Accent of Women

The brutality of the military dictatorships in Myanmar and Thailand have continued with further arrests, use of water cannon and live ammunition in the streets. An international solidarity campaign has started against the militarisation of these two countries, with activists from Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Finland and Germany. That International Soli...

Nawal El Saadawi, Egyptian writer, feminist, activist, doctor, psychiatrist, died on 21 March 2021, at age 89. This week’s edition of Accent of Women is a dedication to the legacy of Nawal El Saadawi – not perfect, but changed life for hundreds of thousands of women and girls in Egypt.

Lynas Rare Earth is proposing to dump over 1 million tons of radioactive waste in landfill in the pristine tropical rainforest near the city of Kuantan in Malaysia. The forest reserve at Bukit Ketam is linked to the water catchment that supplies water to over 90% of the population in Kuantan. Lynas has submitted a massive environmental impact assessment to the Malaysian authorities, which is light...

International Women’s Day, acknowledged on March 8 every year, is a day of activism, struggle and the continuation of the global movement to end sexist oppression. In those parts of the world where IWD is a struggle, and not a cupcake breakfast or morning tea, many of those demonstrations were brutally repressed. Azerbaijan is one such part of the world. On today’s show, we look at what happened a...

International Women’s Day, acknowledged on March 8 every year, is a day of activism, struggle and the continuation of the global movement to end sexist oppression. Today’s show is a dedication to all women globally, struggling for freedom, equality and peace. On today’s show, we turn our attention to Filipina women and their specific show. My guest today is Nes Govanzo, an organiser in Gabriela, a...

Farmers have been striking in India since August last year in opposition to a tranche of agri-reform laws that were passed in September. The protests have been massive – tens of millions of people – but then again, India has a population of 1.4 billion people. So what are these farmers protests about and how should we understand them? On the show today is Shivani Kaul from Bigool Mazdoor Dasta.

Following the major rallies across the country last week to commemorate Invasion Day, the date on which, in 1788, the rising of the flag of Great Britain by Governor Arthur Philip at Port Jackson in NSW, this week on the show, we talk about what next, where to. I spoke with two of the organisers of the Melbourne Rally, Meriki Onus and Crystal McKinnon, from the Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistanc...

In a landmark verdict in Greece’s highest-profile political trial in decades, an Athens court found the neo-fascist party Golden Dawn guilty of running a criminal organization as it rose to prominence during the coun-try’s financial crisis, systematically targeting migrants and left-wing critics. The party was banned on 7 October. The party member who stabbed prominent rapper, Pavlos Fyssas, was G...

Hospital cleaning workers were arrested in June for staging peaceful protest against their union busting employer – a contractor for Ipoh hospital. In spite of the whole world thanking frontline workers for putting their lives at risk to fight COVID 19, the Malaysian government, the operator of Ipoh hospital, has continued with its anti-worker, and anti-union policies, privatising key public servi...

Several thousand anti-government protesters have been rallying in Thailand’s capital for the last three weeks, calling for a new constitution, new elections and an end to repressive laws. In the last week, two leaders of the movement were arrested, resulting in ever greater resolve amongst the protest movement. The pair were charged with sedition and breaking coronavirus rules, before being releas...

On July 3, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte signed Republic Act 11479, known as the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, into law. The law grants sweeping police state powers, including the authorization of warrantless wiretapping and surveillance, and warrantless arrests for up to 24 days of anyone accused by a presidentially-appointed commission of “terrorism.” On today’s program we speak with May Ko...

One of the Philippines’ most prominent journalists is facing up to six years in prison after she was found guilty of “cyberlibel” charges on 15 June this year, a verdict condemned as setting “an extraordinarily damaging precedent” for press freedoms in the Philippines. Her name is Maria Ressa, and the offending article was about corruption of a Philippines Supreme Court Judge. Since the election o...

Over the last 10 weeks, protesters right across Slovenia have flocked to the streets of their cities to protest against the newly installed right-wing government there – in addition to the generalised economic pressures brought about in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Slovenia is not a country commonly featuring in the international press, so you probably didn’t notice the mass movement of 10s...

 On today’s program we get an update on what is happening in India following the sudden and unplanned country-wide lockdown, ostensibly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In our March 3rd program of Accent of Women, we learned that Narendra Modi, leader of the authoritarian, right wing and ruling party of India, the BJP, shut down all manufacturing, public transport and public infrastructure wi...

Today we are continuing to cover the issue of Black Lives Matter – but a little closer to home.  Australia.  Many of you will have seen the coverage of the nation-wide rallies and marches, protesting the deaths of Aboriginal people in custody.  These rallies were organised while social consciousness was raised, owing to the murder of unarmed black man, George Floyd by police in Minneapolis Minneso...

Today we continue our coverage of the uprisings in the United States.  The street occupations, riots and protests against racist policing and the murder of George Floyd continued into their second week.  But as we go to air, the curfews are lifting, and the tide of public opinion is shifting – more and more parts of civil society are calling for the abolition of the Minneapolis Police Department....

On 25 May, George Floyd was killed by police.  On May 27, an uprising began. As we go to air, thousands have been arrested and many injured. Hundreds of millions of dollars of properties have been destroyed or looted. The National Guard has been called out to some cities, and multiple police stations burned down.  A curfew has been imposed in many states and the protests keep spreading. It is, unq...

Accent of Women continues its coverage of COVID-19 and its impact on impoverished communities across the world.  This week our coverage takes us to Myanmar and Indonesia. Today, we will hear from Debbie Stothard, the Coordinator of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma, an organisation established in 1996 to support national and grassroots movements of Burma/Myanmar working for human rights and d...

We are continuing our coverage of COVID-19 and its impact on impoverished communities across the world.  This week our coverage takes us to Myanmar and Indonesia. We will hear from Sri Wulandari who is the Myanmar Country Officer for Union Aid Abroad – APHEDA. In Myanmar, Wulandari works with local unions to support their capacity to organise and bargain for better wages and conditions and she has...

 Our coverage of COVID-19 and its impact on impoverished communities continues.  Today, we head to the Philippines where we see a similar pattern emerging of the use of Emergency state powers to repress social movements but little if any, genuine government intervention to keep people safe. During this year’s May Day activities in the Philippines, activists were arrested for going out and feeding...

It is said that where countries have a strong, accessible and affordable health care system, the outcomes for populations during the pandemic are much better. Well, let’s go to the United States where health care is not accessible and is not affordable and where we are now calling New York the epicentre of the pandemic. This week, we to speak with Suzanne Adely, a Human Rights Lawyer, a labour act...

On Sunday 19 April, Alliance of MENA Socialists organised an international zoom meeting called, Toward a Global Prison Abolitionist Movement, organised by the. The panel addressed some of the key obstacles to the formation of a global prison abolitionist movement, and offered ways of overcoming them to present ideas about an alternative to the capitalist carceral and authoritarian system.

On the morning of 24 April 2013, over 1100 workers at Rana Plaza died when the building they worked in collapsed. The day before the building collapse, workers complained of clear cracks in the walls and refused to go to work because they feared for their safety. Every other business in Rana Plaza stopped work because of safety issues – these included banks and other retail outlets. But the 8000 g...

On today’s show we look at the struggle against capitalist authoritarianism and imperialism, and the state of the women’s struggle in Turkey. My guest on today’s program is Ecehan Balta. Ecehan is a member of Baslangic Collective, which was founded after the Gezi uprising in 2013. She is also a member of Socialist Alternative, a Turkish section of International Socialist Alternative.

On today’s show we look at the struggle against capitalist authoritarianism and imperialism, and the state of the women’s struggle in Russia. My guest on today’s program is Anna Nizhnik. Anna is a socialist feminist, publisher, activist. Specializes in Literary Gender Studies and Women’s History.