Seventy people packed into the Resistance Centre on October 26 to hear author Antony Loewenstein and Green Left Weekly journalist Rupen Savoulian speak about Israels role in the Middle East. Loewenstein described the wide range of responses to his new book, My Israel Question, including much positive feedback from Jews who expressed their support for his critique of the Israeli states repressive policies in the region.
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Three-hundred people participated in the Sydney Reclaim the Night march this year. Speakers included Karen Willis from the Rape Crisis Centre, Jane Brock from Immigrant Women Speak Out and Tegan Wagner, an 18-year-old survivor of a 2002 sexual assault by two men who were sentenced in April this year.
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NSW Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has called on the NSW Labor government to drop a current trial of taser stun guns after one of the weapons caused the death of a teenager in the United States on November 1. It is expected that the NSW government will announce before next Marchs state election that stun guns will be given to 7000 NSW police on general duties.
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On October 16, 250 people attended an early morning community picket outside Botany Cranes to support sacked delegate Barry Hemsworth. Sixty picketers returned the following day, blocking cranes from leaving the company’s yard until they were moved on by police.
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“I want to switch the lights on. I want people to see that there is a chance for a change.” This is how Aboriginal rap artist and social justice campaigner Jakalene X-treme describes what she wants to get out of the Socialist Alliance campaign for the March 2007 NSW state election. Jakalene was selected as an upper house candidate at the Socialist Alliance state conference on October 7.
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Youth Rock the Block, held in Redfern on October 14, featured young community performers expressing their culture and raising money for a local women and children dance studio. The day included singing in the Indigenous Darug language, original dance pieces, renditions of well-known Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal pop songs and hip-hop.
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In a referendum held on Sydney University on September 20-21, 90% of the 3000 participating students voted for the university to reduce its contribution to climate change by purchasing a minimum of 20% clean, renewable energy. Currently the university uses 52 million kWh of electricity each year, all of which is generated by coal-fired power stations.
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On October 2, the Sydney-based Edmund Rice Centre (ERC) released its Deported to Danger II report, examining the fate of people whose claims for asylum in Australia were rejected. The report found that 39 of the 41 were deported to danger. Two have been welcomed in New Zealand.
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Forums about the occupation of Palestine, film screenings, mock Israeli checkpoints and protest actions were held on university campuses in NSW as part of a week of solidarity with Palestine on October 9-13.
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A hunger strike will be held on October 20-21 in the Parramatta Activist Centre in solidarity with the “death fast resistance” that has been carried out by Turkish political prisoners since October 20, 2000.
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The NSW Labor government has been forced to partially back down on its plans to enforce the educationally unsound A-E report system.
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The last issue of Green Left Weekly published the story of gay asylum seeker Mohatar Hussein. Hussein fled homophobic persecution in Bangladesh to seek refugee status in Australia, only to be locked up in Villawood detention centre for the last two years. The Refugee Review Tribunal twice knocked back Husseins applications, despite having ample evidence that he had suffered persecution as an openly gay man.