Popular concern grows for the wellbeing of refugees in detention, as over 700 asylum seekers on Manus Island enter their 8th day of hunger strike, and up to 200 are now suffering dehydration. Witnessing an outpour of reports detailing increasingly desperate acts of self harm, the Australian public stands up to say enough to the torture of refugees, and calls on the coalition government for compassion.
Civil Liberties
The Socialist Alliance condemned the massacre of journalists, cartoonists and others at and around the offices of the Paris-based publication Charlie Hebdo. However offensive anyone may have found some of the cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo, this act of brutal violence is not justified.
The Socialist Alliance has warned of a dangerous escalation of incitement of racial violence against Australia's Muslim communities in the wake of the tragic hostage incident in Sydney.
In an atmosphere of manufactured hysteria about “Muslim terrorists” in our midst, the Coalition government has introduced sweeping attacks on civil liberties in Australia.
On the evening of September 25, a 26-year-old women was brutally bashed by another women on an Upfield line train as it pulled into Batman Station in North Coburg, and then thrown from the carriage while the train was still moving. The assault was accompanied by racist and Islamophobic abuse directed at victim.
The only facts that the public know about the death of Melbourne teenager Numan Haider is that he was shot and killed by the police on September 23 and that two Victorian police officers were stabbed.
More than 800 police carried out simultaneous raids on houses in Sydney and Brisbane on September 18. Fifteen people were detained as a result, but only two were charged.
The latest raft of “anti-terror” legislation will severely limit civil rights and comes in the context of Australian forces being committed to a new war in Iraq.
For the fifth time since their election in September last year, thousands of Australians will take to the streets in protest against Tony Abbott Coalition's government.
Media reports about a deal being struck this week between the Australian government and Cambodia to resettle refugees from Nauru have been denied by Immigration and Border Protection Minister Scott Morrison. However the government has confirmed that negotiations towards a memorandum of understanding were continuing.
Australia has escaped recession for more than two decades, despite the impact of the Asian and global financial crises on the world's economies.
Indian feminist and socialist Kavita Krishnan was the keynote speaker at the People's Power in the “Asian Century” seminar in Sydney on June 7. The seminar was held as part of the Socialist Alliance’s 10th national conference over the weekend of June 7-9.