Mrs Faith Bandler has died. We mourn our loss and honour her life. Her death on Friday marks the end of an era. At the age of 96 years, she outlived all the other black political activists of her generation…
Artist Ben Quilty at last night’s I Stand For Mercy vigil for Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.
AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts
The prospect of the execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran has polarised Australians. While some argue the young men should suffer the consequeneces of importing heroin, others take a different…
In 1984, British LGBT rights groups worked on behalf of striking miners.
Flickr
The film Pride, which won the Queer Palm Award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, is based on the true story of what seems to be a rare occurrence in human history: two oppressed groups (in this case…
Groups like Stonewall have become big players in the workplace.
Linzi
A key event in the British employment calendar is the publication of the Workplace Equality Index each January. It is a ranking of the top-100 “gay-friendly” employers by Stonewall, the UK’s main campaigning…
No tech here…
Stack of hands image via shutterstock.com
Foundation essay: This article is part of a series marking the launch of The Conversation in the US. Our foundation essays are longer than our usual comment and analysis articles and take a wider look…
Protestors demand answers over undercover policing in 2011.
John Stillwell/PA Archive
The Metropolitan Police has agreed to pay more than £400,000 to an anonymous woman who unwittingly entered a relationship with an undercover police officer investigating her. The woman was left traumatised…
It’s easy to sneer at people for protecting their backyards, but what if there’s a compelling reason to do so?
Mickey DeRham photos
Who exactly is behind the knitted bike rack cover that you walk past at the local park? And what is it that drives someone to cover a tree with intricately knitted creations? Yarn bombing – the practice…
Australian rugby star David Pocock is among the international sportspeople supporting the Principle 6 campaign – citing the Olympic Charter – against Russia’s anti-gay laws.
Twitter/@pocockdavid
What happens off the field stays off the track and the dais but plays OK at the press conference – that is the rather convoluted message from International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach…
Facebook has recently tried to close down the popular Anarchist Memes page on its site in the latest of a string of crackdowns on political online activism. It’s just one more example of the social media…
For those of us who were around when the HIV pandemic started in the west, How to Survive a Plague, a newly released film about AIDS activism in the US and the fight for more research is an especially…
A Palestinian farmer and Israeli soldier clash in an olive grove. Can academics in other countries affect this situation by boycotting one side or the other?
AAP/Abed Al Hashlamoun
The news that famous physicist Stephen Hawking has decided to join the academic boycott of Israel has attracted some heated commentary. Hawking pulled out of attending an Israeli conference in June, explaining…
The situation is desperate, no-one in power seems to care: what’s a concerned citizen to do?
AAP Image/Greenpeace, James Alcock
Greenpeace’s attempt to stop a ship carrying Australian coal is an opening shot in what is likely to be an escalating campaign of civil disobedience directed at Australia’s export coal industry. The raid…
A recent social media campaign for gay marriage has been criticised as ‘slacktivism’ and spawned a number of spin-offs.
Amanda B/Know Your Meme
Debate over the value of online activism has risen again in the wake of the highly visible Human Rights Campaign marriage equality campaign, which urged Facebook users to replace their profile photographs…
Former Greens leader Bob Brown has endorsed Jonathan Moylan’s hoax against Whitehaven Coal; but Moylan’s actions are unethical and corrupt the integrity of our systems.
Bob Brown’s opinion piece for Fairfax today seems to endorse Jonathan Moylan’s “activism” as a form of civil disobedience. The thoughts echo the sentiments expressed earlier in the week by his former colleague…
Queue for iPad 2 in Sydney: green activists targeting companies and governments should realise that those ‘enemies’ reflect the values of the money and consumption-hungry populace.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
The recent news out of the RIO+20 summit is dire. No collective pre-agreement, no institutional change, no investment. The difference between RIO+20 and Kyoto was that at least Kyoto created an agreement…
Lachlan Murdoch’s familial and professional links with News Corporation - as well as Channel 10 and radio network DMG - are cause for concern for internet activists Avaaz.
AAP
The worldwide online activist group Avaaz, which claims over 14 million members and operations in 193 countries, has this week launched an Australian campaign against Lachlan Murdoch. The group has written…
Julian Assange isn’t saving the world, so why do we think he’s a hero?
the euskadi 11/Flickr
The case of the three environmental activists who boarded the Japanese whaling vessel, the Shonan Maru 2 last week has divided opinions over the nature of their offence and what treatment they should receive…
Search engines can flag up “dubious” searches on request.
ssoosay
We know the self-confessed perpetrator of the Norway killings Anders Breivik purchased six tonnes of fertiliser, a key ingredient of explosives, in recent months. We know he was under surveillance by the…