Tag Archives: Oceania

Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief

Global Event: The Covid-19 Pandemic

Discrimination and Disparity in the Covid-19 Pandemic

Covering the nearly two-year span of the COVID–19 pandemic to date, this roundup is a collection of reporting and research on communities around the world that have experienced the dual perils of discrimination and disparity. In addition to bearing the brunt of the disease, marginalized communities around the world have become the pandemic’s scapegoats and the targets of rumor, distrust, and disinformation campaigns, resulting in the “racialization” of the virus and creating further insecurities during the crisis. Beyond local inequalities, the coupling of discrimination and disparity has generated transnational inequities such as the outbreak of anti-Asian racism, the targeting and marginalization of migrants and refugees, and the disproportionately worse illness outcomes of Indigenous and Black people.

The situation has created obstacles to protecting communities against the ongoing effects of COVID–19. Among historically persecuted communities, longstanding distrust of government brought about by historical injustices has cultivated resistance to state-driven medical interventions such as vaccine campaigns. And local inequalities have been exacerbated by structural inequalities at the international level, with the wealthy West accused of hoarding health resources such as vaccines.

This collection contains more than 160 news reports, research articles, and data sources covering conditions and developments at the global, regional, and national levels. Data and information in older items are likely outdated and should be treated as historical records, reflecting emergent problems and understandings that have produced the current social, political, and economic landscape of the pandemic. However, the unfolding of coverage reveals how knowledge of the differential impact of the pandemic has shifted, from early awareness of racial and ethnic mortality disparities and reports of discrimination to recent concerns about vaccine nationalism and the long-term economic impacts of the pandemic.

Continue reading Global Event: The Covid-19 Pandemic →
Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief

Australia News | Immigrants, Muslims & People of Color

Demands for government to deal with far-right extremism grow in Australia

  • Groups such as the now-defunct United Patriot Front and the Lads Society and the current National Socialist Network have created space for White nationalists in Australia to organize both online and offline.
  • All 27 currently listed terrorist organizations are extremist Islamist groups, despite the fact that the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (AISO) reported that far-right terror accounted for 40% of its caseload; in the two decades since membership in a terrorist organization was criminalized in response to the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., no far-right group in Australia has been classified as a proscribed organization.
  • The increasingly transnational dimensions of far-right organizing have posed a particularly difficult challenge, including the influence of the mainstreaming of far-right politics in the U.S. and fallout from the 2019 Christchurch massacre in which an Australian national killed 51 in an attack on the Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre.

Read

“How Australia’s anti-terror regime has failed to rein in far-right extremists” (The Guardian | January 2021)

“‘Peddlers of hate’: Australia’s growing legion of far-right extremists hail US Capitol invaders” (The New Daily | January 2021)

“Neo-Nazis go bush: Grampians gathering highlights rise of Australia’s far right” (The Sydney Morning Herald | January 2021)

Study

Listed terrorist organizations (Government of Australia)

Australian Security Environment and Outlook (Australian Security Intelligence Organization)

Race + Color + Ethnicity

Global Event: Anti-Police Violence Protests

Global Protests:
#BlackLivesMatter / Anti–Police Violence

Nearly four years ago, Outlas published a catalog of media coverage focused on global protests connected to the burgeoning #BlackLivesMatter movement. Today, the murder of Black American George Floyd by the police has re-galvanized demonstrations across the world’s continents, promoting diverse forms of solidarity across movements focused on affirming Black lives, eliminating racism, and ending police violence.

Floyd’s death is one among many that have pushed people into the streets of cities from Honolulu to East Jerusalem, drawing together accounts of the criminalization of people of color and other minority groups around the world. Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, protesters around the world have gathered to interconnect their causes, demonstrating the resilience of a global anti-racism and anti–police brutality movement despite the lull in media coverage in recent years. This collection has gathered more than 150 articles, statements, and multimedia stories documenting the recent surge in protests and their interconnection.

Key Global Cases
Global/Interregional
U.S.
Canada
Latin America and the Caribbean
Europe
Africa and the Middle East
Asia and the Pacific

Key Global Cases

Global/Interregional

Source: The Telegraph

A number of media outlets have mapped the development of demonstrations around the world and compiled media and accounts from protests, summarizing the connections between the diverse sites and expressions of solidarity journalists have uncovered.

U.S.

Source: NBC News

The U.S. has experienced more than a week of protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. His death was the latest in a series of events that had drawn attention to ongoing violence and threats of violence faced by Black people in public space across the U.S., from racist vigilantism in Georgia to a dead-of-night police break-in and murder in New York. Protesters across all 50 states mobilized to contest police violence, prompting spectacular forms of police repression—including tear-gassing, beatings, tasing, and shootings—captured on video and circulated across social media platforms.

Local Protests

Canada

Source: Global News

Canada has experienced its own widespread condemnation of police violence in the U.S., organizing massive demonstrations from Vancouver to Halifax in honor of the memory of George Floyd. Participants have also drawn attention to recent fatal incidents involving police—including the recent death of Afro-Indigenous woman Regis Korchinski-Paquet—and the disproportionate effects of police violence experienced by Black and Indigenous Canadians and other Canadians of color.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Source: Agence France-Presse

Afro-Latinx, Afro-Caribbean, and allied Latin American communities have also expressed solidarity with Black Americans, highlighting both the ongoing forms of marginalization experienced by Afro-descendant people in Central American countries and the complex relationships to racism across the Caribbean. Brazil, in particular, has been grappling with an entrenched police brutality problem that overwhelmingly threatens Afro-Brazilians—particularly those living in poor communities. The recent killing of 14-year-old João Pedro has reignited protests, with demonstrators drawing explicit connections to anti-Black police violence in the U.S.

Transnational

Brazil

Mexico

Europe

Source: France 24

Massive protests across Europe have centered not only the injustice of George Floyd’s death, but also ongoing forms of racism across the continent. In France, George’s death scratched at the wound of the 2016 murder of Adama Traoré in a suburb of Paris. In the UK, protest participants were quick to shut down any attempt to distance the UK from U.S.-style racism, highlighting ongoing discrimination experienced by Black communities in the country. Whether in the commemoration of colonial leaders responsible for the death of millions of Africans or stubborn denials of institutional racism, contemporary manifestations of racism drew the ire of demonstrators of all backgrounds.

Transnational

Belgium

France

Germany

Italy

The Netherlands

Spain

U.K.

Africa and the Middle East

Source: France 24

Solidarity with protesters in the U.S. found diverse expression across Africa and the Middle East, from a mural in the rubble of an obliterated Syrian building to an open letter signed by dozens of African writers demanding accountability and pressuring African governments to do more. African political leaders, for their part, took the rare step of condemning the situation in the U.S.. But activists across the region also worked to draw attention to local police brutality problems as well, including the killing of autistic Palestinian Iyad Halak by Israeli border security and high levels of violence against women (both by police and by others not held to account by police) in Nigeria.

Transnational

The Gambia

Israel and the Palestinian Territories

Kenya

Nigeria

South Africa

Turkey

Asia and the Pacific

Source: The New Zealand Herald

In the Asia-Pacific region, a range of responses to unrest in the U.S. has emerged. In a tit-for-tat with the U.S. government, Chinese officials have used the situation to draw attention to human rights violations in the U.S. as the U.S. has condemned China for its crackdown on protesters in Hong Kong. Elsewhere, police brutality has been a longstanding issue with respect to the treatment of indigenous communities. Thousands of protesters across Australia and New Zealand expressed solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement while also integrating the long history of anti-Indigenous violence into their calls for change. Similarly, the outbreak of protests in U.S. and the resurgence of global anti-racism consciousness provided an opportunity for activists and members of the Papuan diaspora to highlight the ongoing discrimination and violence experienced by indigenous Papuans at the hands of the Indonesian government.

Australia

China

India

Indonesia

Japan

New Zealand

Race + Color + Ethnicity

CITATIONS | Global Indigenous Security

Citations:
Global Indigenous Security

Historically tied to forms of settler-colonial social organization and subjugation, Indigenous identities today—including Aboriginal, Native, First Nations/Peoples, and “tribal peoples”—have proliferated alongside contemporary efforts to secure political recognition, concentrate resources, redress historical wrongs and entrenched inequities, and form widespread networks.

The political success of the category, however, has been uneven. In some regions, such as the Americas, states have long recognized Indigenous peoples as coherent social groups with unique interests distinct from non-Indigenous groups. In others, such as much of Asia and Africa, indigeneity remains, at best, only partially recognized, even as governments acknowledge historical priority, cultural and economic distinctiveness, and entrenched territorial connections. Some groups that would in one context be identified as Indigenous avoid or refuse identifying as such, often the result of complex political negotiations. Given the tremendous—and perhaps irreconcilable—diversity that exists between different Indigenous communities, how can the many groups caught in the gravity of the concept of “the indigenous” be discussed together? What commonalities might link them?

Sidestepping the scholarly debate on the coherence of “Indigenous” as a global identity category, this special content collection highlights several thematic “centers of gravity” around which self-identifying Indigenous or “tribal” groups have come to cluster, focusing on issues of material security in line with the broader scope of Outlas as a project. It presents news and resources covering social and political developments affecting i/Indigenous* communities around the world from early 2019 through the present. A snapshot of issues and events shaping global, regional, and local conversations on Indigenous communities, it organizes content around six thematic areas: culture, conflict, health, environment, mobility, and politics. A final section contains links to government, civil society, and international resources of relevance to international Indigenous research and advocacy efforts.

* Although this collection will primarily capitalize “Indigenous” as an identifier, it will distinguish where necessary between contexts involving general conditions of historical distinctiveness with respect to territorial antecedence, livelihood, and/or culture (small-I) and those involving self-identified Indigenous/Aboriginal/Native/First/tribal communities (capital-I).

Continue reading CITATIONS | Global Indigenous Security →
Nationality + Migration, Religion + Belief

New Zealand News | Muslim

New Zealanders rally in support of Muslim community as government takes action

  • Some 15,000 people attended a rally in Christchurch to honor the memory of the 50 who died in the recent terror attacks.
  • The country’s chief censor issued a ban on the attacker’s manifesto, classifying the document in the same way as other terroristic propaganda such as Islamic State materials.
  • More than 1,000 voluntarily turned in their weapons as the government moved to ban military-style semiautomatic weapons, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announcing she expects legislation to be in place by mid-April.

Read

“Thousands attend New Zealand vigil, rally to fight racism, remember Christchurch victims” (Reuters | March 2019)

“Censor bans ‘manifesto’ of Christchurch mosque shooter” (The Guardian | March 2019)

“Christchurch shootings: New Zealand to ban military style weapons” (BBC News | March 2019)

Nationality + Migration, Religion + Belief

New Zealand NEWS | Muslims

Terrorist attack on two Christchurch mosques leaves more than four dozen dead

  • A gunman opened fire in the Masjid Al Noor mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch, killing at least 49 and injuring 48 in the worst mass shooting in New Zealand history.
  • In addition to livestreaming one of the attacks on Facebook, the attacker posted a manifesto online in which he declared far-right, anti-immigrant, white-supremacist views.
  • The gunman was arrested along with three other suspects, and officials advised community members to avoid visiting mosques in the aftermath of the attack.

Read

“Christchurch mosque shootings: What you need to know” (The New Zealand Herald | March 2019)

“New Zealand PM: Dozens killed in ‘terrorist’ attack on mosques” (Al Jazeera | March 2019)

“49 shot dead in attack on two Christchurch mosques” (The Guardian | March 2019)

Support

United for Christchurch Mosque Shootings (crowdfunding campaign)

Connect

The Federation of Islamic Associations in New Zealand (FIAZ)

Sexual + Gender Minorities

Australia News | Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual

Australian Parliament legalizes same-sex marriage following postal referendum
  • With a near-unanimous vote, the House of Representatives voted to amend the Marriage Act to remove the barrier to marriage rights for same-sex couples, following a similar vote in the Senate.
  • A postal referendum, the result of a controversial decision by the Tony Abbott–led government in 2015 to put the marriage right question to popular referendum, returned 61.6% of Australians voting in favor of removing orientation-based discrimination in marriage law.
  • The Marriage Act had been amended in 2004 to deny same-sex couples the legal right to marriage.
Read

“Marriage equality law passes Australia’s parliament in landslide vote” (The Guardian | December 2017)

“Same-sex marriage legalised in Australia as Parliament passes historic law” (The Sydney Morning Herald | December 2017)

“Same-sex marriage: First weddings take place in Melbourne, Sydney” (ABC News | December 2017)

 

Race + Color + Ethnicity

Australia News | Indigenous

Indigenous leaders in Australia seek formal legal and political representation with government
  • More than 250 Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander leaders met in Uluru to discuss political recognition, agreeing formal treaties were necessary beyond proposed symbolic representation in the constitution.
  • The government issued an apology for historical injustices in 2008, although community leaders and activists have sought legal commitments to reparative measures beyond symbolism.
  • The push is likely to face strong opposition as the Australian Constitution has only been amended eight times in 44 attempts in its 116-year history.
Read

“Uluru talks: Indigenous Australians reject ‘symbolic’ recognition in favour of treaty” (The Guardian | May 2017)

“Australia’s Aborigines seek treaties in drive for more than symbolic change” (Reuters | May 2017)

“Why doesn’t Australia have an indigenous treaty?” (BBC News | May 2017)

Additional

The Australian Constitution

(Image Credit: Calla Wahlquist/The Guardian)

Race + Color + Ethnicity

Australia Feature | Mixed-race Aboriginal

Australia’s “Stolen Generation” Speaks

For six decades across the 20th century, the Australian government pursued a ruthless policy of the forced assimilation of its indigenous population, tearing mixed-race children from their communities and creating “stolen generations” deprived of access to the culture of their aboriginal roots. The policy, similar to those pursued in Canada and the U.S., forced children into boarding schools, church missions, and adoptions to erase connections to their communities. Canadian photographer Matthew Sherwood has documented the stories of those in the Northern Territory through his photo series Generations Stolen, profiled in The New York Times.

Read

“Australia’s ‘Stolen Generations’ Tell Their Stories” (The New York Times | May 2017)

Race + Color + Ethnicity

Australia & Canada Feature | Indigenous

The Fight for Indigenous Equality, from Australia to Canada

As increased attention to negative outcomes in indigenous communities has pushed their governments to address racial disparities, Australian and Canadian indigenous advocates have drawn attention to the markedly similar ways in which English settler colonialism and systemic racial inequality unfolded in their countries. In both countries, indigenous peoples make up at least a quarter of the prison population, 40% of incarcerated children, and half of those in the child welfare system. Similar policies of forced family dissolution, detention, and delayed dismantlement of legal inequality have pushed advocates an ocean apart to come up with comparative solutions to the persistent indigenous/non-indigenous gap in their countries.

Read

“‘It’s the same story’: How Australia and Canada are twinning on bad outcomes for Indigenous people” (The Guardian | April 2017)

(Image Credit: Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty Images, via The Guardian)

Nationality + Migration, Sexual + Gender Minorities

Australia News | LGBTI

South Australia approves bill to recognize same-sex partnerships
  • The South Australia Legislative Council approved a bill to establish a relationship registry for same-sex couples in the state and recognize overseas same-sex marriages, including of Australian nationals who travel to New Zealand to be married.
  • The new law will allow same-sex couples to enjoy some of the partnership rights of opposite-sex couples, including recognition of next-of-kin status, and introduces protections for intersex people.
  • The bill followed the death of British national David Bulmer-Rizzi on honeymoon in South Australia, which prompted international outcry after his marriage to his husband Marco went unrecognized for end-of-life decisions and on the death certificate issued.

Read more:
“South Australia Has Passed A Law Recognising Same-Sex Relationships After Honeymoon Death” (BuzzFeed News)
“Marco Bulmer-Rizzi welcomes relationships register bill passing SA parliament” (ABC News)
“Premier Jay Weatherill makes apology in Parliament for past LGBTIQ discrimination” (news.com.au)

Additional reads:
“This British Man’s Husband Died On Honeymoon But Australia Refuses To Recognise Their Marriage” (BuzzFeed News)

(Image Credit: Facebook, via BuzzFeed News)

Nationality + Migration

Australia Features | Asylum-Seekers

Australia’s Refugee Hot Potato

Despite its reputation as a beacon—however imperfect—of multiculturalism in the Asia Pacific region, Australia has increasingly come under scrutiny for its asylum policies, which make it nearly impossible for refugees to find haven in the country. International outrage has grown over more than a decade as an evolving set of agreements and restrictions have made the country’s practices increasingly less transparent and, some advocates argue, more inhumane.

Rejection of refugee-carrying vessels, offshore processing, indefinite detention, poor conditions in detention centers, and questionable legal maneuverings have caused humanitarian monitors to sound the alarm, questioning Australia’s commitment to international human rights laws. The most recent development in Australia’s ever-evolving asylum-seeker drama has involved an agreement with the U.S. to take those currently held in offshore detention on the island of Nauru, but the election of Donald Trump has introduced uncertainty into a situation already defined by precarity.

Read:
“Offshore detention: Australia’s recent immigration history a ‘human rights catastrophe’” (The Guardian)

Additional:
“The Nauru files: cache of 2,000 leaked reports reveal scale of abuse of children in Australian offshore detention” (The Guardian)
“Refugees in Australia’s remote camps offered US resettlement” (AFP via Yahoo! News)

(Image Credit: Dean Lewins/AAP, via The Guardian)

Gender, Nationality + Migration

Papua New Guinea & Australia News | Asylum Seekers

Papua New Guinea court and PM say offshore refugee detention center for Australia to close
  • The PNG supreme court ruled the Manus Island-based center, one of two offshore centers Australia funds, was unconstitutional, with some detainees having been held for more than 1,000 days.
  • With only eight refugees having been resettled, PNG PM Peter O’Neill stated that Australia would have to make new arrangements for the 850 men who have been detained in the Manus center.
  • Australian immigration minister Peter Dutton has reiterated that the government will not allow the asylum-seekers onto Australian soil.

Read more:
“Manus Island detention centre to close, PNG Prime Minister says following court bombshell” (The Sydney Morning Herald)
“Manus Island detention centre to close, Papua New Guinea prime minister says” (The Guardian)
“Papua New Guinea Finds Australian Offshore Detention Center Illegal” (The New York Times)

(Image Credit: Ben Doherty/The Guardian)

Nationality + Migration

Nauru News | Refugees

Dozens of refugees held in Nauru while seeking asylum in Australia protest their detention
  • Protests have continued for more than a week as some of the asylum-seekers have been detained in the open-air center Nauru runs for Australia for 1,000 days.
  • The demonstrations coincided with Australian protests decrying Australia’s controversial offshore detention policy sending refugees who attempted to enter the country without authorization almost 2,800 miles away to Nauru.
  • Despite reports to the contrary, Australian and Nauruan authorities argue facilities are well-maintained, have good healthcare and activities, and, except during times of protest, allow for detainees to travel into the surrounding community.

Read more:
“Locked gates and erected fences contain Nauru asylum seeker protests” (The Guardian)
“Asylum seekers on Nauru determined to keep up protests” (Radio New Zealand)
“Rapes and fears for safety on Nauru uncovered by independent Moss review” (The Guardian)

(Image Credit: via The Guardian)

Nationality + Migration

Australia News | Refugees

Few of Australia’s controversial temporary visas for refugees are reaching their targets
  • Temporary protection visas (TPVs) and the Safe Haven Enterprise Visa (SHEV) were introduced as three-year and five-year work or education visas for refugees, respectively, requiring them to work or study to avoid losing their residency.
  • While some 2,000 have applied for the SHEV, refugee advocates say only 20 have been processed in the 18 months since the immigration ministry announced they would be used instead of opening pathways to permanent residency.
  • Without a SHEV, refugees are forced to remain in offshore detention, another of Australia’s controversial refugee policies.

Read more:
Temporary Protection Visa and Safe Haven Enterprise Visa (Government of Australia)
“Turnbull government accused of ineptitude as refugee visa scheme stumbles” (The Sydney Morning Herald)
“Refugees allowed to work and get services in Tasmania from today under SHEV” (ABC, October 2015)
“NSW signs up to place refugees in regional areas on five-year visas” (The Guardian, May 2015)

(Image Credit: Firdia Lisnawati/The Sydney Morning Herald)