Keywords: Psychological Torture
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AUSTRALIA
- Holly Lawford-Smith
- 02 February 2024
1 Comment
How can we make progress on the question of whether debate can do harm, and if it can, whether that’s a sufficient reason to suppress particular debates? Or should we adopt a ‘no debate!’ approach to particular topics ourselves?
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 04 January 2024
Throughout recent decades of Australian history, the stance every government has taken on asylum seekers has reflected the shifting political landscapes and challenging humanitarian issues that have continually shaped Australia's response to those seeking refuge.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Juliette Hughes
- 17 November 2023
Stone Yard Devotional is a chronicle of a huge problem in our time: the sense of futility in all our efforts to amend. Wood may make us think, because despair is a constant stalker of the bravest of warriors against the destruction of the planet and the chronic toll of human evil. When compassion becomes a disabling burden, who or what can help?
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 28 July 2023
How has Australia's asylum seeker policy changed over the past thirty years? The approach of every government has reflected the shifting political landscapes and challenging humanitarian issues that have continually shaped Australia's response to those seeking refuge.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Peter Craven
- 14 June 2023
Ian McEwan's Lessons marked a sharp twist in a five-decade literary career, and presents an opportunity to reflect on his expansive body of work. The one-time literary rogue and Booker laureate now stands as the unquestioned doyen of modern English fiction, his audacious work perpetually navigating undercurrents of unease.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 22 July 2021
13 Comments
The late Donald Rumsfeld, twice US Secretary of Defense, a Fortune 500 CEO, and congressman for three terms, did not let evidence and the firmness of facts trouble him. If he had a cause to pursue he would. Morality was merely an impediment to service.
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AUSTRALIA
- Carolina Gottardo and Nishadh Rego
- 12 December 2019
6 Comments
Outside, a Martian-red haze kisses the windows. An ode to the future perhaps. Most of the people present are already aware of the Medevac repeal decision. The room is heavy with silence, the mood is sombre, but far from resigned. We want change, and are willing to have a crack at demanding it.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Carolina Gottardo
- 18 November 2019
7 Comments
I recently visited Port Moresby as part of a delegation of Catholic leaders. I have worked with refugees and migrants for more than 20 years in different countries. I have been part of many serious and confronting human rights struggles. Nonetheless, I was not expecting what I saw and heard in PNG, and it deeply touched me.
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RELIGION
- Rachel Woodlock
- 15 June 2018
14 Comments
Amid the shock and grief for Anthony Bourdain's death, one blue-tick Twitterer attempted to capture five minutes of shameful fame, declaring that religious people believe hell or purgatory is his afterworld destination. While all the great religious traditions generally proscribe suicide, they also contain nuanced views of the suicide's fate.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 05 November 2017
1 Comment
Detroit weaves archival footage with recreations of the racially charged 12th Street Riot of 1967, a moment poised against the civil rights movement and the disenfranchisement of urban blacks, before homing in on the incident at the Algiers motel - a cross-section within a cross-section of that moment in history, where three black citizens were beaten and killed by police.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 30 June 2016
1 Comment
This strange and engrossing Italian film proffers an unsettling rumination upon the rituals of mourning, and upon a mode of grief which itself is a kind of death. It opens with a sweeping close-up of an imposing crucifix, and the fine musculature of a graven Christ. A mass of mourners is then revealed, and before them a woman, immobile and weeping silently. The camera angle cuts to calf level, to reveal a trail of urine more copious than her tears, running down her leg to her shoes.
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AUSTRALIA
- Lyn Bender
- 18 January 2016
18 Comments
In the early hours of a brand new year, two small boys had their lives extinguished by a purportedly depressed father. For me this event brought to mind two cases from a past life, when I was the manager of Melbourne Lifeline. One was a woman who disclosed that she had killed her two small children a decade earlier. In a second case, a belligerent suicidal man expressed rage towards his former partner, who was about to remarry. I asked pertinent questions. Would he harm his children? 'Yes.'
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