Anti-racism

Women from the Refugee Rights Action Network (RRAN) organised a "Mad F**king Witches" action to highlight the intolerable levels of sexual assault in Australian immigration detention centres and to call for freedom for refugees and the sacking of minister Peter Dutton.

On December 16, Victoria's highest court threw out a protracted legal bid by a group of Bendigo residents to stop a mosque being built. Led by local woman Julie Hoskin, the group has battled against the mosque, which the City of Bendigo approved in June 2014 and which VCAT approved last August.

Every year it becomes harder to ignore official Australia's celebrations of nationalism. For weeks, supermarket aisles have been given over to garish displays of things to buy for Australia Day on January 26: Australian flags and hats, stubby holders and thongs displaying Australian flags. None of it would look out of place at a Reclaim Australia rally. And then there is that ad for lamb featuring popular SBS broadcaster Lee Lin Chin. It is tongue-in-cheek, for sure, showing a military operation to enforce Australians worldwide to barbecue lamb for Australia Day.

Artillery bombardment of Diyarbakır neighbourhood of Sur. Photo: Jinhahaber.link. It is freezing cold in Amed, as the city of Diyarbakır is known to its residents. More than 10 centimetres of snow blankets the ground, something that happens only every three or four years. And at exactly this moment, fighting is escalating in Amed's old neighbourhood of Sur and in the cities of Cizre and Silopi, in Şırnak province.

Aboriginal child removals by government Child Protection agencies across the nation are taking place at an alarming rate. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reported a rise in the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged up to 17 in out of home care across all states and territories over the past decade. Aboriginal children are eight times more likely to be the subject of departmental intervention; nine times more likely to be on care and protection orders; and 10 times more likely to be in out-of-home care than non-Aboriginal kids.

“Against sexism, against racism” Cologne, January 5. Photo: Jungewelt.de. Dozens of women were sexually harassed on New Year's Eve in Germany, but rather than connecting the events to a system that perpetuates sexist violence, the political and media establishments have focused on the nationalities of the alleged perpetrators. German leftists are challenging this twisted interpretation, demonstrating against both sexism and racism in Cologne on January 5.

In 2015 Prime Minister Tony Abbott was booted from the top job courtesy of his own party and replaced by Malcolm Turnbull. This was considered a victory by many and a result of the work of a number of social movements campaigning against a range of Abbott's policies.

There are more people today who have been displaced by war, poverty and climate change than at any point in recorded history. The current number of refugees has exceeded those displaced by World War I and World War II combined.

"Should Team Autralia Be Disqualified?' was the theme of a comedy debate held as a fundraiser for Green Left Weekly in Sydney on October 17.

Melbourne's Oromo community rallied on January 3 as part of a world-wide action in solidarity with the Oromo student protesters currently leading the ‪#‎OromoProtests‬ movement in Oromia, Ethiopia.

The United Nations has a strict definition of the term "refugee," whereby you are only a refugee if you are fleeing war or persecution of some kind.

Below is the speech given by Socialist Alliance member Dave Holmes to a Melbourne meeting and concert to mark the founding of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). About 400-500 people attended the November 28 event organised by the Kurdish Association of Victoria at the Kurdish House centre in Melbourne’s Pascoe Vale.