Castan Centre for Human Rights Law

Tag: human rights

  • Chris Mitchell should put up rather than shut up

    by Sarah Joseph Followers of the Castan Centre Blog would know of the #twitdef imbroglio, ostensibly between the Editor-in-Chief of “the Australian” newspaper, Chris Mitchell, and University of Canberra journalism academic Julie Posetti. It is an interesting tale for the uninitiated, involving threats of a defamation suit over a series of tweets. For background, see my…

  • Tweeting human rights and two Revolutions (so far)

    Sarah Joseph The Castan Centre’s twitter account (@castancentre) is intended to disseminate news of relevance to human rights, usually consisting of a short descriptor (very occasionally with attempted wit) followed by a link to a story.  To give a sample of its flavour, many of the links below are to our twitter feed (and you…

  • Debunking a scare campaign: an exchange between a US Senator and his US constituent over the Gitmo trials

    By Erica Contini Like any good citizen, I voice my opinion on issues that are important to me by writing to my elected representatives in congress. Lucky for me, I am a US citizen and therefore have the constitutionally protected right to do just that. Even luckier, I generally think I can do so without…

  • The Giffords shooting: a view from the Antipodes

    Sarah Joseph Happy New Year everybody! This afternoon I write about a sad event that took place on Sunday morning (Melbourne time) in Tucson, Arizona. A US Democrat Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in an attempted assassination in which many others were wounded, and six others died. At the time of writing, the hopes for…

  • Eritrea: All that potential, and so little to show for it

    By Marius Smith Among last week’s torrent of Wikileaks cables released by the Guardian was a series of reports from the US embassy in Eritrea.  The cables derided the tiny African nation’s secretive leader, Isaias Afwerki, as an “unhinged dictator [who] remains cruel and defiant”  and “a recluse who spen[ds] his days painting and tinkering…

  • Reflections on Wikileaks

    By Sarah Joseph Gosh. This Wikileaks story is just running and running. And with thousands more cables to be released (only a small percentage of the quarter of a million in Wikileaks’ possession have been published so far), it isn’t going to leave the front pages soon. To add to the intrigue, there has been…