Media Release, July 13 2010<\/p>\n
Refugee groups have welcomed East Timor\u2019s unanimous parliamentary vote to reject Julia Gillard\u2019s proposal to site a regional mega-detention centre in East Timor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are now calling on Julia Gillard to scrap her regional processing proposal and to scrap off-shore processing of asylum seekers altogether. The regional proposal is nothing more than Gillard\u2019s attempt to ape John Howard and prevent asylum seekers getting to safety in Australia,\u201d said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Australian government efforts to continue to lean on East Timor, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea to accept a regional mega-detention centre are shameful. Hundreds of asylum seekers and UNHCR refugees, are already languishing in Australian-built detention centres in Indonesia. The Tamil asylum seekers, intercepted by the Indonesian navy at the request of Kevin Rudd last October are still in detention in shocking conditions in Tanjung Pinang.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese asylum seekers are Australia\u2019s responsibility. The most useful thing that Foreign Minister Stephen Smith could do in Indonesia is to arrange for them to be brought safely to Australia,\u201d said Rintoul.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of competing with Tony Abbott\u2019s racism to stop the boats, Julia Gillard could be living up to the Refugee Convention and welcoming asylum seekers at Australia\u2019s borders.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the Refugee Action Coalition, the focus on Gillard\u2019s \u201cEast Timor solution\u201d is also distracting attention from the worsening conditions in Australian detention centres.<\/p>\n
\u201cImmigration minister Chris Evans declared that under Labor, \u2018detention would be a last resort.\u2019 But over 500 children are now in immigration detention. Hundreds of Tamils have been waiting over a year to get an answer to their application. Afghan asylum seekers are in limbo in Curtin. The mental health problems caused by mandatory detention are growing day by day.<\/p>\n
\u201cRather than talk about denying rights to asylum seekers by building more off-shore processing detention centres, Gillard should close Christmas Island and end the visa freeze on Afghan asylum applications.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information contact Refugee Action Coalition, Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Media Release, July 13 2010 Refugee groups have welcomed East Timor\u2019s unanimous parliamentary vote to reject Julia Gillard\u2019s proposal to site a regional mega-detention centre in East Timor. \u201cWe are now calling on Julia Gillard to scrap her regional processing proposal and to scrap off-shore processing of asylum seekers altogether. The regional proposal is nothing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311091,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-press-releases"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/311091"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}