Roadside Demo Report
Reza Barati
Medical care in offshore detention
Roadside demonstration report
We held our first roadside demonstration of 2017 by the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour last week. As always, we received lots of positive support from passing motorists at this busy spot. What was disturbing, though, was the significant increase in the number of negative responses, which took a variety of forms. It seems clear that over recent months, with the rise of populist demagogues , and the election of racists to our parliament, it has become legitimate to exercise one’s “right to be a bigot”, as Senator Brandis put it. The Coalition government remains silent on the issues, and the Opposition acquiesces in this race to the bottom. All the more reason for groups like ours to continue to carry the torch for a more compassionate and principled policy in relation to refugees. A big thank you to the seven supporters who turned up to the demo.
Our next roadside demonstration will be in Bellingen, adjacent to the Library on Waterfall Way on Thursday 23rd February at 3.00 pm. It would be great to have a few more people joining us.
Reza Barati
Three years ago, on 17th February 2014, Reza Barati, a 23 year old Iranian asylum seeker, was brutally murdered by a group of G4S guards, whose job it was to protect him. Eventually, in 2016, two local guards were convicted of his murder and sentenced to five years in jail. The judge gave them a lenient sentence on the basis that two other guards involved in Reza’s murder – an Australian and a New Zealander - had left the Island and had not been arrested or charged. Their identities are apparently known to the authorities, but they remain at large. Our group was established soon after Reza’s death. We were deeply shocked by the incident, and by the Minister’s attempt to blame the refugees for the death and the many injuries inflicted on asylum seekers on that fateful night. We initially had about 40 supporters. That number has grown over the past three years to more than 500, reflecting as it does the very significant community anger about our government’s cruel and inhumane asylum policies. We need to keep up the fight for the closure of the offshore centres and for the permanent resettlement of all the genuine refugees who currently languish in these two hellholes.
Medical care in offshore detention centres
The level of care for asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island is yet again under scrutiny in parliament. The latest of many enquiries relates to the death of Faysal Ishak Ahmed, who suffered a seizure inside the Manus Island detention centre on 22nd December 2016, after months of complaining to doctors about his deteriorating health. He died in a Brisbane hospital two days later. Faysal had sought medical help at least 13 times in the two months prior to his death. So concerned were other detainees about his poor health that they wrote a letter to the medical staff in which they pleaded for effective intervention to help him. They were ignored. The sad truth is that the clinical opinions of doctors at the offshore detention centres are often overruled by bureaucrats in Canberra , who actively discourage the transfer of sick patients to the mainland. The president of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, Prof. Anthony Lawler writes: “ACEM considers there is no evidence that the healthcare provided in regional processing centres is at a standard which would be acceptable or expected for any patient in Australia.”
The healthcare services in offshore detention centre are provided by International Health and Medical Services, a for-profit organisation.
Roadside demo at the Big Banana last week
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