Building Bridges Festival
Featuring the Herd, Watussi, Dog Trumpet, Ember and ROSiE
6pm through to 12am Friday, May 18
The Standard, Darlinghurst
$30 plus booking fee or $20 concession plus booking fee.
For more information and to book go to www.wearethestandard.com.au.
The festival has been designed to acknowledge the issues faced by asylum seekers over the last 20 years, show support to those currently in detention (including children) and establish a clear message that mandatory detention is unacceptable and must cease.
Featured throughout the night will be some of Australia’s top musical acts including The Herd, Watussi, Dog Trumpet and ROSiE. Also featured will be the Iranian poet Mohsen Soltani and his band Ember.
An incredible night of entertainment kicking off at 6pm through till 12am at the Standard, Darlinghurst. Profits from the event will assist in funding the Refugee Action Coalition’s current campaigning.
Supported by October Sun
2012 Easter convergence on refugee detention centres
Over Easter refugee activists from around the country converged on Darwin to refocus attention on the reality behind the wire of mandatory detention. Darwin is rapidly becoming Australia’s detention capital, with three detention centres in holding up to 1000 asylum seekers. Chronic levels of self-harm and protest have put the Northern Immigration Detention Centre (NIDC) in a state of perpetual crisis.
Watch SBS News report on the Villawood and national protests here
Darwin convergence reports and photos
To see photos from across the weekend click here
Serco bans detention visits as refugee activists converge on Australia’s detention capital
Protest at Darwin Airport Lodge: Desperate refugees’ plea from behind the wire at Darwin Airport Lodge
Activists arrested while trying to make contact with refugees in Wickham Point
First reported instance of self harm at Wickham Point
Protest at Northern Immigration Detention Centre (NIDC): Refugee activists condemn intimidation of Darwin asylum seekers
Protests were also held around the country in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth on Monday April 9 outside detention centres in each city. Almost 5000 asylum seekers remain imprisoned in detention, including over 500 children.
News reports on the Villawood protest from Fairfield City Champion and ABC online.
Fundraiser film screening
Le Havre
Marcel Marx, a former bohemian and struggling author, leads a simple life based around his wife Arletty, his favourite bar and his profession as a shoeshiner. His path crosses with an underage illegal immigrant from Africa, who needs Marcel’s help to hide from the police.
6.45pm Wednesday March 28
Palace Verona Cinemas, 17 Oxford St, Paddington
Tickets $20 full/$15 concession
“a tale of lower-depths solidarity, a stylized and sentimental fairy tale about the way the world might be, grounded in a frank recognition of the way it is.” New York Times review
“all the master’s trademarked deadpan dialogue and delicious nuggets of bone-dry humour, and his compassion for the marginalised and dispossessed” The Guardian review
“In his own very special way, that combines wry deadpan comedy, a playful respect for the conventions of classical genre and an imitably exquisite blend of delicate absurdism and tender lyricism, Aki Kaurismäki has dealt with some of the pressing issues of our times” Time Out London review
Public forum with Les Murray
Speakers:
LES MURRAY
SBS soccer commentator who (with Dateline) recently returned to Hungary to find the people smuggler who helped his family flee the country in 1956
MIKE GREWCOCK (author of Border Crimes & UNSW Law lecturer)
EDWINA LLOYD (lawyer for Indonesian boat crew jailed on ‘people smuggling’ charges)
HADI HOSSEINI (Afghan Hazara detained on Christmas Island and in Darwin on his experience of being ‘smuggled’)
6pm-8pm Monday February 13
UTS Haymarket campus room B111, Quay St (opposite Paddy’s market)
Co-hosted by UTS Anti-racism club and Refugee Action Coalition
- Share the link to the event on Facebook here
- Download a poster to stick up at work or near where you live here
PROTEST CALLS FOR END TO OFFSHORE PROCESSING AND MANDATORY DETENTION
COMMUNITY PROCESSING MUST START NOW
The Refugee Action Coalition is calling a protest outside the Sydney offices of the Immigration Department, 26 Lee Street, 12.30, Wednesday 26 October. Speakers at the protest will include Dr Michael Dudley, chair of Suicide Prevention Australia.
The protest will be calling for the Minister to end offshore processing and to immediately begin releasing asylum seekers from detention so their claims can be processed while they live and work in the community. It will also be supporting the Darwin detention roof top protest by a Rohingyan refugee who has been two years in detention.
The horrific scenes of reality inside Australian detention centres revealed by Four Corners on Monday night revealed something of the shocking toll that mandatory detention is taking on the lives of asylum seekers and refugees.
The shocking rates of self-harm, attempted suicide and the abuse of prescribed medication is a direct consequence of deliberate bureaucratic delays associated with mandatory detention and continued off-shore processing.
“Over two thousand asylum seekers and refugees have been locked in detention for over a year. The flawed off-shore processing arrangements are wrongly denying refugee claims and are keeping asylum seekers in detention for months waiting for appeals are being heard. Around 1500 refugees are being held waiting for ASIO security checks,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.
“Mandatory detention is not a deterrent – it is a form of mental torture and collective punishment. Around 1000 people have been shifted into community detention over the past few months, but more thousands still languish in detention.
“There can be no more excuses. The Minister has admitted that he has the power to use community detention and bridging visas to get people out of immigration detention, but he is sitting on his hands. Curtin can be closed now.
“Talk is cheap. Every day that the Minister delays community processing is another day that the blame for every instance of self-harm and attempted suicide lies at the feet of Chris Bowen.” Read more 
Rally at ALP conference
Sunday December 4
Meet 12pm Sydney Town hall
Speakers 1pm Darling Harbour convention centre outside ALP conference
Speakers: Ged Kearney (President, ACTU)
Shane Price (NSW Co-convenor, Labor for Refugees)
Ian Rintoul (Refugee Action Coalition)
Hazara and Tamil refugees
Initial endorsements: Chilout, Refugee Action Coalition, Labor for Refugees (NSW), National Tertiary Education Union (NSW), Australian Services Union (NSW & ACT (Services)), NSW Nurses Association
Invite your friends to the Facebook event here or
Download a poster to stick up at work or uni, or near where you live
Click here to stop rotation and view just this post or “Read more” for why you should come to the protest
Forum with Malaysian refugee rights activist Angeline Loh
Why we must REJECT Gillard’s Malaysia deal
Angeline Loh works for the Malaysian human rights organisation Aliran, which has published the independent media magazine Aliran
Monthly for over 30 years, surviving numerous government attempts at censorship. Loh’s writings played a critical role in exposing the horrible plight of the nearly 100,000 refugees trapped in Malaysia—and opposing the Australian government’s plan to deport 800 asylum seekers back there under the Gillard government’s “Malaysia solution”.
Her organisation continues to champion the rights of refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia, as part of Malaysia’s “Migration Working Group”, a network of Malaysian civil society groups and individuals who advocate for the protection of migrants, refugees, and stateless persons. She will speak from first hand experience about the conditions refugees en route to Australia who are stuck in Malaysia face, and the situations they have fled.
Monday 10th October 6pm @ The NSW Teachers Federation, 22-33 Mary St, Surry Hills
Hosted by Refugee Action Coalition Read more
Refugee activists confront Chris Bowen
Refugee rights activists converged on Immigration Minister Chris Bowen’s office on Saturday to protest the government’s efforts to push new legislation to revive its Malaysia refugee deal and expand offshore processing. About 50 people marched through Fairfield before rallying outside Bowen’s office. Then, following a tip off, protesters crashed a press conference Chris Bowen was holding close by to take our message direct to the minister. The action received widespread media coverage–see the links below
Ten news
After the High Court decision…
RALLY FOR REFUGEES
No to Malaysia, No to Nauru: No offshore processing
End mandatory detention
12pm Saturday October 15, Sydney Town Hall
Speakers include:
Sarah Hanson-Young (Greens Senator), John Menadue (Founding Chair, Centre for Policy Development, former head of Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs), Linda Scott (NSW co-convenor Labor for Refugees), Angeline Loh (Malaysian refugee rights activist), Antony Loewenstein (independent journalist)
Help us promote this event and ensure a great turnout: invite your friends to the Facebook event here, or download a copy of the poster here and stick one up at work or near where you live
Also: Rally at the National Labor Party Conference
Meet 12pm Sunday December 4 to march to conference venue, Facebook event here
Protest at Villawood
Media coverage:
Report in Fairfield City Champion
—————————————————————-
No to the Malaysia ‘Solution’:
FREE THE REFUGEES
Rally 12pm Sunday July 24
Meet at Gurney Road (near Cnr Brown St), Villawood
If you are outraged by the inhumanity of Australia’s treatment of refugees then come join the protest at the Villawood Detention Centre. People will also be meeting at 11.30am at Villawood Station to walk up to the protest together.
Organised by Refugee Action Coalition, Sydney.
Download a poster for the rally here
