Dubbed “an Afghanistan women’s XI”, the refugee side will have its first match in three years when it faces a team assembled by Cricket Without Borders in a charity clash at the Junction Oval.
Marcia Langton - Peter Dutton’s deliberate Australia Day cruelty, The Saturday Paper
It’s a bad time to be non-white in Australia. Speaking out of both sides of his mouth, Peter Dutton has demanded an end to anti-Semitism and, at the same time, incited hatred of Aboriginal people, not just exploiting the anti-Voice surge of racism but inciting further racism against us. I agree that anti-Semitism is a scourge and must be tackled with tough laws and policing. So, too, are all forms of racism and xenophobia, particularly the rising levels of race hate against Aboriginal people, Muslims and other ethnicities, many of which have been singled out by Dutton.
In 2022, he alarmed the Australian–Chinese community when he made a shocking claim about a future war with China and compared China to Nazi Germany in the lead-up to World War II. He demonised African Australians, who he claimed so terrorised Melbourne that no one could go to a restaurant. He singled out Lebanese Australians, saying it was a mistake to take them in as refugees.
Marcia Langton - Peter Dutton’s deliberate Australia Day cruelty, The Saturday Paper
Is international law even a thing anymore? Not when it comes to Nauru. By Michael Bradley, Crikey
It all began to fall down with John Howard, accelerating through every successive government because of our obsessive national dread of “boat people”, to the point where — when it comes to how we treat asylum seekers — these days we flout the rules with a middle finger to posterity.
So it is that two recent decisions of the UN Human Rights Committee, calling Australia out for gross breaches of the ICCPR in relation to our treatment of refugees on the outsourced hellhole of Nauru, have been simply ignored by both the Australian government and — disgracefully — the Australian media.
Is international law even a thing anymore? Not when it comes to Nauru. By Michael Bradley, Crikey
Trump administration cancels travel for refugees approved to resettle in US. From Associated Press in Washington Post, The Guardian
Refugees who had been approved to travel to the United States before a 27 January deadline suspending America’s refugee resettlement program have had their travel plans canceled by the Trump administration.
Human Rights Law Centre : Statement on recent hate crimes in Australia
Human Rights Watch, Jewish Council of Australia, Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Australian National Imams Council, Human Rights Law Centre and Amnesty International condemn a recent spate of antisemitic hate crimes in Australia……..
…….These attacks follow a year of escalating hate crimes on the Jewish community and on the Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian communities in Australia. Over the past 15 months Islamophobic, anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian and antisemitic hate crimes include racist anti-Arab graffiti in Sydney; the planting of a homemade bomb in front of a Sydney home which was flying the Palestinian flag; the setting alight of a truck bearing the Palestinian flag which belonged to a man of Palestinian heritage in Melbourne; and the firebombing of Melbourne's Adass Israel synagogue. These forms of racism also include politicians denying the seriousness of Islamophobia and media reports using racist language.
Human Rights Law Centre : Statement on recent hate crimes in Australia
Nominations open for the Australia for UNHCR – SBS Les Murray Award for Refugee Recognition
The award aims to recognise an individual with lived experience as a refugee who has generated positive awareness about refugees, helped create a positive understanding about the situation of refugees and, in doing so, built a more diverse and inclusive Australian community.
It is named after beloved sports broadcaster Les Murray AM, who hosted SBS’s The World Game football program and was himself a young refugee who arrived in Australia in 1956 at the age of 11 from Hungary.
Nominations open for the Australia for UNHCR – SBS Les Murray Award for Refugee Recognition
Australia grants nearly 1,000 humanitarian visas in three months to those fleeing Israel-Hamas conflict. By Sarah Basford Canales, The Guardian
The Greens senator David Shoebridge said the process had been too slow.
Unlike other visas processes, Palestinian and Israeli nationals fleeing the conflict cannot apply for the temporary humanitarian visa. It is only available by invitation of the home affairs minister.
Shoebridge said Australia needed to overhaul its visa rules in responding to international crises to avoid the process being impacted by “narrow political interests”.
“We need to return this to the department to process visas independently, not based on the next opinion poll,” he said.
“After years of ad hoc refugee responses to rolling disasters in Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Palestine, it is clear we need a simpler and predictable policy in place for future crises. This disaster-by-disaster approach only benefits the minister at the time, who can wield discretionary visas powers based on narrow political interests.”
Jailing children 'a blot' on Australia's global reputation, report claims. By Sophie Bennett, SBS News
"It's gone from bad to worse," Human Rights Watch's Australia director Daniela Gavshon said.
"What we do know as well in Australia is that there's no human rights act, so there's no overarching piece of legislation that puts all the human rights regulations and rules and responsibilities into one place."
There is no federal charter of rights, but some states and territories in Australia — the ACT, Queensland and Victoria — have human rights legislation.
Moe Turaga was a modern slavery victim on an Australian farm for 2 years before escaping. By Isabella Ross, ABC News
Exploitative practices like human trafficking, slavery, servitude, forced labour, debt bondage and forced marriage are all considered modern slavery under Australian law.
Palestinians in Australia await Gaza ceasefire ‘but now we must grieve this unimaginable pain’. By Mostafa Rachwani, The Guardian
“The people of Gaza only need safety, to be able to return to our normal lives and not to face death on every corner.
“We cannot celebrate, after so many people died in Gaza. We are just happy to have this moment, to have some hope.
Human rights report lashes Australia’s ‘diabolical’ asylum seeker treatment and ‘appalling’ youth crime laws. By Sarah Basford Canales, The Guardian
Australia’s “diabolical” treatment of asylum seekers and youth crime has worsened, a global human rights advocacy body has warned, urging voters to push back on leaders politicising the issue for gain.
Afghans evacuated by US in chaos of withdrawal are languishing in foreign camps, documents reveal. By Alice Speri, The Guardian
Afghan citizens who fled the country with American assistance after the US’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan remain stranded in third countries, new documents shared exclusively with the Guardian suggest, some at prison-like facilities and many with no clarity about their prospects for resettlement.
US officials won’t say exactly how many Afghans remain at such sites, where they were taken after the withdrawal that involved hundreds of thousands fleeing for their lives during the Taliban’s lightning takeover in 2021. Some advocates estimate that “hundreds” remain stranded in temporary facilities in up to three dozen countries.
Asylum seekers’ frustration mounts, pressure on Australia to act. By Duncan Graham , Michael West Media
For the decade since 2013, when Kabul fell to the Taliban, Canberra has given almost 13,000 “Offshore Refugee and Humanitarian visas” to Afghans. There are 230,000 on the waiting list. The Australian community is 72,000 strong and goes back to 19th-century camel drivers.
Internationally, we’re bit players. By mid-2024, Iran was the world’s largest refugee host, sheltering 3.8 million people with 99 per cent from Afghanistan, according to the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.
Our border protection is no well-resourced ring of steel but relies on community spotters.
Mid-2024 media reports claimed the Australian Border Force (ABF), an agency of Home Affairs, paid fishermen with fuel for using their own dinghies to catch five unlawful arrivals believed to be from Senegal.
Push to repatriate Indonesian ISIS brides. By Bill Birtles, ABC News Radio
There's a renewed push in Indonesia to bring home the family members of Islamic State fighters, who are stuck in Syria.
Anti-terrorism experts estimate there are hundreds of Indonesian nationals held in prison camps there, roughly ten times the number of Australians.
The fall of the Assad regime last month has sparked calls to bring them home, but it won't be easy.
More Information
Featured: Rakyan Adibrata, Indonesia Country Director for the International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals
Greg Barton, counter terrorism expert, Deakin-Lancaster University
Greg Barton: Indonesia's been wrestling with this for years, it has to be said. The Jokowi administration decided not to do it. Back in 2019 it decided it didn't want to risk political capital on this project. But even then the opinion was split. Since then Indonesia has greatly improved its capacity at rehabilitation generally.
Bill Birtles: He says it's likely Indonesia will seek to repatriate women and children in the coming years from Syria, but not necessarily the men who actively fought for Islamic State. And he believes Australia should do the same for around three dozen women and children still in the prison camps there.
Australia is a wealthy country with much greater resources per capita in terms of psychologists and people that work with rehabilitation programs. So Australia really has no excuse for not managing it.
Successive Australian governments brought home 25 women and children since the defeat of Islamic State in 2017, but further efforts have ground to a halt. Last year an advocacy group failed in a legal bid to compel the federal government to arrange the repatriation of the remaining Australians from the camps in Syria.
Push to repatriate Indonesian ISIS brides. By Bill Birtles, ABC News Radio
Video: Malala urges Muslim nations to pressure Taliban's 'gender apartheid' in Afghanistan. SBS World News
Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai has urged Muslim nations to place pressure on the Taliban by denouncing their severe restrictions on women's freedoms. During a rare visit back home to Pakistan, the human rights advocate spoke up for the plight of girls in Afghanistan - where for more than 3 years they've been banned from attending high school.
VIDEO: UN committee calls on Australia to compensate Nauru asylum seekers. By Evelyn Manfield, ABC News
The United Nations Committee says there was insufficient water and sanitation for asylum seekers on Nauru.
‘I felt less human, not human at all’: Australia faces moral crossroads over Nauru. By Ben Doherty, The Guardian
The UN human rights committee has urged Australia to compensate those it arbitrarily detained on Nauru. Arash wonders if that is even possible.
“I would like justice,” he says, “although I have no idea what that would look like.
“All those years that passed, they’re not coming back. I don’t know how they’re going to compensate me. What is money compared to 10 years of my life?”
Australia violated rights of asylum seekers on Nauru, UN watchdog rules. By Ben Doherty, The Guardian
“The outsourcing of operations does not absolve states of accountability. Offshore detention facilities are not human rights-free zones.”
Justice at last: UN says Australia violated human rights of refugee children detained on Nauru. RACS
Refugee Advice & Casework Service (RACS) welcomes a landmark decision from the UN Human Rights Committee, which found Australia violated the human rights of a group of refugee children. The decision comes nine years after RACS lodged a complaint on behalf of a group of unaccompanied children who were arbitrarily detained on Nauru.
“I cannot overstate how important this decision is,” said Sarah Dale, RACS Centre Director & Principal Solicitor. “We have been fighting for this justice, against all odds, for almost a decade.”
Justice at last: UN says Australia violated human rights of refugee children detained on Nauru. RACS
Australia violated human rights treaty with Nauru detainees, UN committee finds. ABC News
A UN committee has found that Australia violated a human rights treaty by detaining a group of asylum seekers, including minors, on Nauru even after they were granted refugee status.
Under Australia's immigration policies, those attempting to reach the country by boat have been sent to detention centres including Nauru for so-called "offshore processing" since 2013.
The federal government is yet to comment on the findings.
Such facilities have previously drawn scrutiny from rights groups…
…"Offshore detention facilities are not human rights-free zones for the state party, which remains bound by the provisions of the covenant."
Australia violated human rights treaty with Nauru detainees, UN committee finds. ABC News