Over 1500 join World Refugee Day protest
At least 1500 people took to the streets for the World Refugee Day rally in Sydney on June 19. Thanks to all those who endorsed (full list below) and helped promote the rally. There were also rallies held on the day across the country in Melbourne, Adelaide, Darwin and Perth (Brisbane’s rally is this week).
Click on “read more” for links to media reports of the day, photos and a short video of the protest.
Forum: Eyewitnesses from inside Australia’s remote detention camps
6pm Monday, May 9, NSW Teachers’ Federation Building,
23–33 Mary St Surry Hills, walking distance from Central Station
Special Refugee Action Coalition forum
FORTRESS USA, FORTRESS EUROPE, FORTRESS AUSTRALIA:
How the West excludes refugees & the poor
Protests at Villawood and Curtin over Easter
Around 250 refugee supporters rallied outside Villawood detention centre on Easter Monday April 25, to support asylum seekers staging a rooftop protest inside the centre, pictured above.
Over Easter activists in Perth also took a two-day bus trip to the Curtin detention centre, where 60 refugee supporters staged a solidarity protest with at least 300 hunger striking asylum seekers inside when Serco set out to obstruct visits to the asylum seekers. See full reports as well as photos and video by clicking on “Read more” below.
Read more 
Palm Sunday Rally April 17
Free the refugees
End mandatory detention
No deportations
No offshore processing
Sunday 17 April, 1pm Sydney Town Hall, marching to Hyde Park
Speakers include:
Iraj Moghadam, Iranian refugee and ex-detainee
Sr Susan Connelly, Mark MacKillop Institute of East Timor Studies
David Shoebridge, NSW Greens
Sally McManus, NSW Australian Services Union branch secretary
Patricia Garcia, National Council of Churches
Invite your friends to the Facebook event at this link
Forum
Labor’s proposed East Timor regional processing centre:
Why we should say no
Speakers:
Luis Belun, Citizens against an Austalian Asylum Seeker Processing Centre in Timor Leste, via phone from Dili.
Sr Susan Connelly, Mary MacKillop East Timor Mission
Ian Rintoul, Refugee Action Coalition
6pm Monday March 14
NSW Teachers Federation building, 23-33 Mary st, Surry Hills, walking distance from Central station
Julia Gillard’s proposed Regional Processing Centre for asylum seekers was Labor’s answer to Tony Abbott’s election mantra about stopping the boats. The regional processing centre is all about the Labor government avoiding its obligations to asylum seekers arriving by boat.
If Gillard gets her way, East Timor will get a detention centre and risk becoming the next Nauru or Christmas Island. All boat arrivals in Australian waters would be transferred to East Timor to be processed off-shore, with no guarantee of resettlement in Australia. This forum will hear from a range of speakers about why the plan should be opposed, and what the refugee movement can do to stop it.
Footage from protest at Villawood last week
Protesters approach the detention centre as detainees take to the roof
Greens Senator-elect Lee Rhiannon speaks at the rally after visiting detainees on November 17
PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY IN CANBERRA
We will assemble on the lawns outside Parliament House, Canberra, to call on the new federal parliament to introduce humane refugee policies and stop using refugees as political footballs. Refugee groups are asked to bring banners with the key messages of the gathering as well as their own messages.
Was your voice heeded on asylum seekers during this election?
Many of us are worried about the way in which successive governments have treated asylum seekers and refugees. We are tired of seeing asylum seekers used as political footballs where each side of politics scores points by proposing increasingly harsher policies.
We believe it’s time to tell our parliamentarians, “Enough is enough!”
With the entry of the Greens and independents as significant players in government, there is a chance to end this endless round of punitive policy making and to achieve humane policies for refugees. We want to encourage these new players to demand better standards from the parliament on human rights.
We want to call a halt to this race to the bottom on human rights.
The reason we are coming together on this day is to say that we, the people, want to be heard. We care about how vulnerable people are treated and we want our politicians to stop using asylum seekers as political footballs.
Enough is enough. Read more
Rally Oct 23, 2010
See media report on the action here (although it underestimates the size of the rally, which was attended by about 250 people http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/refugee-group-rallies-in-sydney-20101023-16yeh.html
STAND UP FOR REFUGEES PROTEST
1pm Saturday October 23 @ Sydney Town hall
Close all detention centres
No offshore processing
No deportations
Speakers include:
Lee Rhiannon (Greens Senator elect for NSW)
Phil Glendenning (Edmund Rice Centre)
Sally McManus (NSW Secretary, Australian Services Union)
Riz Wakil (Hazara Afghan asylum seeker)
Michael Dudley (Psychiatrist and Chair of Suicide Prevention Australia)
The Siev X was an Indonesian fishing boat that sank en route to Australia’s Christmas Island on 19 October 2001. Over 350 people drowned. At the time the Australian government was involved in “people smuggling ‘disruption’ operations” that included the sabotage of refugee boats. Siev X is a powerful reminder of what “stopping the boats” really means.
Download an A4 pdf version of the poster for the rally to stick up at work or in your local area by clicking on this link
Read more on the Siev X tragedy: Download the fact sheet at this link or visit http://www.sievx.com/
For details of interstate rallies click on this item to view the full post Read more
Rally to support Darwin asylum seekers
End mandatory detention
End offshore detention
Outside Dept of Immigration
Lee St (next to Railway Square, Central)
12.30 Friday 3 Sept
Speakers include Sylvia Hale (NSW Greens), Ian Rintoul (RAC)
“We strongly condemn the refusal by the police and the Department of Immigration to provide water to the protesting asylum seekers. It is another disgraceful episode in the mistreatment of asylum seekers. This deliberate ‘negotiating strategy’ has resulted in 15 asylum seekers being hospitalised for dehydration,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.
“Asylum seekers are not criminals. They have a right to protest,” he said.
Many of the Afghan asylum seekers were told they were on an ‘approval pathway’ when they were transferred to from Christmas Island to Darwin detention centre. Since the visa freeze announcement, rejection rates have dramatically increased, although up to 90 per cent of these rejection are being overturned on appeal.
The Refugee Action Coalition (RAC) has been told by Darwin detainees that a high number of Afghans received rejection notices in the last week or two. The legality of off-shore processing is the subject of a test case currently being considered by the High Court.
“The Afghan asylum seekers are the victims of mandatory detention and offshore processing. Offshore processing is obviously open to political manipulation. There is no other way to explain the increased rates of rejections,” said Rintoul.
“The uncertainty that surrounds their claims and the conditions inside the detention centre add to their distress. Mandatory detention is condemning asylum seekers to months and years of detention. The ‘mental illness factories’ should be closed,” he said.
