Asylum seeker detention: Crikey is to blame

Les Heimann writes: Re. “Asylum seeker whistleblowers muzzled by harsh penalties, metadata access” (yesterday). We are no longer a free country, and we have been made so not by our fascistic ultra-right-wing government, not by our jelly-like and poorly led opposition, but by the few bastions of free media, including this publication.

We downtrodden peasants expect nothing from fascist News Corp press. We did expect howls and cries from the likes of SMH, The Age, Guardian and Crikey. Look at Australia now: We run a concentration camp where we routinely lock up innocent victims of persecution and subject them to more persecution. We operate in strict secrecy when it suits us, and more and more it is suiting us to do so. We punish those who would speak out. We restrict the open operation of our laws by more and more restriction on basic legal rights. We forbid people accused of something from even letting others know they have been taken by our more and more powerful and secretive police operations. We slavishly follow others into unnecessary and harmful conflicts and make up stories to justify our actions. We allow our politicians to put out the most outrageous lies without even a murmur. We accept the abolition of free assembly. Thank you Queensland and other states soon to follow. We allow big business to dictate what our policies are.

When our democracy is completely shredded and there is no free press, what then? This publication will either not exist or has slipped silently into the claws of the dictators. Exaggerating; no, I am not. Do your history, examine Germany, Spain, Italy just to name a few.

J ’accuse.

Anti-Zionism does not equal anti-Semitism

John Kotsopoulos writes: Re. “Jake Lynch ‘relieved’ to be cleared of serious misconduct” (yesterday). I cannot believe that we still have a general confusion that equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism and that this confusion should exist in a university ,

This is on a par with the right-wing commentariat ‘s past attempt to label as anti-American those Australians who opposed George Bush. That argument failed because at the time Bush had a disapproval rating of 70% in the US.

While some anti-Zionists may also be anti-Semites there are significant numbers of Jews, including Ultra Orthodox rabbis, who are anti-Zionist. They argue that the artificial way the state of Israel was created and the subsequent forced appropriations of Palestinian land are actions that are inconsistent with the teachings of the Torah.

Carpark carping

Chris Janz writes: Re. “Carpark capers as parliamentary price signals take effect” (Tuesday). I almost didn’t send a note but wow … this is not the journalism I pay for!  And geez, parking in Canberra’s cheap.