Bangladesh International Human Rights Day rallies

The National Garment Workers Federation organized a rally of garment workers named "Garment Workers Human Rights Protection Rally" in the capital city Dhaka. Several hundred garment workers participated in this with red flags. It was led by the president and general secretary of the NGWF, Amirul Haque Amin and Miss Safia Pervin. From the rally it urged the government and employers to protect trade union rights in the garment sector because this is a human right. Also mentioned though according to the law garment workers have the right to organize and bargain but that is not the reality. And it happens because of the weakness of the labour laws, absence of commitment of the government and anti-union attitude of the employers.

Two simple words - “I’m Australian” - will take on harrowing new connotations, viewers simultaneously confronted with both their meaning and their futility. Chalk Balibo down as a must-see and take a cold shower afterwards. http://blogs.crikey.com.au/cinetology/2009/07/21/balibo-film-review-a-dynamite-aussie-expose/

We saw Balibo film today. It is set in East Timor where 5 journalists from Oz were murdered by invading Indonesian military in 1975 when they crossed the border of West/East Timor.

It is told mostly from perspective of another Oz journo Roger East who showed up soon after to find out what happened to them and was subsequently murdered too - in Dili by the Kopassus (SAS death squad style dudes) who were parachuted in by Suharto regime with US blessing;

Prez Ford & Kissinger visited Soeharto Inc and day after they departed invasion began... Oz govt of Whitlam and then Fraser etc supplied intelligence to Indon's "anti-commo purge" of East Timor - really Indon's capture of strategic oil and gas resources when Portugal departed its colonies.

Indonesia: Two sisters jailed for fighting against precarious employment http://www.imfmetal.org/main/index.cfm?n=47&l=2&c=19127

March 19 2009 Two sisters face up to six years imprisonment after their company targeted them for trying to organize precarious workers.

INDONESIA: FSPMI is calling for the Indonesian President to intervene to ensure the release of shop stewards Evi Risiasari and Yuli Setianingsih, who are in prison as a result of their union activities. The sisters have been fighting to secure ongoing employment for all 152 employees at PT Takita Manufacturing, where less than half of the workers have permanent jobs.

PT. Takita Manufacturing has seriously violated both Indonesian Labour Laws, and ILO Conventions 87 and 98 by attempting to prevent the women from organizing precarious workers, targeting them with false charges and forcing them to sign fake declarations which have been used to imprison them.