Questions on the NT intervention, a people’s bank, MPs’ tax and uranium-based munitions returns have emerged in Our Say’s People’s Question project
Human rights
Crikey Says: Removing race from our constitution
We don’t collectively identify as racist. And yet there is the undeniable reality that our constitution as it stands still contains two sections designed specifically to discriminate.
Crikey Says: Crikey says: no excuse for ignorance when it comes to West Papua
At least two journalists have been killed in West Papua, five abducted and 18 assaulted in the past year.
Menadue: urgent need for a new approach to asylum seekers
We must safeguard Australia’s national interest by ensuring that the claims of refugees and asylum seekers to Australia’s protection are considered rigorously but with compassion, writes The Centre for Policy Development’s John Menadue.
Letter from...: Letter from: Ghana … caught on the wrong side of the political divide
While Côte d’Ivoire may be relatively stable for now, human rights organisations continue to express concern at the government’s seeming unwillingness to investigate and prosecute its own forces, writes journalist Clair MacDougall.
The bureaucracy of Gitmo
Benjamin Franklin’s famous trade-off between liberty and temporary safety – for those who deserve neither — stands itemized in human form in the Gitmo documents, in those many files full of misspellings, malapropisms and justifications, the dream-diary jottings of a superpower nightmare.
Who you calling a human rights violator? China fights back
After criticism from the United States over human rights abuses and treatment of dissidents, China has fought back by publishing 7,500 words on human rights violations in the US, including racial discimrination and wrongful imprisonment.
China’s crackdown driven by economic stresses and an emboldened Left
China’s crackdown on dissent is only the culmination of a wave of repression by a government facing growing economic discontent.
Democratic reform needs to spread to the Pacific region
Fiji must hold immediate elections, return to democracy and recommit to a rights-based approach, writes Ged Kearney, president of the ACTU.
Burma rebrands: a dictatorship, without the uniforms
Saturday’s Burmese election was, in reality, just the junta’s mechanism for shifting away from an overt military dictatorship to a slightly more covert form — dictatorship without so many uniforms.
CERD committee serves; ball in Oz court
The UN committee on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (the committee) has given Australia another serve in its latest report, writes Robyn Seth-Purdie, a public policy and governance consultant.
Search powers Bill to lower the human rights protection bar
Although we have no evidence that new police powers have reduced the carriage of knives in Victoria, we are being asked to accept the need for further watering down of our human rights, writes Jen Rose, manager, policy and projects, Youth Affairs Council of Victoria
Bagram prison: now rights-free
The US appeals court has ruled that US prisoners at Bagram Air Base have no right to habeas corpus — meaning the US can now hold them indefinitely and beyond the reach of America’s lawyers and legal system.
Frank Brennan: Why human rights need to be our agenda
Australia doesn’t need a human rights charter, the government has decided. Fine, says Frank Brennan, that wasn’t the main point anyway. Hopefully the government won’t ignore the 87% of respondents who want a human rights act.
Bob Carr: It’s our right not to have a human rights charter
We don’t need a human rights charter in Australia because we don’t have human rights issues. Luckily Frank Brennan’s recommendations have been ignored, since it was all a waste of time and money, writes former NSW premier Bob Carr.
Amnesty’s 2009 death penalty report
Amnesty International has released its annual report into death sentences and executions: at least 714 people were executed in 18 countries last year — but that doesn’t include the thousands of “secret” executions in China.
Abbott’s Muslim comment shows the need for a Human Rights Act
Yesterday, Tony Abbott commented about keeping Muslims out of the country. It’s proof that we need a Human Rights Act to protect our democracy from personal bias, writes Mark Blumer.
Kelly: Turns out, no one wants a human rights charter
Will Kevin Rudd enact a human rights charter as recommended by the Brennan report? The human rights lobby is powerful and determined, but it would be a foolish act with such a disengaged public, writes Paul Kelly.
Human rights: why we need a charter
Emotional, fear-mongering and ill-informed comments about a human rights charter do not make for robust, reasoned, logical debate, writes Mark Blumer.
Human rights: what is Rudd waiting for?
Is the government backing away from introducing a bill of rights? In the absence of any serious negatives, we should expect a human rights act within this parliamentary term, writes Susan Ryan, chair of the Australian Human Rights Group.
The decline of human rights in the Age of Obama
Barack Obama has had to make some tough calls since taking office, but has too often put the principles of democratic values aside, says James Rubin.
revealed 
The secret US “black jail” in Afghanistan
The US is holding detainees in isolated, windowless concrete cells at Bagram Air Base, sometimes for weeks at a time, without access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to former inmates and human rights workers.
