On March 8 at the Brisbane Activist Centre, 30 people attended a forum to discuss the Aboriginal movement in Australia and indigenous struggles in Bolivia and Venezuela. Sam Watson, Aboriginal rights activist and Socialist Alliance member, spoke about recent developments over the Palm Island killing of Mulrunji and how the case has galvanised the whole of Aboriginal Australia. He said it has renewed activism within the community and made Aboriginal people aware of the broader support for their struggle.
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Four Queensland University of Technology students were arrested on March 1 for expressing their political opinions on campus.
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Four Queensland University of Technology students were arrested on March 1 for expressing their political opinions on campus.
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BRISBANE On February 13, 600 people attended a public meeting at the Brisbane Institute to hear Canberra-based Australia Institute executive director Clive Hamilton speak on the recently published book Silencing Dissent: How the Australian government is controlling public opinion and stifling debate, which he co-edited with UNSW politics lecturer Sarah Maddison.
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“We have just spent the most exciting year of our lives residing in Venezuela. It’s the heartland of the most important radical political upheaval of our time, and centre of the project for socialism in the 21st century”, enthused Jim McIlroy who, along with Coral Wynter, spent 2006 in Caracas reporting on the Bolivarian revolution for Green Left Weekly.
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Queensland Aboriginal activist Phil Perrier died on January 26 after struggling with cancer for several months. A ceremony for Phil was held on February 2 at Sorry Place on Jagara nation tribal land in Brisbane’s West End.
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One-hundred people gathered at Brisbanes Riverside Centre on January 27 to discuss Indigenous self-determination and the United Nations draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is expected to be ratified this year.
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“It must never again be the case that a death in custody, of Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal persons, will not lead to rigorous and accountable investigations and a comprehensive coronial inquiry.”
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The goal of socialism is alive; we have seen the future in revolutionary Venezuela, Australian activists Coral Wynter and Jim McIlroy told a public meeting on January 26. The two have recently returned from a year in the capital, Caracas, reporting on events for Green Left Weekly.
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A major victory has been won by the Aboriginal movement in Australia. The Queensland attorney-general’s department has decided that Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley will be charged with manslaughter over the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee. Mulrunji, an Aboriginal man, died in police custody on Palm Island in 2004.
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The struggle for justice for Palm Island man Mulrunji who died on November 19, 2004, in a police watch-house from horrific injuries within one hour of being arrested is growing.
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On January 18, the Australian ran a story on a leaked report commissioned by the Peter Beattie Labor state government on the shocking living conditions for Aborigines in Queensland (see accompanying article). Green Left Weekly asked Sam Watson, Murri leader and member of the Socialist Alliance, about this and the ongoing struggle for justice for Indigenous people in Australia.