Latest articles and news by Liberty Victoria

  • 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

  • Aboriginal Australia deserves more than knee-jerk responses

    Liberty Victoria Updates
    Post date: May 8, 2009
    Brian Walters Just when it seemed the problems in Aboriginal Australia could not get any worse they appeared to do just that. Recently some Federal politicians “discovered” child sexual abuse and domestic violence in Aboriginal communities. The discovery led to renewed calls for ‘law and order... Read more

  • Lessons of the past worth heeding

    Liberty Victoria Updates
    Post date: May 8, 2009
    Brian Walters, 17 November 2007 THE hearings before the Office of Police Integrity again raise the issue of police corruption. Those hearings may well give rise to further proceedings, and it is best to avoid comment on the revelations that have emerged. But this is an occasion to step back and... Read more

  • It's time to write in our human rights

    Liberty Victoria Updates
    Post date: April 10, 2009
    Michael Pearce SC THE Committee held its annual planning day on Sunday 22 February 2009. The planning day is an opportunity for the Committee to think strategically about the year ahead, to reflect on goals and policies and plan without the distractions of the normal monthly meeting agenda. As... Read more

  • The dangers of internet censorship

    Liberty Victoria Updates
    Post date: April 10, 2009
    Larry Stillman I GLANCED through an old book before I started to write this article. It’s nearly 40 years since Geoffrey Dutton and Max Harris published Australia’s Censorship Crisis, and aside from the fact that electronic systems of communication are now pervasive, nothing much seems to have... Read more

  • Attack on free speech: Harry Nicolaides' case

    Liberty Victoria Updates
    Post date: April 10, 2009
    Joshua Bernshaw In Franz Kafka’s The Trial, Josef K wakes one morning to find he has been arrested for a mysterious and unidentified offence. I have always imagined Josef K might have thought himself to be dreaming; that somehow what was happening to him, his conversations with interrogators, his... Read more

  • Keen to be part of a Liberty university hub?

    Liberty Victoria Updates
    Post date: April 10, 2009
    Philippa Briglia and Lizzy Fitzgerald YOUNG people consistently prove that they care deeply about issues of social and political importance and are prepared to commit themselves wholeheartedly to making the world a better place. Liberty Victoria is looking to harness this energy and passion by... Read more

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