Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR)

Although I am due to send a full newsletter, that may have to wait for another day. This one is devoted to sending a date claimer for an important event in October. The Queensland Committee of ALHR has combined with Aussies Against Capital Punishment to bring David Marr to Brisbaneto mark World Day Against the Death Penalty. David will be speaking at a dinner to be held at the Rydges South Bank Hotel, 9 Glenelg Street, Brisbaneon the evening of 8 October 2010.

Our Activities page provides information on what has been happening between newsletters. In the meantime, an updated version of the article on government asylum seeker policy by Eve Lester, ALHR's treasurer, and myself was published (albeit in a stripped down form) in Eureka Streetand can be accessed at http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=21550.  When the Leader of the Opposition took an even more extreme line than the government on treating asylum seekers as personae non gratae, ALHR suggested that Hansonism was triumphant among the mainstream parties. The release is on our site here. The Age picked up the release in their report.

The Israeli attack (with fatal consequences for nine passengers on the flotilla) on an aid flotilla heading to Gaza was the subject of a letter to Stephen Smith and a media release calling for Australia to be active in international forums to ensure that every effort is made to institute an independent and expert fact finding mechanism and to take action in the event that the attack was found to be in breach of international humanitarian law. For members who have access to Justinian, Ann Cunningham and I wrote a piece about Ann's experience in protesting the Gaza blockade by going to Egypt, earlier this year.