Features refugee panel with Hadi Hosseini (Hazara refugee and former detainee); Dianne Hiles (Chilout); Jay Fletcher (refugee reported for GLW and RAC activist); Choo Chon Kai (Socialist Party of Malaysia) + activist news on Coles, WikiLeaks, Observer Tree, GasiLeaks, and Lizards revenge anti-uranium action.
Anti-racism
US Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney generated a backlash with his claims in Jerusalem that the vast (20:1) disparity in income between Israelis and Palestinians can be explained by a superior Jewish Israeli culture and “the hand of providence” ― rather than by the systematic depradations of Israeli occupation on the economy of Palestinians.
The Olympics are a sporting and social phenomenon without parallel. The Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Olympics was watched by close to 1 billion people.
Viewers for individual events can be remarkable. The website Sporting Intelligence said 184 million people watched a live women’s volleyball match between China and Cuba at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. A further 450 million people watched part of it.
On July 25, Tamil refugee Dayan Anthony (formerly known as "Mr X" in Australia in an attempt to protect his identity from Sri Lankan authorities), was deported from Melbourne.
Police shot and killed a 25-year-old Latino man, Manuel Diaz, in Anaheim, California, in his front yard on July 21 Diaz was not armed.
Within hours of the murder, hundreds of angry residents took to the streets in protest. The cops attacked the demonstrators with clubs, pepper spray and bean bag bullets.
One protester was grabbed by a cop (who had his hand on his gun) for carrying a protest sign as he was walking toward the demonstration. He was charged with “jaywalking.”
Ray Jackson, President of the Indigenous Social Justice Association, speaks about on deaths in custody, shackling and tasers. Filmed by Peter Boyle for Green Left TV at a protest in Sydney on July 27 to mark the death in custody of Peter Clarke in the Northern Territory.
Neighbours watched in horror as police in Anaheim, California first shot Manuel Diaz in the back of his leg ― and then executed him with a bullet to the head in the courtyard of their apartment complex on July 21.
The Anaheim Police Department proceeded to terrorise residents who gathered to confront the cops about the murder they had just witnessed. Police responded by opening fire with rubber bullets and tear gas at a crowd that included young children.
Tens of thousands marched in June from 110th Street in Harlem down to billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s swank residence on 79th street in Manhattan.
The demonstrators protested the huge levels of police racial profiling and harassment in New York City, that has developed over the past decade.
The overwhelming majority of marchers were African Americans and Latinos. A multiracial contingent of LGBTI people also participated, reflecting another group singled out by the city administration.
It rarely takes very long into an Olympics for the myth that the games are above politics to be shattered. For the London 2012 games, the myth was smashed well before the games begun.
A series of incidents involving Australian athletes have shown that politics are at the heart of the games.
Despite winning the Olympic trial earlier this year, athlete John Steffensen was not selected to represent Australia in the individual 400 metres sprint, replaced by 19 year old Steve Solomon.
The antics of Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer have served as a useful foil for Labor. They're like caricature capitalists lifted from a comic book.
Attacking them has given Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Treasurer Wayne Swan the opportunity to make up for their earlier capitulation on the Rudd mining tax with a bit of populist rhetoric, while letting BHP and Rio Tinto just get on with it.
A small action in Sydney on July 27 outside the NSW Corrections Department - called by the Indigenous Social Justice Association - marked the latest Aboriginal death in custody: Peter Clarke who died in the Alice Springs on April 3, 2012. The rally was addressed by Ray Jackson (ISJA), Raul Bassi (ISJA), Diane Fieldes (Socialist Alternative) and Rachel Evans (Socialist Alliance). The ISJA has promised to hold a protest to make every Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal death in police or prison custody in Australia.
The recent attacks on the Greens by notable Labor Party figures over the refusal of the Greens to compromise on offshore processing of asylum seekers represents a new low for the Labor Party. The attacks by assorted Labor right-wingers are predictable, but most disappointing was Labor Left Senator Doug Cameron’s criticism, outrageously accusing the Greens of being responsible for asylum seekers dying because of their “purist approach”.
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