Acknowledgement of Country//
Headlines
We listened to a recent conversation between Alice and Spanish and Latin American Studies PhD Researcher Sasha Gillies-Lekakis about the energy crisis facing Cuba due to the recently increased fuel blockade by the United States. Catch Sasha on 3CR's Latin American Update and Unitarian Half Hour shows, and follow the work of the Australia Cuba Friendship Society at melbourneacfs.org.//
Peter Cronau, award-winning, investigative journalist, writer, film-maker, and co-founder of Declassified Australia, caught up with Priya earlier this week to discuss the Five Eyes intelligence agreement between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and the role of Australia's Pine Gap signals intelligence (SIGINT) facility in light of the US-Israeli offensive on Iran. Head to DeclassifiedAus.org for rigorous, in-depth coverage of Australia's role in the global military industrial complex.//
Ilo Diaz from the Centre Against Racial Profiling joined us to discuss safety and accountability concerns aroundVictoria Police’s extension of Operation Pulse until the end of this year, continuing targeted Protective Service Officer (PSO) and police patrols at shopping centres across the state. The Allan Labor Government announced its investment of a further $6.5 million to extend the operation, which allows officers to search people without warrants at targeted shopping centres in significantly racially diverse areas. Ilo works directly with communities experiencing human rights abuses in Melbourne, South America and Palestine.//
CONTENT NOTE: this interview contains distressing themes, including discussion of state-sanctioned sexual violence. If you need to speak with someone, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or the Suicide Callback Service on 1300 659 467.
Georgia Sheals and Nina Storey from the Formerly Incarcerated Girls Justice Advocates Melborne (FIGJAM) Collective spoke about the dehumanising practice of strip searching in the Australian corrections system, and why this practice needs to end. FIGJAM, Flat Out and Human Rights Law Centre have just launched a co-authored report titled 'Ending Strip Searches in Australian Prisons', which details the harm, prevalence and ineffectiveness of strip searching drawing on a combination of information obtained by Freedom of Information requests and the testimony of formerly incarcerated people including members of FIGJAM Collective. The report, published at EndStripSearching.com, is accompanied by a petition calling on the federal government to ban strip searches across all Australian prisons. Donate to support FIGJAM Collective's work here.//
Sarah Blumfeld shared updates on the Don’t Fly Thai campaign, which rejects Thai Airways’ transport of F35 fighter jet parts from Australia to Israel on commercial passenger planes. Sarah discussed the campaign’s 25th February protests held at Melbourne and Sydney international airports, which prompted a global response via social media coverage. We recommend revisiting our two part interview with Peter Cronau from Declassified Australia broadcast on the 16th and 23rd of October last year for more information on the transport of F35 parts on commercial flights. You can view the known locations of weapons manufacturers in Australia here, and email Thai Airways’ bosses to tell them what you think about their involvement in weapons components transport here.//
Emily, Inez, Leila, Priya, River, Candy
