Community Action Against Homophobia released the statement below on September 19.
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Community Action Against Homophobia (CAAH) express disgust at today's rejection of equal marriage rights by Australian parliament. Only 42 MPs supported the private members bill put forward by Labor backbencher Stephen Jones, while 98 MPs voted against.
Australia
An Islamophobic YouTube video called “Innocence of Muslims” has been blamed for sparking protests across the world, although the real causes are surely deeper. On September 15, a protest by Muslims in Sydney’s CBD was met with police repression. Since then, there has been widespread mainstream and social media condemnation of the protest, which has been dubbed the “Sydney Riots”.
Independent newspaper Green Left Weekly today slammed attempts by Liberal Senator Brett Mason in the Senate to inflame anti-Islam sentiment and intimidate a media outlet that opposes this.
Stop CSG Sydney Water Catchment released the statement below on September 18.
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The residents of Nattai, a township that overlooks Lake Burragorang — the source of fresh drinking water for residents of the city of Sydney and the lower Blue Mountains — have overwhelmingly supported a declaration that Nattai and Sydney Water Catchment be CSG Mining Free.
The local community will be celebrating this event during the National Week of Action at Lake Burragorang Lookout in Nattai on Sunday October 14 from 11.00am to 1pm.
Celebrated Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe whose landmark publication, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" documented the planned removal of 700,000 Palestinians from their lands in 1948, has written a new book "The Forgotten Palestinians".
In the book, and at this September 16 community meeting at Sydney University, Pappe reveals the situation for the Palestinians who still live within Israel's borders.
The Geelong Socialist Alliance released the statement below on September 18.
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The Socialist Alliance has announced today that they will endorse 55-year-old health and safety teacher, Sue Bull, as its candidate for Mayor in the Greater Geelong City Council elections, which take place on October 27.
Bull said: “I’ve decided to run because I can’t see that there are any candidates campaigning against corporate greed and putting the community and the environment first.
I was attending a small but engaging rally against internet spying on September 15, organised by the Pirate Party and others at Hyde Park North, when seven police cars and four-wheel-drives drove into the park and about 20 police officers got out. Protesting members of the Muslim community shouting “Allahu Akbar!”, marched into the park and police told us to hurry and pack up. More police ran, in phalanx formation towards the Muslim rally.
About 40 activists from the Refugee Action Collective Victoria and other refugee rights groups protested outside the Melbourne offices of Thai Airways on September 14. Thai Airways were used in the July 25 deportation of a Tamil refugee back to Sri Lanka. He underwent a 16-hour interrogation on arrival, after which he told a press conference that he withdrew his past allegations of torture at the hands of the Sri Lankan regime.
Refugee advocates rallied in Sydney and Melbourne in a snap response to the first group of 40 refugees flown to Nauru to be held indefinitely on September 14.
Protesters in Sydney rallied outside the department of immigration offices and heard Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) Sydney branch secretary Paul McAleer pledge to “stand side by side in solidarity” with refugees.
Forty Tamil asylum seekers were flown to Nauru overnight on September 13, marking the beginning of Labor’s “Pacific solution” and a return to offshore processing. The group on Christmas Island were reported to have been under guard of federal police and did not resist. An earlier High Court decision on September 7 rejected the right of asylum seekers to appeal against pending deportations. The court ruling also makes possible further forced returns of refugees to danger.
“RIP to the 2976 American people that lost their lives on 9/11 and RIP to the 48,644 Afghan and 1,690,903 Iraqi people that paid the ultimate price for a crime they did not commit. And the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who experience this everyday. Your 9/11 is their 24/7.”
The above quote that flashed across the social media last week captured a reflection of many people about the terrible collective punishment still inflicted on innocent people right across the Middle East and beyond for the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the US.
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