In solidarity with the protest in the UK with TAPOL and Amnesty International, The Melbourne West Papuan Community and supporters will hold a demonstration about the ongoing detention of over 70 political prisoners in West Papua and to call for their immediate and unconditional release.
5pm Wednesday 2nd April, State Library of Victoria, Swanston St Melbourne
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Tanya Notley and Alexandra Crosby
Almost all of the academic and practice-based literature on transmedia storytelling is focused on fiction-based narratives. In this context, transmedia projects are seen to provide an opportunity for fictional narratives to be dispersed across multiple mediums and platforms, ideally with each medium and platform making its own contribution to the story in ways that entice and reward broad and deep levels of audience participation. This chapter considers the value of creating activist transmedia projects that seek to tell stories to, speak with and mobilise audiences across countries, cultures and languages. By engaging with some of the emerging definitions of Transmedia Activism, and examining two transmedia activist projects that address social justice issues in West Papua, we raise new possibilities for what may constitute Transmedia Activism and question the need for transmedia stories to necessarily be fiction-based.
On my second day in Jayapura after meeting some of the key players in the Federal Republic of West Papua’s interim government of which many of its members are exiled or imprisoned, I arranged to meet the political prisoners in Jail in Jayapura, these include the Prime Minister Edison Waromi and President Forkorus Yaboisembut and freedom fighter Filep Karma.
Melbourne welcomes Pedalling for Papua on 1st of December 2013.
This Sunday the 1st of December 2013 events will be held across West Papua, Australia and the world to mark the day West Papua’s flag was first raised in preparation for Independence from the Dutch in 1961.
Global solidarity for a free West Papua is surging in the wake of the unprecedented public awareness generated by the Freedom Flotilla to West Papua and the occupation of the Australian Embassy in Bali during the APEC summit.
Supporters in Melbourne will be welcoming the arrival of Jeremy Bally, ‘Pedalling for Papua’, on the completion of his worldwide cycling tour raising awareness about the ‘slow-motion genocide’ in West Papua through his unique animated spoken-word ukulele performances.
The last leg of Jeremy’s 12,000km journey will begin at Clayton Railway Station at 11am, Sunday 1st December. Cyclists flying Morning Star flags, will join him to ride along the Yarra Bike Path before being welcomed at St Paul’s Cathedral at 2pm. The riders will be welcomed by Taungurong Elder Uncle Larry Walsh, Greens Senator-elect Janet Rice, and the Freedom Flotilla with entertainment provided by David Bridie, Combat Wombat, a West Papuan String Band and traditional dancers.
Freedom Flotilla spokesperson speaking at this event with the Beyond Borders Collective
6pm Saturday 30th November Trades Hall Melbourne
Mia Wally speaks out against Tony Abbott’s stance on West Papua and deportation of West Papuan asylum seekers to the refugee camp where she grew up.
Jason Macleod
As we sat around a campfire in Brisbane, Kevin Buzzacott held up a bottle of water collected from the springs near Lake Eyre — a vast salt encrusted plain, which except in times of rare floods is bone dry. The inner city park in Brisbane where we met was one of the many stops the West Papua Freedom Flotilla made in its journey over August and September from Australia to the Indonesian colony of West Papua. The rapt audience of black, white and indigenous activists that night included 30 people who would later board two small yachts on the last leg of the land and sea convoy.
Buzzacott spoke of a source in the north, on the border between West Papua and Papua New Guinea, that sends water surging thousands of kilometers south through a network of subterranean capillaries that later springs up in the desert. “This water has come to the Arabana people as a blessing from the land of the Papuans,” said Buzzacott, an Aboriginal elder from Lake Eyre. “I want to take it back to the people of West Papua and say thank you,” said Buzzacott.
UPDATE: RALLY MOVED TO ST PAULS CATHEDRAL LAWNS CNR FLINDERS AND SWANSTON STS
