mandatory detention

A few days after the Malaysian Bar Association issued a statement opposing the recently-announced refugee swap between the Malaysian and Australian governments (“Asylum seekers and refugees are not commodities to be traded” – full text given below), the Refugee Action Collective in Melbourne called a protest at the GPO in Bourke Street, followed by a march down to the steps of Flinders Street Station.

It is time the refugee movement in Australia demands the Greens use their power in Parliament to force the ALP to end the cruel policy of mandatory detention. It is unacceptable for the Green’s to keep a racist Government in power. The Greens make regular public statements criticizing the length of time people are kept in detention and their representatives even give speeches from the platform at rallies against mandatory detention calling for a more humane policy. However as the detention system lurches from one crisis to crisis and the ALP moves further to the right in embracing ever more punitive policies towards asylum seekers the Greens continue to keep the Government in power.

Press Release 29.4.11 New laws further persecute refugees "The new laws against detainees who commit an "offense" will potentially block their permanent protection, while the crimes committed against detainees by SERCO, the Immigration Department and the Police go unchecked and the mental anguish of indefinite detention fuels the fire that pushes them to desperation point," says refugee advocate Izzy Brown.

Ramesh Fernandez a former immigration detainee gives his view of the Detention Centre protests via the R.I.S.E. website
On Thursday 11 March, after waiting many months for a decision regarding their visas, several asylum seekers received rejection letters from DIAC. In the early hours of the next day, between 50 and 150 asylum seekers broke through iron gates and escaped the Christmas Island detention centre. Though the SERCO guards immediately tried to catch the escaped detainees, they were largely unsuccessful.