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What justice for the victims in Afghanistan? An Afghan girl stands at the entrance of her house near a destroyed compound, in the old part of Kabul, on April 10, 2010.
Why Afghan victims still wait for Australian compensations
6 February 2025 by Asymmetrical Haircuts
In this latest podcast from our partners from Asymmetrical Haircuts, we follow on with a series of episodes on Australia’s investigation into war crimes allegedly committed by its troops in Afghanistan. They discuss and highlight [...]
Official portrait of Major General Jeff Sengelman who led the Australian military operations in Afghanistan. Australia’s war crimes in Afghanistan: “I am one of them”
30 January 2025 by Asymmetrical Haircuts
“It was really ugly, and it continues to be hurtful, but we called ourselves out,” Major General Jeff Sengelman says. Today, we broadcast an exclusive interview with the man who played a key role in creating “the command climate”, [...]
In Australia, transitional justice is being undermined by politics. The Aboriginal community is trying to adapt to the failings of truth commissions following the recent change of government in Queensland. Photo: An Aboriginal man, with only his hands visible, burns herbs during a traditional smoking ceremony. The retreating tide of transitional justice in Australia
24 January 2025 by Maxim Shanahan
There have been many setbacks for transitional justice in Australia in the past year. The latest one happened in the state of Queensland. A new Truth-Telling and Healing Inquiry was shut down after the conservative opposition won [...]
Indigenous rights in Australia: the role of King Charles III of the United Kingdom and the imprint of the Commonwealth. Photo: King Charles observes a performance by an Aboriginal group. Indigenous rights in Australia: the rôle of the Crown
28 October 2024 by Philip Murphy
On a visit to Australia, King Charles III was challenged by a senator of Aboriginal origin, Lidia Thorpe, who accused Great Britain of having perpetrated a “genocide” in her country, and called for recognition of the rights of Fir [...]
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Art installation in Australia representing the aboriginal flag
9 November 2023 by Maxim Shanahan
Against tide, Yoorrook Commission goes on One year after the start of a unique Australian truth-telling commission run by First Peoples in the state of Victoria, known as the Yoorrook Commission, urgent recommendations have been made to authorities after hearings which gr [...]
Ben Roberts-Smith - 3 Australian newspapers named him in allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan.
9 June 2023 by Maxim Shanahan
A first (civil) ruling confirms Australia's war crimes in Afghanistan It's 'just' a civil defamation case, but it has caused thunder in Australia. Soldier Ben Roberts-Smith lost the case against the media accusing him of war crimes in Afghanistan, and to establish this the media had to present evide [...]
Justice for Aboriginal people in Australia - Shane Patton, Victoria's Chief Commissioner, admits the injustices still faced by Indigenous Peoples.
16 May 2023 by Maxim Shanahan
Yoorrook Commission: “It takes the death of an Aboriginal” to reform laws In the fortnight to Monday May 15, senior representatives of law, prisons and police institutions appeared before the Yoorrook Justice Commission, to face questioning over their responsibility in perpetuating the systemic injustic [...]
Aboriginal children in Australia - Yoorrook Commission reveals alarming colonization figures
2 May 2023 by Maxim Shanahan
Yoorrook commission: the government admits “a shameful system” In Australia’s state of Victoria, the Yoorrook Commission reconvened on April 27 for a further round of hearings in which public servants, government ministers and senior police officers are to be questioned over the failure to ad [...]
Australia's war crimes in Afghanistan - SAS trooper Oliver Schultz arrested
28 March 2023 by Maxim Shanahan
Australia's war crimes in Afghanistan: a high-stakes first arrest In Australia, a first arrest – of a former SAS trooper, Oliver Schultz – in the investigation of alleged war crimes committed by Special Forces in Afghanistan launched two years ago marks a significant development and poses novel [...]
Aboriginal Children of Australia - Ballarat Orphanage
6 March 2023 by Maxim Shanahan
Yoorrook Truth-Commission: Cold light on the child protection system The Yoorrook Truth Commission, in Victoria state, southeast Australia, restarted on Wednesday March 1 with a third round of hearings centred on truth-telling about the removal of the Aboriginal children from their families and chi [...]
Eleanor A. Bourke, Chair of the Yoorrook Justice Commission in Australia.
3 February 2023 by Maxim Shanahan
Continued violence of colonisation exposed before Australia’s Yoorrook Commission At the national level, Australia has struggled to hold a truth, reconciliation and reparations process on the violence committed against Indigenous peoples. The state of Victoria, in South-East Australia, wants to reverse this cou [...]
War Crimes in Afghanistan - Article in The Canberra Times (Australia) headlined:
21 November 2022 by Maxim Shanahan
War crimes and press freedom battle in Australia A whistleblower criminal trial and a defamation case involving a high-profile soldier and leading media houses: these are the main justice forums where alleged war crimes by Australian armed forces in Afghanistan are currently bei [...]
Dutch soldiers fire shells in the Chora region, Afghanistan
13 July 2021 by Stephanie van den Berg
Dutch war crimes in Afghanistan: The Australian trigger An Australian probe has dented the Dutch wall of silence about alleged war crimes in Afghanistan more than ten years ago. Stories from Dutch Afghanistan veterans have begun to surface in the media. It has also boosted a long-runni [...]
4 January 2021 by Julia Crawford
Australia launches unprecedented war crimes probe The new Office of the Special Investigator is to start work on January 4. Its job is to investigate alleged war crimes committed by Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan. No member of the Australian armed forces has been prosec [...]
27 November 2020 by Asymmetrical Haircuts
Australia’s wake-up call on war crimes Execution of prisoners, a “blooding” practice where subordinates are ordered to kill out-of-action enemy combatants, a system of covering up war crimes, and “collective blindness” of the army hierarchy: the Brereton inquiry into a [...]
30 July 2020 by Caitlin Reiger
Australia’s first truth commission: transitional justice to face colonial legacies In Australia, calls for treaty, truth-telling and historical justice have a long and chequered history. And when Black Lives Matter protests spilled onto the streets of Australian cities, and numbers of non-Aboriginal Australians [...]
19 July 2018 by AFP
Turnbull calls on Pope to sack archbishop for concealing child abuse Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Thursday called on Pope Francis to sack disgraced archbishop Philip Wilson after he was convicted of covering up child sex abuse but remains employed by the church. One of the highest- [...]
26 July 2017 by AFP
Cardinal Pell denies abuse charges in Australian court Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell, a top advisor to Pope Francis, denied all charges of historical sexual abuse Wednesday at his first appearance in an Australian court over the allegations. The 76-year-old, the number-th [...]
26 July 2017 by AFP
Cardinal Pell arrives for Australian sex abuse court hearing Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell arrived for his first appearance in an Australian court on historical sex abuse charges Wednesday, facing a huge media scrum ahead of the largely administrative hearing. The 76-year-old, [...]