ANKARA

Woman activists in Australia have launched an online campaign, urging the country’s government to sanction Israel for “tearing apart human rights, press freedoms, healthcare and more” in a surging Middle East conflict.

The campaign was initiated by model and human rights advocate Luisa Dunn, who has 1.3 million followers on Instagram and features many other high-profile Australians, including broadcaster and author Antoinette Lattouf, lawyer Ramia Abdo Sultan, and musician and disability advocate Eliza Hull, Women’s Agenda, an Australian website reported on Tuesday.

The Instagram video campaign includes medical doctor and media personality Dr Preeya Alexander, comedian Lewis Garnham and pianist Jayson Gillham – whose show was controversially cancelled by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra earlier this year after dedicating a song ‘Witness’ to slain Palestinian journalists.

In the video, which received more than a quarter of a million views in less than 24 hours, the campaigners hold up various signs including “human rights”, “press freedom”, “international law”, “access to healthcare” and others, before tearing the paper up – highlighting the ongoing impacts of the war in the Gaza and Lebanon.

“How much more devastation will our government allow? Families, communities, and fundamental rights are being torn apart and shredded before our very eyes,” Lattouf said in an Instagram post, while sharing the video.

“By refusing to sanction Israel, expel its ambassador, halt military trade, or impose travel bans on extremist settlers and those implicated in war crimes, Australia is sending a dangerous message,” she added, opining that Australia is granting “total” impunity to an ally and “dear friend” as Israel commits war crime.


“It’s indifferent to justice.”

‘Huge disparity’

Dunn notices “a huge disparity” between what is being reported in the mainstream media and the “reality of the dire humanitarian crisis” the Middle East faces.

“Palestinian voices, stories and perspectives are simply not being heard,” she was quoted as saying by the website.

“Due to the lack of coverage and media bias of these grave humanitarian injustices, I see raising awareness being the first goal, followed by a call to action. Hopefully encouraging people to use whatever means they have available to advocate, protest and loudly oppose these humanitarian crimes,” she added.

“We cannot normalize the mass slaughter of innocent people. If we do not raise our voices against these crimes against humanity and for those who are silenced we are all complicit,” Dunn said.

Israel has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza and displaced nearly the entire population of 2.3 million people since last October.