Uighurs

Superficially, it’s an arthouse issue that affects a small number of culture vultures and cineastes who won’t see a movie unless it’s got subtitles.

It’s actually one of the most compelling and alarming stories in Australia today, as it shows how the most pernicious features of a totalitarian regime have been imported into our own country. And we should all be rallying behind its victim, the Melbourne Film Festival, as it tries to defend freedom of expression and assembly in the face of intimidation on behalf of the Chinese dictatorship.

The Punch spoke last night with the director of the festival, Richard Moore, who is trying to manage this event against a backdrop of website hacking, telephone sabotage, suspected surveillance and direct threats, all from supporters of Beijing who want the festival to pull one of its movies and cancel the Melbourne visit by the woman it profiles.

Continue reading "China exports censorship to an Australian film festival" »

The Uyghurs need a good spin doctor. 

These forgotten people of northwest China are the Tibetans the world doesn’t care about.

It might be because they’re Muslims.

Continue reading "At last, a voice for the latest victims of Chinese brutality" »

Like Peter denying Jesus after the arrest, as dawn was breaking and the cock was getting ready to crow, Australia is given a third chance to acknowledge its inconvenient associations. Will we, like Peter, deny any association with or responsibility with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the detainees in Guantanamo? We probably will. We denied our own citizens in Guantanamo until the opinion polls started to turn dirty.

Australia, through the support of the Howard government for the actions of the Bush Administration’s war on terror, has as much responsibility for the Uighurs, who were found to have been wrongly detained, as does the US and the Bush Administration.

We should accept the Uighurs as refugees and permanent residents. If they are returned to China, they face certain persecution and, possibly, death. To do otherwise would display a flaw in our national character.

Continue reading "Haneef lawyer: Guantanamo inmates should come here" »