Posts Tagged ‘Violence’
Friday, April 9th, 2010
Ari Sharp; 9/4/10
Indigenous people are up to 20 times more likely than the rest of the population to commit violent crime, according to a new study that finds alcohol is the biggest risk factor. Drawing on previous research, the Australian Institute of Criminology report released yesterday paints a bleak picture of endemic crime in indigenous communities, though it does not provide enough detail to judge whether the 2007 federal intervention in remote communities had an impact on crime levels. The criminologist Joy Wundersitz found that indigenous arrests were far more likely to be for minor physical assaults than sexual assault, and that indigenous offenders are more likely to reoffend than their non-indigenous counterparts.
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Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Drugs, health, Trade, Violence
Posted in Aboriginal, Aid / Trade, Australia, Drugs, Health & Children | 1 Comment »
Friday, January 29th, 2010
Rory Callinan; 29/1/10
UN peacekeepers stood by and watched as the East Timorese police they were supposed to be mentoring allegedly hit, kicked and repeatedly stomped on a young man near an official ceremony. The incident late last year raises concerns about the supervision and training provided to the local police by the UN Integrated Mission in East Timor, which is supported by a contingent of Australian Federal Police and Australian soldiers. The beating, which involved Policia Nacional de Timor-Leste officers allegedly grinding their heels into the man’s back up to a dozen times, kicking him in the head and hitting him with a rifle butt, came to light after film of the incident was handed to East Timorese authorities this month. The film, since posted on the internet, initially shows a young man with a sign relating to a local fishing group standing on a beach on Atauro Island where East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta was opening a fishing competition about 25km north of Dili.
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Tags: Australia, Timor, UN, Violence
Posted in Human Rights, Timor, United Nations | No Comments »
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
David Penberthy; 23/1/09
We should cut the coppers some slack as they grapple with the public handling of the attacks on Indian students in Melbourne. Policing has long been a closed culture. Less than a generation ago the only way police reporters could get stories was to spend months or even years hanging around the Police Club, drinking with detectives and slowly building enough trust to get the inside running on big stories. These days, whenever a cat gets stuck up a tree there’s an expectation that an all-in press conference will follow within the hour to discuss its breed, name, and how the pesky little varmint got up there in the first place. There is no point in police complaining about this. It’s a reflection of the public’s legitimate conviction that information should flow freely from every arm of government. People have a right to know what is happening in their community and, these days, it is the job of the police to tell them.
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Tags: Australia, Drugs, Racism, Violence
Posted in Australia, Human Rights, Racism | No Comments »
Saturday, January 16th, 2010
Dennis Sewell; , 16/1/10
The perpetrators of high-school massacres are often motivated by twisted ideas of natural selection. So is it right to blame Charles Darwin? You wouldn’t know from the recent celebrations of Charles Darwin’s life that the amiable Victorian gent portrayed in those TV drama-docs pottering around the garden of his home in Kent has been fingered as a racist, an apologist for genocide, and the inspiration of a string of psychopathic killers. Darwin’s double anniversary (2009 marked both the bicentenary of his birth and 150 years since the first publication of On the Origin of Species) featured much hoopla: Britain’s Royal Mail issued commemorative stamps; artist Damien Hirst designed the dust jacket for a special edition of Darwin’s masterpiece; Bristol Zoo offered free admission to men with beards; and London’s Natural History Museum served pea soup made to a recipe devised by Darwin’s wife, Emma. The conclusion of dozens of lectures, articles and education packs for schools has been that Darwin wasn’t just a brilliant scientist but a thoroughly good egg as well.
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Tags: USA, Violence, Young People
Posted in Health & Children, Human Rights, USA | No Comments »
Saturday, January 16th, 2010
Dennis Sewell; The Australian, 16/1/10
The perpetrators of high-school massacres are often motivated by twisted ideas of natural selection. So is it right to blame Charles Darwin? You wouldn’t know from the recent celebrations of Charles Darwin’s life that the amiable Victorian gent portrayed in those TV drama-docs pottering around the garden of his home in Kent has been fingered as a racist, an apologist for genocide, and the inspiration of a string of psychopathic killers. Darwin’s double anniversary (2009 marked both the bicentenary of his birth and 150 years since the first publication of On the Origin of Species) featured much hoopla: Britain’s Royal Mail issued commemorative stamps; artist Damien Hirst designed the dust jacket for a special edition of Darwin’s masterpiece; Bristol Zoo offered free admission to men with beards; and London’s Natural History Museum served pea soup made to a recipe devised by Darwin’s wife, Emma. The conclusion of dozens of lectures, articles and education packs for schools has been that Darwin wasn’t just a brilliant scientist but a thoroughly good egg as well.
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Tags: School massacres, USA, Violence, Young People
Posted in Human Rights, Terrorism, USA | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
Bassam Za’za’; 23/12/09; (3 Items)
An Iraqi and his wife have been jailed after a court convicted them of sexually exploiting a teenage girl to work as an exotic dancer and sex worker. The Dubai Court of First Instance sentenced the 52-year-old electrician, R.A., and his 45-year-old wife, A.I., to three years in jail each followed by deportation. Presiding Judge Al Saeed Mohammad Barghout, who pronounced Tuesday’s judgment, also sentenced a 26-year-old Iraqi salesman, H.M., to a year in jail followed by deportation for aiding and abetting the couple. The court pardoned a 25-year-old Iraqi housewife, B.A., from serving a punishment, which the judge did not specify. She had refuted the charge of failing to report the couple to the authorities. The couple had earlier denied buying the 17-year-old girl from her parents in Iraq and forcing her to work as an exotic dancer and prostitute in Dubai.
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Tags: Dubai, Sex Trade, UAE, Violence, Womens Rights
Posted in Asia, Human Rights, Sex Trade, Womens Rights | No Comments »
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
Debbie Guest; 2/10/09; (4 Items)
Nine Sri Lankan men are set to become the first asylum-seekers to be forcibly returned home since the Rudd government was elected. Last night the men were being flown from Christmas Island, where they have been detained since arriving in November, to Perth. They are expected to be detained for two days before being placed on a commercial flight to Sri Lanka. The men were part of a group of 12 whose boat reached Shark Bay, 800km north of Perth, before being spotted by campers. Two of the men have already returned home voluntarily. The Australian understands the nine men were found by Department of Immigration and Citizenship to have come to Australia in search of work. Another man from the group remains on Christmas Island where he is appealing the rejection of his asylum claim through the Federal Court. Last night Immigration Minister Chris Evans said none of the men would be in danger when returned to Sri Lanka. “All protection issues raised by this particular group have been fully assessed against Australia’s international treaty obligations and there are no protection issues which would prevent their return to Sri Lanka,” hesaid.
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Tags: Australia, Migrants & Refugees, Violence
Posted in Asia, Australia, Human Rights, Refugee & Migrant | No Comments »
Friday, September 25th, 2009
25/9/09; See: http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters; (3 Items)
- Why all the furore at the young Blacktown footballers bashing one another on the field (“Blacktown brawl gives club black eye”, September 24)? Almost every weekend, in any code, you can see the big boys having a punch-up on the field. With these heroes setting the example, why blame the kids or the parents? Anthony Healy Willoughby East
- Fists flying everywhere, players sledging one another trying to start new fights, even someone on the ground not being safe. Meanwhile the crowd rises to its feet and shouts in support. No, not the under-16 grand final, it’s the State of Origin in Brisbane this year. The adult role models in action. Why is everyone so surprised by this latest version? Gary Hill, West Pennant Hills
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Tags: Australia, Human Rights, Violence
Posted in Australia, Human Rights | No Comments »
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
Joan Chittister on 24/9/09
Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister is a best-selling author and international lecturer on topics of justice, peace, human rights, women’s issues, and contemporary spirituality in the church and in society.
At the University of Birmingham in England in the 1980s, I heard a British journalist argue passionately that “Americans make mistakes, yes, but they always examine them and admit them and correct them.” The debate hinged on the question of whether or not U.S. motives behind the installation of Cruise missiles in Europe were really meant to defend Europe from Soviet aggression or, more likely, to make sure that U.S. wars would be fought on European soil. The journalist cited Vietnam and this country’s self flagellation over the massacre at May Lai and the napalming of villages as his proof of US commitment to hew the higher path, to expose the truth above all else, however painful those findings might be to the national psyche. “We, on the other hand,” he concluded somewhat mournfully, “simply deny things and go on.”
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Tags: Terrorism, USA, Violence
Posted in Human Rights, Terrorism, USA | No Comments »
Friday, September 11th, 2009
Jo Chandler; 11/9/09
On his last tour with Medecins Sans Frontieres, the Czech surgeon Filip Krygel found himself operating in Pakistan’s strife-torn Swat Valley. Nadia Perreault, a nurse from Quebec, was working in the war zone in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. These are not people easily shocked by the harm humans do to one another. And yet every day, working in Tari Hospital in Papua New Guinea’s Southern Highlands, they are confounded by the endless stream of people bloodied, beaten and butchered with bush knives. Ms Perreault says it is nothing like she has seen before – ”a totally different culture, a totally different world”. ”I was surprised at the amount of violence people could do against each other,” she says.
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Tags: PNG, Violence
Posted in Human Rights, PNG / West Papua, Womens Rights | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
Jo Chandler; 8/9/09
Mary Kini, Agnes Sil and Angela Apa – three women divided by tribal law but connected by loss – had never heard of human rights when they began a social revolution. But they knew all about human wrongs. They were all grieving family killed in 30 years of tribal wars that had engulfed their district of Kup in Simbu Province, Papua New Guinea. Tribal fighting has gone on through history in the highlands but in the past decade guns have replaced bows and arrows, and it has grown bloodier. No one can guess at how many people die in these conflicts across PNG. In one fight in Kup in 1999, 11 people were killed in six months. But to get some sense of the broader scale, a study of village courts in Enga province indicated more than 1500 deaths in five years to 2006. But the toll can’t be counted in casualties alone.
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Tags: PNG, Violence
Posted in Gender & Marriage, Human Rights, PNG / West Papua, Womens Rights | No Comments »
Saturday, September 5th, 2009
Michael McKenna; 5/9/09
Queensland police will trial alternatives to the US-made Taser stun gun, possibly breaking its hold on Australian law enforcement, after a man died in a confrontation with officers armed with one of the devices. Queensland Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson said alternative weapons would have to be considered because a review of Taser operations had found there was no restriction on the number of times the 50,000-volt shots could be fired in a single incident. The joint police-Crime and Misconduct Commission review was ordered after the death of north Queensland man Antonio Galeano in June. Data downloaded from the Taser used on Galeano, 39, who died of a heart attack while in handcuffs, showed he had been stunned 28 times after confronting police with a metal bar.
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Tags: Australia, Human Rights, Legal, Violence
Posted in Australia, Human Rights | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
Johnny Poiya; 1/9/09; (2 Items)
The future of more than 30 students from Gena attending the Kerowagi Secondary School is in jeopardy after they fled from the school following a tribal clash between the Gena and Siku tribes two weeks ago. Principal Markus Warip said the Grade 10 and 12 students were moved yesterday to the Rosary Secondary School which is away from the fighting area. Mr Warip said it was now up to the parents of the Grade nine and 11 students to decide their future. “It is up to the parents to decide whether to transfer the grade nine and 11 students out or remove them from school and let them repeat next year,” said Mr Warip.The Gena and Siku tribes were traditional enemies, having fought each other in the 1960s and 1970s.
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Tags: Children, PNG, Violence
Posted in Health & Children, Human Rights, PNG / West Papua | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
28/7/09
Police have charged two employees at US company Freeport with alleged involvement in a spate of deadly shootings at the world’s largest goldmine. The workers were among seven people who will go on trial for premeditated murder and illegal weapons possession, said Colonel Ketut Untung Yoga Ana, a national police spokesman. It was unclear what positions the two held with Freeport and the company declined to comment. Three people died and more than a dozen were wounded in a series of ambushes at Freeport’s Grasberg mining complex that began on July 11. A 29-year-old Australian and a security guard working for Freeport were fatally shot, while a policeman fell to his death while seeking cover during an attack. It has been the worst violence at Freeport’s operations in Indonesia’s remote, easternmost province, since two American schoolteachers were killed there in 2002.
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Tags: Australia, Violence, West Papua
Posted in Aid / Trade, Australia, Human Rights, PNG / West Papua, Terrorism | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
Michael McKenna; 23/6/09
When police arrived at the yellow brick units in the central Queensland town of Brandon about 2:50am on June 12, Antonio Galeano was in a rage. The two young constables, one just a few months out of the academy, had been dispatched to the suburb just south of Townsville after a triple-0 call minutes earlier from a screaming woman. His girlfriend had just got away, cowering in a neighbour’s place and terrified that Galeano, 39, who had flung her across the room by her hair, was coming and couldn’t be stopped. Galeano was well known to police as an addict with a taste for methamphetamine, and someone of whom to be especially wary. A year ago he had been arrested on weapons charges, including possession of guns and a samurai sword. This father of one had a history of mental illness and had somehow walked out of the Townsville hospital hours earlier, after having been taken there by police the previous day for a mental health assessment. Doctors had cleared him.
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Tags: Australia, Human Rights, Police, Violence
Posted in Australia, Human Rights | No Comments »
Friday, June 19th, 2009
Michael McKenna; 19/6/09
A Queensland man shocked 28 times by a police officer with a 50,000-volt Taser died of a heart attack within minutes, an autopsy has confirmed. Pathologists made the finding in a post-mortem report into last week’s death of Antonio Galeano, as Queensland police yesterday corrected the public record after earlier claiming the amphetamine addict was shocked only three times. That first claim was contradicted by data downloaded from the unnamed senior constable’s stun gun. The data, taken from the weapon within hours of Mr Galeano’s death early last Friday, was not released publicly until an exclusive report yesterday in The Australian that revealed evidence he had been shocked repeatedly, each time for a duration of five seconds.
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Tags: Australia, Violence
Posted in Australia, Human Rights | No Comments »
