The Refugee Action Coalition is holding a \u201czombie\u201d protest at the Sydney Department of Immigration offices, 22 Lee Street, City, beginning 12.30pm Friday 13 May. Zombie masks of John Howard and Philip Ruddock will be a feature of the protest.<\/p>\n
The protest has been given a zombie theme to highlight the fact that the Gillard Labor government has brought \u2018back to life\u2019, the failed Howard polices of temporary protection visas and the Pacific (ie Malaysia) solution, almost four years after they were thought to be dead and buried.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment the only policy that separates the Gillard government from the Howard government is that refugees in Australia gain permanent protection instead of temporary visas (TPVs). But Chris Bowen\u2019s threatened legislation to only allow TPVs for any refugee convicted of a criminal offence while in detention has puts TPVs back on the agenda,\u201d said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be protesting in support of the people taken to Silverwater prison and charged after the recent protests at Villawood. While 15 of the 22 taken to Silverwater have now been transferred to either Villawood or Maribynong detention centres, seven asylum seekers are still being held in high security section of the Silverwater jail. To threaten these asylum seekers with TPVs is a travesty.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are protesting in Villawood, Christmas Island and Curtin because the conditions have become intolerable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Malaysia solution announced this week to return 800 asylum seekers from Australia to Malaysia is in some ways even more cruel than Howard diverting asylum seekers to Nauru. Nauru. While we welcome the fact that 4000 refugees from Malaysia will be bought to Australia over the next four years, the price of violating the rights of 800 asylum seekers is too high,\u201d said Rintoul.<\/p>\n
\u201cA grass roots movement delivered \u2018a stake to the heart\u2019 of John Howard policies in 2006, and 2007. We are determined that those policies will not haunt the streets or stalk the lives of refugees again. The refugee movement is just as ready to deliver a \u2018stake to the heart\u2019 of Chris Bowen TPVs and Julia Gillard\u2019s Malaysia solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information contact Ian Rintoul mob 0417 275 713<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Refugee Action Coalition is holding a \u201czombie\u201d protest at the Sydney Department of Immigration offices, 22 Lee Street, City, beginning 12.30pm Friday 13 May. Zombie masks of John Howard and Philip Ruddock will be a feature of the protest. The protest has been given a zombie theme to highlight the fact that the Gillard […]<\/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-940","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\/940","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=940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}