Thousands of Australians yesterday protested the anniversary of British colonization of their nation, with large crowds urging for Australia Day to be moved and for a day of mourning on the holiday some call “Invasion Day.”
The holiday marks the arrival of 11 British ships carrying convicts at Port Jackson in present-day Sydney on Jan. 26, 1788. For many, the day marked the beginning of a sustained period of discrimination and expulsion of Indigenous people from their land without a treaty.
Thousands of people, many of whom waved Indigenous flags, rallied in front of the Victoria State Parliament in Melbourne, calling for an official day of mourning to be declared across Australia. Roads and tram lines were shut down for more than four hours.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Large crowds in Sydney chanted for the Australia Day date to be moved. Thousands of protesters also rallied in Brisbane and the second day of Australia’s Test cricket match against the West Indies was briefly disrupted by demonstrators.
Major sports have stopped calling the holiday Australia Day, and the Australian Football League Players’ Association, several clubs and hockey teams have called for the date to change.
Two monuments symbolizing Australia’s colonial past were damaged in Melbourne on Thursday. A statue of British naval officer James Cook, who in 1770 charted Sydney’s coast, was sawn off at the ankles, and a Queen Victoria monument was doused in red paint.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people represented 3.8 percent of Australia’s population of 26 million in 2021, according to an Australian Bureau of Statistics census. Indigenous people are the nation’s most disadvantaged ethnic minority.
Tensions are high after Australian voters in October last year resoundingly rejected a referendum to create an advocacy committee to offer advice to parliament on policies that affect Indigenous people. The government had proposed the first constitutional change since 1977 as a step forward in Indigenous rights.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday said that the national day was an opportunity for Australians to “pause and reflect on everything that we have achieved as a nation.”
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
RSS