A protest against the opening night of the Israeli Film Festival went ahead in Sydney despite a successful police gag application.
Palestine Action Group organised the peaceful public assembly to draw attention to Israel's occupation of Palestine.
Anti-racism
Protesters took to the streets of Melbourne on August 16 to condemn human rights abuses by Saudi Arabia and to call for the release of Shia cleric Ayatollah Nimr Baqr al-Nimr, who has been sentenced to death by crucifixion and beheading for calling for religious freedom in the kingdom.
Saudi Arabia is both an absolute monarchy and a theocracy. The regime promotes a Wahhabi interpretation of Sunni Islam, notorious for narrowly defining Islam and intolerance toward other beliefs.
The release of up to 150 children under the age of 10 from residential detention is not a humanitarian move by the government, in case you were wondering.
Immigration minister Scott Morrison claimed that issuing bridging visas to 150 children and their families to live in the community was a “dividend of stopping the boats”.
“Hands up! Don't shoot!”
This slogan was taken up by community protesters right after the murder of 18-year-old African American Michael Brown by police in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9.
Brown had his hands up in surrender and shouted “Don’t Shoot!” when a white cop shot the unarmed teen six times.
His body was left lying on the ground for four hours before the police had it picked it up. This callousness further angered the Black community, who make up about 70% of the small town.
I was walking towards Sydney's Verona Cinema – where the pro-Palestine protesters were holding a peaceful protest, despite heavy police intervention, calling for a boycott of the Israeli Film Festival that was being launched there – when a man in a suit shouted at me: “How many heads did you chop today?”
What the hell???
The reason for this ridiculous taunt was that I was walking beside an activist from Jews Against The Occupation who was wearing a keffiyah scarf in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Dozens of artists, musicians and writers from around the world have signed the open letter below, such as hip-hop artist Boots Riley and music journalist and Red Wedge Magazine editor Alexander Billet. It is reprinted from Red Wedge Magazine, where the full list of names can be found.
* * *
Independent media organisation Your World News published the following open letter to the United Nations on August 21.
***
August 21, 2014
Dr. Ivan Šimonović
760 United Nations Plaza,
New York, New York 10017,
Ebola victims women
United States
Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, United Nations
Dear Dr. Šimonović,
In New York, "Peoples Power Assemblies" and their allies called an emergency anti-police brutality demonstration on August 18. It came amid ongoing national protests against the police killing of unarmed Black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, and the police killing of Black man Eric Garner in New York on July 17.
Demonstrators march demanding an end to police violence and the racial profiling. The photos below are by photo journalist Edward Leavy. You can see more of his photos here.
The Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoplke's of Our America (ALBA) released a statement on August 19 expressing its solidarity with the African descent communities of Missouri and with the familiy of Michael Brown, the unarmed teenager shot dead by police on August 9.
ALBA is an anti-imperialist political and economic bloc formed by Venezuela and Cuba in 2004 that now also includes Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, St Vince and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica and Saint Lucia.
Israel uses cinema to shore up its carefully manufactured international image as an enlightened “beacon of democracy in the Middle East” – a world away from the fanaticism of the settlements, the separation wall, the checkpoints, and the siege and butchery of Gaza.
Film festivals like the Israeli Film Festival are an attempt to culture-wash Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. The goal is for the international public to see Israel as a civilised country committed to peaceful, artistic pursuits – not as the warmongering power oppressing an entire people, that it really is.
Since 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by an unidentified police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, the majority Black city just outside of St Louis has been rocked by protests against a system that sees the lives of young Black men as disposable.
The response of authorities has been to flood the town with hundreds of police from dozens of neighbouring cities and towns, decked out in riot gear, and armed with assault weapons, attack dogs and militarised vehicles for "crowd control".
I am proud to join more than 250 Jewish holocaust survivors and descendants of survivors in condemning the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.
Our statement of solidarity (published below) calls for "An immediate end to the siege against Gaza" and a"full economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel".
We believe that "never again", the often-repeated lesson of Hitler's holocaust, "must mean never again for anyone!" -- especially the Palestinians.
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