Australia

Destruction caused by Turkish military in Diyarbakır (Amed), Turkish Kurdistan (Bakur), February 20.

Australians for Kurdistan (AfK) is circulating an open letter urging Australian academics to support their colleagues in Turkey, who are facing massive repression by the government for denouncing the war on the Kurds.

One of the epic miscarriages of justice of our time is unravelling. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention — an international tribunal that adjudicates and decides whether governments comply with their human rights obligations — has ruled that Julian Assange has been detained unlawfully by Britain and Sweden.

Police respond to "exuberant fan behaviour".

The Senate has called on Football Federation Australia and A-League clubs to take action to ensure football fans are not over-policed, AAP said on February 2.

A-League fans, especially from clubs with strong multicultural fan bases such as the Western Sydney Wanderers and Melbourne Victory, have long complained about over-policing, as well as unfair bans imposed without any right to appeal by the FFA and frequent media demonisation.

The high court just threw out a challenge by the Human Rights Law Centre alleging the government had unlawfully detained people on Nauru, before they were brought to Australia temporarily for medical reasons.

Now the government is free to send 267 vulnerable people back to Nauru.

Here are 5 reasons to come and join protests on Thursday 4 February calling for the government to #LetThemStay and not send them to Nauru.

1. Babies

One of Tony Abbott’s first acts as Prime Minister was to announce a Royal Commission to “shine a spotlight” onto the so-called “dark corners” of the trade union movement. The commission would expose the criminality and impropriety that allegedly blights Australia’s trade unions.

Led by former High Court Judge John Dyson Heydon, the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption officially began in February 2014.

Up to 60,000 people rallied for action on climate change in Melbourne on November 27. The rally kicked off a global weekend of actions to coincide with UN climate talks in Paris.

The march was led by First Nations activists and demanded an end to fossil fuels and a planned transition to 100% renewable energy.

Photo by Ali Bakhtiarvandi

Protesters occupy Australian Consulate, Auckland, November 11.

I was glad to be part of the November 11 protests, organised by the trade union Unite and by Global Peace and Justice Auckland, at the Australian Consulate in Auckland over their government's policies that have led to the indefinite detention of asylum seekers and Australian residents born in New Zealand in what are in effect concentration camps.

Peter Boyle speaking at World Kobanê Day rally, Sydney, November 1.

Peter Boyle gave this speech on behalf of Socialist Alliance at the Sydney rally for World Kobanê Day on November 1.

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I am here to bring you greetings from the Socialist Alliance and the progressive newspaper Green Left Weekly.

“There is a saying amongst them that all cops are bastards,” Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm said on November 3 about the attitude of many fans of the Western Sydney Wanderers football (soccer) team towards the police force. “The cops have earned that label, they have to un-earn it.”

Melbourne-based author and community radio presenter Iain McIntyre has been documenting and celebrating Australian radical history since the 1990s. A series of zines he created entitled How To Make Trouble And Influence People were compiled into an expanded edition by Breakdown Press in 2009 with a second edition released in conjunction with US publisher PM Press in 2013.