It doesn’t take swords and armies, or AK47 Kalashnikovs and military vehicles, to discriminate against someone. All it takes is for one person to treat you unfairly on the basis of your religion.
Freedom / Rangatiratanga
Talk With Me: Never, Never
Three winners have been announced for Talk With Me, the national writing competition for secondary school students on the refugee experience. Juliette Varuhas, 14, from Wellington Girls’ College, wrote this poem.
Talk with Me: Happiness is Ubiquitous
Nosia Fogogo, 18, a refugee from Burundi, Africa who now lives in Auckland, wrote this personal story for Talk With Me.
Human Traffic
200 hundred years ago the British Empire put an end to the slave trade, so why, in today’s modern society, are people still bought and sold like commodities?
WAR ON LIBERTIES
The world, since September 11 is a different place. The media permanently talks about the latest ‘terrorist threat’ and we have a whole new vocabulary: ‘war on terrorism’ and WMD. There is a lot of fear, and in this state of fear we are quietly allowing our freedoms to slip away.
Profile Of A Pacific Political Prisoner
By Cameron Walker
Imagine being thrown in a filthy prison, where your cell mates mysteriously ‘disappear’ overnight, just for waving your country’s flag. For many years this was a reality for my West Papuan friend Fransiskus Kandam.
Interview with an Aotearoa peacebuilder
by Annie Boanas, age 23, Wellington
Pauline Tangiora Q.S.O., Q.S.M. is a Māori elder from the Rongomaiwahine tribe on the East Coast of the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. She has affiliations with many other tribes. She is a Justice of the Peace, a former President and currently Vice President of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (Aotearoa), the former Regional Women’s Representative for the World Council for indigenous peoples, an Earth Charter Commissioner and a member of the Earth Council. She is a life member of the Māori Women’s Welfare League and a Patron of the Peace Foundation. She has represented Aotearoa at many international fora and was a Consultant to the International Steering Committee of the World Court Project, a legal challenge to nuclear weapons.
She has also been recently nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Freedom of speech and expression: Free to be me
By Steph Garland. The freedom to express ourselves is something we can sometimes take for granted in New Zealand. So much so we couldn’t even say what ‘freedom of expression’ really means. Steph Garland found out, but discovered more blurry lines than answers.
Fight for your right!
By Cameron Walker. I like writing about how I feel about issues which affect our lives. I’ve taken part in protests to express my feelings. As yet I haven’t been arrested, beaten, tortured or killed. In some nations however, people suffer terrible consequences for exercising the simple freedoms we take for granted in New Zealand.
Music and Censorship
By Jenah Shaw. Music is everywhere. On that radio over there, on TV, in that car driving past… so imagine if the only song you could hear from any of these was something everyone agreed was ‘safe’ enough. Something without swear words or any references to violence or sex – like Hi 5. Shudder.
Welcome to a world of music censorship
