refugees

Yesterday people gathered at Central Station Tunnel to show solidarity with the courageous protest of 92 detainees who broke out of Darwin Detention Centre on Wednesday. The snap-action response in Sydney, called by the Anti-Deportation Alliance (ADA) focused on encouraging people to take actions to force the Federal Government to close the detention centres, and inviting people to join the Refugee Action Coalition protest today, Friday 3rd of September.

That was the question put by students from Kilbreda College, Mentone, today in an action organised by the Refugee Action Network on the steps of the old GPO in Bourke Street. They mimed the arrival of a boatload of asylum seekers, followed by their reception, processing and eventual fate. At the same time, volunteers from the ASRC and others handed out fact sheets to passers-by, and Pamela Curr went on to recount some recent case histories and set out some facts to counter the current widespread misinformation in the community.

The Federal ALP is planning to bring in laws that would declare anyone who assists asylum seekers in coming to Australia even if they receive no financial gain a "people smuggler" and they face jail time. The Melbourne Age states a "modern day Oskar Schindler" would face 10 years jail. The captain of the Tampa could have been jailed under these laws. The new law also gives ASIO the power to tap phones in Australia to tackle the "problem" of people smuggling.

"The mass protest of 350 Sri Lankan asylum seekers that has continued overnight in the Christmas Island detention centre can be directly traced back to the lowest political behaviour of all time by Prime Minister Kevin last year when he started a nasty period of political posturing, and when he started playing "refugee football" with the asylum seekers on the Oceanic Viking," WA human rights group Project SafeCom said.