Valla Beach market report
Roadside demonstration: Thursday 7th February
next to the Big Banana
There is still time to email Cathy McGowan MP
Behrouz Boochani wins prestigious awards
The remaining children about to leave Nauru
The Promised Land: documentary by Eric Tlozek
Valla Beach market report
A big thank you to our team of supporters who turned
up on Saturday to help with our market stall. We had a very productive morning
beneath sunny skies in this beautiful location, and about 100 market-goers
signed our open letter to Minister Dutton, in which we are calling for an end
to offshore detention.
Our next stall will be at the Harbourside
Market in Coffs Harbour on Sunday 24th February from
9.00 am until 1.30 pm. If you are able to help out for an hour or two, then
please let Mike know be emailing him at:mandm.griffin2@bigpond.com.
Roadside demonstration: Thursday 7th February
next to the Big Banana
Our next roadside demonstration is on Thursday
7th February from 2.30 to 4.00 pm by the Pacific
Highway in Coffs Harbour, next to the Big Banana. Please come and join us if
you can. We have lots of placards and banners to share, and we would so much
welcome some new faces to help us keep up the pressure in our campaign to end
offshore detention and to bring the remaining asylum seekers and refugees from
Manus and Nauru to Australia.
Please wear shoes to protect your feet from the ants!
There is still time to email Cathy McGowan MP
In our weekly newsletter of 22nd January,
we wrote about Dr Kerryn Phelps’ Bill which was passed by the Senate in
December, and which, if passed by the House of Representatives, would make it
easier for doctors to insist that refugees and asylum seekers on Manus and
Nauru requiring urgent medical treatment can be brought to Australia to be
treated. The Bill will return to Parliament next week. It will require the
support of both Labor, the Greens and the cross-benchers, and the numbers
appeared to be secure until recently. However, Cathy McGowan, the independent
MP for Indi, who is a long-time supporter of RAR, is now saying that she has
not yet made up her mind about whether or not to support the proposed legislation.
Please consider emailing her to urge her to support the Bill, which could be a
matter of life or death for some refugees and asylum seekers. Her email address
is: cathy.mcgowan.mp@aph.gov.au.
You can find the newsletter of 22nd January,
together with an example letter, on our blog, the details of which are at the
end of this newsletter.
Behrouz Boochani wins prestigious awards
Manus Island refugee Behrouz Boochani , a
Kurdish-Iranian, has won not one, but two prestigious awards for his
extraordinary book “No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison.”
Last week he won the country’s most valuable literary award – the $100,000
Victorian Prize for Literature- as well as the $25,000 prize for first place in
the non-fiction category. Amazingly, Behrouz wrote the book on his mobile phone
and sent it bit by bit over several years to translator Omid Tofigian via
Whatsapp. Responding to the award from Manus island, where he has been detained
since 2013, Behrouz had this to say: “My main aim has always been for the
people of Australia and around the world to understand deeply how this system
has tortured innocent people on Manus and Nauru in a systematic way for almost
six years. I hope this award will bring more attention to our situation, and
create change, and end this barbaric policy.”
The Human Rights Centre of Australia tweeted their
congratulations to Behrouz, calling his work: “an Australian story that as a
nation we cannot be proud of, but it’s a story that cannot be ignored.”
The remaining children about to leave Nauru
We can finally report that, within days, the remaining
four children on Nauru will depart to start a new life in the US, bringing an
end to this particular part of the shameful chapter in our government’s
treatment of asylum seekers and refugees. Our Prime Minister is claiming credit
for this outcome, stating that his government has been quietly and
systematically removing children from the island over many months. Refugee
agencies and lawyers, however, paint a different picture. George Newhouse,
Principal lawyer for the National Justice Project, reminds us that the
government fought tooth and nail to prevent the medical evacuation of children
from the island, and that his organisation alone had to seek court intervention
for 46 children to be removed from Nauru for medical treatment. The truth is
that it was the lawyers, doctors, caseworkers, advocacy groups like ours, and
public pressure that has finally brought about the removal of these children
from indefinite detention on a remote Pacific island.
It’s time now to ramp up the pressure to free the
remaining 1000+ asylum seekers and refugees who still languish without hope on
Nauru and Manus. Please help us get the message to the government by signing
our open letter to Minister Dutton. You can sign the letter at any of our next
three markets in Coffs Harbour, Bellingen or Valla Beach.
The Promised Land: documentary by Eric Tlozek
People
regularly ask about the fate of the several hundred refugees from Nauru and
Manus who have been evacuated to the US. Eric Tlozek’s documentary follows the
lives of a number of these refugees, and tells theirs stories, and those of the
people who have helped them to rebuild their lives in a country which does not
offer them much publicly-funded support. The Promised Land airs on ABC TV at 8
pm on Tuesday 5th February, on the ABC News Channel at 7.30 pm
on Saturday 9thFebruary, and at 5.30 pm on Sunday 10th February.
It should be worth watching.
Check out the index of subjects on our blog http://bellorar.blogspot.com.au
It includes articles from many sources and letters to
politicians and newspapers.
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Twitter Account @RARBellingenNam
Email address bellingen.rar@gmail.com
The National RAR web site is at www.ruralaustraliansforrefugees.org.au
The National RAR facebook site is at RAR
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