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The FREEDOM Festival is a national, annual music event organised by volunteers and music lovers for Amnesty International Australia (AIA). It is based on the belief that we can all use our freedom to help fight for the freedom of others. The main aim of the FREEDOM Festival to raise awareness of human rights issues, as well as raising funds for AIA. It’s about making human rights accessible, bringing people to AIA through music, and empowering them to feel that they can make a difference.

Building on the FREEDOM Festival dance parties of the late 1990s in Sydney, the national FREEDOM Festival was first held in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra in 2003. The next year, the FREEDOM Festival expanded to include Adelaide and Perth. The Procussions – a Los Angeles hip hop act – headlined with the support of local Australian bands and DJs, including Debasa, featuring Merlin (Big Brother). FREEDOM 04 helped promote AIA’s campaign for the human rights of refugees and asylum seekers.

FREEDOM 05 helped promote to Stop Violence Against Women – over half of Australian women have suffered violence at some point in their lives. FREEDOM 05 was also touring in more cities than last year including Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. It featured three international acts, Ursula Rucker (Philadelphia, USA) and Ben Mono (Munich, Ger) with the support of Jah'licious (Auckland, NZ) as well as a mix of local artists.

This year the Freedom Festival and a killer line up of local artists including headline artists Koolism (Invada Records), My Ninja Lover, The Bird, Deeepchild, Foreign Heights, Nick Toth, Percussion Junction, James De La Cruz, Frunk Trust DJs, embarks on a regional tour of NSW to promote its Human Right and Security campaign and an end to torture and renditions in the ‘war on terror’.

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