Green Left Weekly has been flooded with pleas for help and support from several men on hunger strike in the Nauru detention camp. The two letters below are from 35-year-old Iranian Omid Sorousheh, who has been refusing food the longest, and Amin, who was on his fifth day of hunger strike on November 26.
Both men say they will refuse medical treatment until Australia accepts they have a right to asylum.
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Dying asylum seeker sends plea to world
Australia
This statement was released by the Sydney Uni Anti-Racism Collective on November 29.
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At 12:30pm today a dozen student refugee activists occupied Immigration Minister Chris Bowen's electoral office demanding that he act now to save the life of Omid Sorousheh, the Iranian hunger striker on Nauru now on his 49th day of hunger strike.
Hunger-striking refugee 35-year-old Omid Sorousheh's desperate plea to be recognised as a refugee in Australia has been treated with contempt by immigration minister Chris Bowen, despite clear indications that he was close to death.
Omid has been on a hunger strike for 50 days on November 30. That day it was reported he had been finally airlifted from Nauru and returned to Australia.
Local campaign group Illawarra Residents for Responsible Mining (IRRM) have been told to pay $40,000 before their case challenging the expansion of a coal mine will be heard in the Land and Environment Court.
Coal-mining company Gujarat are seeking approval to expand their coal mine in the residential area of Russell Vale, a suburb of Wollongong. The expansion will mean the company will mine seven times more coal a year compared to current levels, increasing the output to 3 million tonnes a year.
Green Left Weekly spoke to Evan McHugh, the co-organiser of the first Equal Love rally in the Albury-Wodonga area that took place on November 17.
Why did you organise this protest?
The Refugee Action Collective Victoria released this statement on November 27.
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Omid, an Iranian asylum seeker, 35 years old has been on hunger strike for 47 days including four days of refusing water
A statement from asylum seekers on Nauru late last night (26/11/12) said:
The World Bank delivered a brutal warning about the dangers of runaway climate change and called for rapid action to cut greenhouse gas emissions in a recent report. But don’t expect the bank to take its own advice.
About 600 people rallied in Melbourne to defend Gaza on November 23. They gathered to protest against Israel's siege and to remember the victims of Israel's bombing attacks that killed 120 people that week.
Indigenous community leader Robbie Thorpe said "Australia is based on stolen land. It is part of the global genocide network that supports Israel."
Photos by Ali Bakhtiarvandi:
Groups campaigning to stop the roll out of coal seam gas (CSG) mining have slammed federal resources minister Martin Ferguson for his attack on two Southern Cross University scientists who released results of their research into the CSG industry’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The federal government has begun “trials” of a controversial new plan for compulsory income management in five places around Australia. This policy began in the Northern Territory as part of the "NT intervention" in 2007, but is now expanding into other states and territories.
Labor is making a full-scale assault on the right of refugees to seek protection, as it continues to fill the Nauru detention camp, forcibly deport hundreds back to Sri Lanka before hearing their claims for asylum and keep thousands in perpetual limbo in the name of “deterrence”.
Now, the federal government has revealed its plans for the almost 8000 people that have arrived seeking asylum by boat in recent months. The plan is worse than the extreme temporary protection visas introduced by the former John Howard Government.
Environment groups The Wilderness Society, Environment Tasmania and the Australian Conservation Foundation signed a “forest peace deal” with the Forest Industry Association of Tasmania on November 22.
Still Wild Still Threatened and the Huon Valley Environment Centre released the statement below on November 23.
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