Latest articles and news by Liberty Victoria

  • Inquiry into surveillance in public places

    Liberty Victoria Updates
    Post date: May 29, 2009
    Georgia King-Siem As part of its broader inquiry into surveillance regulation in Victoria, the Victorian Law Reform Commission (VLRC) has now turned its attention to surveillance in public places. Previously, the VLRC has looked at surveillance in the workplace. The consultation paper released in... Read more

  • Free speech and inter-communal conflict

    Liberty Victoria Updates
    Post date: May 29, 2009
    Dr Larry Stillman The past year or so has seen pressure from some lobby groups in the Jewish community against a number of public events in Melbourne and Sydney as well as Fairfax media or the ABC for what it claims is anti-Israel bias.     Most recently, there has been a very strong response to... Read more

  • Understanding and applying human rights

    Liberty Victoria Updates
    Post date: May 29, 2009
    Dr Diane Sisely December 10, 2008, marked the day 60 years ago when the world agreed on the principles and values necessary to safeguard if people are to be able to live a decent life, with dignity and respect. The document agreed, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, has perhaps never been... Read more

  • Domestic violence and the duty to protect

    Liberty Victoria Updates
    Post date: May 29, 2009
    Nerida MulveyIn 2006, the UN General Assembly mandated an in-depth study on all forms of violence against women. The study outlines due diligence obligations of states, asserting: ‘States have an obligation to protect women from violence, to hold perpetrators accountable, and to provide justice and... Read more

  • Accounting for the lethal force

    Liberty Victoria Updates
    Post date: May 8, 2009
    Brian Walters, 8 April 2005 Victoria has a problem with police shootings and a system of control and inquiry that is patently inadequate. Police have to deal with some dangerous people, and violence sometimes is unavoidable. But when an agency of the Government takes the life of a citizen, the... Read more

  • Power and the rule of law

    Liberty Victoria Updates
    Post date: May 8, 2009
    Brian Walters, December 2006 … the common values that bind us together as one people – respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual, a commitment to the rule of law, the equality of men and women and a spirit of egalitarianism that embraces tolerance, fair play and compassion for those in... Read more

  • Indigenous rights

    Liberty Victoria Updates
    Post date: May 8, 2009
    Brian Walters, 7 August 2006 Over 20 years ago, anthropologists in the Northern Territory accompanied local indigenous people when they went fishing. Drifting well out to sea, with the shore only visible as featureless mangrove swamp on the horizon, they noticed the canoeist suddenly move the boat... Read more

  • Law and protest

    Liberty Victoria Updates
    Post date: May 8, 2009
    Brian Walters, 17 August 2006 In December last year, four untrained, unfunded Christian pacifists broke into Pine Gap to engage in a “citizens’ inspection”. Despite this being a top secret base, there was no difficulty gaining entry. Having made their point, they were arrested and charged with... Read more

  • Pacifist tourists, the big new threat

    Liberty Victoria Updates
    Post date: May 8, 2009
    Brian Walters, 13 September 2005 Last weekend our nation crossed a line. On Saturday, a visiting tourist was arrested in Melbourne by the Australian Federal Police, on instructions from the Department of Immigration and ASIO. His visa has been cancelled and he is to be deported on security grounds... Read more

  • We have failed to protect our own

    Liberty Victoria Updates
    Post date: May 8, 2009
    Brian Walters, 31 December 2006 FOR years after David Hicks was first detained, the Bush administration argued that prisoners at Guantanamo were beyond the reach of the courts — in a legal black hole where they had no rights. They also argued that infliction of pain up to the point of organ failure... Read more

Pages

more