When WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sought asylum on June 19, the question many supporters asked was: “Why the Ecuadorian embassy?”
The simple answer is because the Ecuadorian government has been one of the strongest supporters of WikiLeaks, which reflects its strong stance in defence of media and information freedom.
Much has been made in the media about supposed abuses of media freedom in Ecuador.
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On June 16, 2012, an all-female line-up of artists put on a Sydney gig to raise funds for women prisoners after funding for the charity Sisters Inside was cut by the Liberal state government in Queensland.
Members of Amnesty International Australia’s Tasmania City Group dressed as bananas and collected signatures on a global petition to help launch Amnesty’s Arms Trade Treaty campaign on June 16 at the Salamanca markets in Hobart.
There is no international standard to regulate the global trade and transfers of conventional arms.
Amnesty Tasmania City Group’s Yabbo Thompson said: “There are complicated rules on the international trade of many products, such as bananas, but no global treaty controlling weapons or bullets.
Austin Mackell, an Australian journalist based in Cairo who has reported on the Egyptian revolution, speaks about his arrest by the regime, and Egyptian politics around the elections.
The Support Assange and WikiLeaks Coalition released the statement below on June 20.
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As Julian Assange seeks political asylum in Ecuador, concerned Australian citizens will protest their government’s treatment of the WikiLeaks founder in Sydney on Thursday, June 21.
Global Friends of WikiLeaks is an independent collective of WikiLeaks supporters. It is not affiliated with WikiLeaks. The letter below was originally posted here on June 20. You can sign an online petition to the government of Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa in support of Julian Assange's extradition request.
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Over 2000 people marched in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra and Adelaide to protest twenty years of mandatory detention and to mark World Refugee Day on the weekend of June 16-17.
BORDERS
Rivers don’t interrupt their flow
at national borders.
Mountain ranges don’t answer to their names
in different languages.
The air is not confined within the limits
of national air space.
The waves don’t stay still
to preserve their nationality.
Birds don’t need a passport
to migrate.
Souls don’t carry identity cards
to be certified.
And humans live in their parallel world.
But that’s a different history…
WHERE HAS YOUR SMILE GONE? Your smile a mask of despair from an ancient tragedy. Your look
WHERE HAS YOUR SMILE GONE? Your smile a mask of despair from an ancient tragedy. Your look
The Queensland Council of Unions released the statement below on June 19.
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The Queensland Council of Unions (QCU) has strongly condemned today’s announcement that Premier Campbell Newman may cut up to 20,000 jobs from the public service.
QCU President John Battams says cutting so many permanent and temporary public sector jobs would take billions out of the state economy and have a huge impact throughout Queensland.
Afrodity Giannakis, Green Left correspondent in Greece and an activist in SYRIZA, gives her first impressions of the result of the June 17 election where the conservative New Democracy beat the left coalition SYRIZA to the highers vote by just 3% of votes.
“If the Greeks had done the right thing, they wouldn’t be in the mess they’re in today.” The argument that the Greek people brought austerity packages down on their own necks keeps getting louder.
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