here<\/a>). Signatories to the open letter include the Mary Mackillop East Timor Mission; Sally McManus, NSW Secretary, Australian Services Union; Antony Loewenstein, journalist and author; Professor Noam Chomsky, author and academic; Bridge for Asylum Seekers Foundation; Stephen Langford, secretary Australia East Timor Association.<\/p>\n\u201cEast Timor civil society has taken a strong stand against Australia\u2019s regional processing centre. We will be conveying to community groups, political parties and to President Ramos Horta the strong opposition that exists in Australia to the Federal government\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe obviously hope to personally present President Ramos Horta with a copy of the letter and to discuss our concerns at the Australian government\u2019s proposal. We would hope that our visit will finally bring the idea of a regional processing centre to a close,\u201d said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia is trying to draw East Timor into a deal that would undermine the Refugee Convention, and Australia\u2019s obligation to provide protection to those fleeing persecution.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia is the obvious place for any processing centre in the region. It has the resources and capability to process and resettle asylum seekers in the region. Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, should address the fundamental flaws with off shore processing on Christmas Island rather than trying to foist a detention regime on East Timor or anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information contact Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In response to the most recent announcements from East Timor president Ramos Horta that an East Timor regional processing centre \u201cremains a possibility\u201d, refugee advocates have announced a delegation of refugee advocates will visit Dili in the second week of May to lobby against the centre. The delegation, invited by FONGTIL, the Timor Leste Forum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311091,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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-817","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\/817","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=817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}