March update on Game Over: get people to safety

Human rights advocate and Game Over ambassador Craig Foster updates us on the campaign to end offshore detention and get people trapped in Papua New Guinea and Nauru to safety. Thank you so much for your continued support of the Game Over campaign. We’re now a movement of 50,000 everyday Australians and building. Together we …

Science and raising the age of criminal responsibility

By Dr Meg Perkins, PhD MAPS Most experts in the world agree that 10 years old is far too young to be held criminally responsible, and certainly far too young to be in prison. This is my view as a psychologist, having studied the neurological issues related to children in prison. In short: if you …

‘The Great Hack’: Cambridge Analytica is just the tip of the iceberg

It was the scandal which finally exposed the dark side of the big data economy underpinning the internet. The inside story of how one company, Cambridge Analytica, misused intimate personal Facebook data to micro-target and manipulate swing voters in the US election, is compellingly told in “The Great Hack”, a new documentary out on Netflix. …

Inside Queensland’s broken youth justice system

Fiona* is devastated at how much Queensland’s justice system failed her son. In January, Fiona’s 15-year-old son Mark* spent three weeks in the Brisbane City Watch House for stealing chocolates and paint cans from a shop.  Police took Mark to the Brisbane City Watch House, a maximum security detention facility designed to temporarily hold adults. …

Eight issues behind Indigenous youth suicide

By Dr. Hannah McGlade Curtin As a Noongar woman, a mother, and human rights advocate I have been very shocked and saddened by the tragic loss of young lives in my community. Young Aboriginal children and youth are ending their lives before they’ve had a chance to build them. Our national health bodies have called …

Five reasons to abolish the death penalty

With the fourth anniversary of the executions of Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in Indonesia fast approaching, we must continue to challenge the notion of “an eye for an eye”. Here are five reasons why. 1. You can’t take it back The death penalty is irreversible. Absolute judgments may lead to people paying for crimes …

Pain, refuge and freedom: Imran’s story

As someone born to stateless parents, and who has been stateless all my life, I found it impossible to imagine a life of freedom, respect, opportunities and love. It is a life I thought I would never experience. I fled Myanmar (Burma) when I was 16, boarding many boats to seek a country I could …

Five things you can do for human rights this year

However dire and widespread the human rights abuses of the last year may feel, we each have a role to play in making the world we want to live in a better place for all. Here are just five things you can do for human rights this year: 1. Spread the word on social One …

Putin Has Given Chechnya Free Rein to Persecute LGBTQI People

By Natalia Prilutskaya, Russia Researcher at Amnesty International For the second time in less than two years, a violent homophobic crackdown has left LGBTI people in Chechnya fearing for their lives. Earlier this week the Russian LGBT Network confirmed reports that the Chechen authorities have resumed large-scale arrests of individuals believed to be gay or …