My tribal name is Jangala.

Nana Eliza Gordon and her sister Nana Mabel Smith, my mother Emily Ann Gordon and her sister, my auntie Mavis Webb were taken from their homeland at Altunga east of Alice Springs in central Australia.

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CLIMATE of DEATH - justice denied means more will die

Submitted by Gerry Georgatos on Sat, 29/09/2012 - 4:23pm

CLIMATE of DEATH - justice denied means more will die, by Gerry Georgatos (courtesy of the National Indigenous Times - nit.com.au)

"We have to get rid of racist cops. I don't want to dwell on the past but I have grown up bitter," said Nyungar Elder Ben Taylor. Mr Taylor is on the mark when he says, "They have been killing our people for two hundred years."

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