Aus passes Magnitsky laws, activists call for Chechen leaders to be targeted | Critics of proposed ‘cyber-bulling’ law say it will only make defamation lawsuits easier | Religious Discrimination Bill won’t protect those who face discrimination say The Informer

– Federal Parliament has passed Australia’s own version of Magnitsky Laws, which allows for targeted sanctions against individuals responsible for human rights violations. Emma Hoy spoke with one of the bill’s key supporters, Federal Greens Senator Janet Rice about the legislation, along with Nic Holas from the Victorian Pride Lobby about how they’d like the new legislation used to target abusers of queer people around the world.

– The Federal Coalition is pushing new legislation pitched as an anti-trolling bill. However, many have critiqued the legislation as doing little to stem trolling, instead they say, stifling free speech by making it easier for defamation lawsuits to be launched along with being a further erosion of online privacy. Pearl Cardis investigates.

– Discussions of the religious discrimination bill being pushed by the federal coalition often frames religiosity and queerness as mutually exclusive. That’s of course far from the case. There are many people of faith that are at risk of being impacted by the legislation. James Pembroke has spoken with several of them.

This is our final episode for 2021 and the last for Executive Producer Gavin Height at the helm. A massive thank you to all the hard work of The Informer team this year – Ryan Sambell, James Pembroke, Pearl Cardis, Emma Hoy, Hailey Pham, Chloe Macmillan, Shannon Colee, Dom Hennequian, Jack Cranjin, and Yuan Zhong. And thanks to you, our listeners, for tuning in. Have a great summer!