Tilé and Olly Meets: Rita Jabri Markwell

We meet with Rita Jabri Markwell in this newest episode of our podcast. Rita is a practising solicitor at Birchgrove Legal and provides legal advice concerning human rights issues such as discrimination and civil liberties. Birchgrove Legal is the firm responsible for the recent formal communication to the International Criminal Court inviting various members of the Australian Parliament to be investigated as accessories to genocide in Gaza.

Rita previously worked as an advisor to the Opposition Leader of the Senate and a Federal Government Minister and was heavily involved in the National Apology to Australia’s Indigenous peoples. Rita is actively involved in the advocacy space as well and currently serves as the chief advisor and lawyer at the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network, which has had two legal wins, one against the former Senator Fraser Anning and the most recent against the social media platform X. Here, Rita engages with government, media, and civil society to explore issues that impact the Muslim community. You can find out more about her advocacy work with the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network by visiting https://www.aman.net.au/. She has published peer-reviewed papers on the human rights impacts of terrorism definitions and dehumanising materials.

Rita has always found a deep sense of meaning in whatever work she has done whether it is as a lawyer, a masseuse, teacher, political advisor, or other role. She is also a person who has throughout her life has been forced or exposed to observing systems, and has brought the wisdom from her various careers, her faith, and her strong sense of self to fuel her advocacy for social justice. In this episode, she skilfully applies some of her advocacy and human rights language within the ‘inclusion and belonging’ spectrum especially when she shares about her work championing laws against racial profiling and vilification. This is an episode you are going to listen to more than once!