Roadside demonstration: Thursday 23rd August
The Fusion Festival is coming soon!
Sale of paintings to support the
ASC
Nauru: the children continue to
suffer
Migration (Validation of Port
Appointment) Bill 2018
Roadside demonstration: Thursday 23rd
August
A reminder that our next roadside
demonstration is this Thursday, 23rd August from 2.30 to 4.00 pm by
the Pacific Highway in Coffs Harbour, opposite the Base hospital. Do come and
join us if you can and help us to maintain the pressure on our politicians to
end the brutal and destructive offshore detention regime.
The Fusion Festival is coming soon!
The Fusion Festival will take place
at the Southern Cross University campus in Coffs Harbour on Tuesday 28th
August from 11.00 am until 2.00 pm. A great opportunity to enjoy music,
dancing, food and culture from around the world and to celebrate the vibrant
diversity of our community. We have been allocated a space for our RAR stall,
where, as usual, we’ll be talking to people, selling our merchandise and
collecting final signatures on our open letter. Please come along and join in
the festivities.
Sale of paintings to support the
ASC
There is still time for you to drop
into the Stringer Gallery on Ridge Street in Nambucca Heads. The Arts Council’s
Artist of the Month, Marlene Griffin, has lots of work on sale from $20 to
$250, with all the proceeds to be donated to the Asylum Seekers Centre in
Sydney. The gallery is open from 10.00 am until 3.00 pm from Wednesday to
Friday, and from 9.30 am until midday on Saturdays. Let’s hope that we will be
able to make another generous donation to the ASC at the end of the month. They
need every dollar that we can raise to support their vital work with asylum
seekers.
Nauru: the children continue to
suffer
The appalling suffering of children
on Nauru gets worse by the day. Medical staff on the island report that a
twelve-year-old Iranian boy who is on hunger strike is at imminent risk of
dying. He is but one of a growing number of children on the island who are in
urgent need of high level medical care, which cannot be provided on Nauru. They
include a 14-year-old boy with muscle wastage so severe that he may never walk
normally again, and a two-year-old child whose parents are too unwell to care
for him. An official on the island tells us: “Everyone on the island knows how
serious this is. A child is going to die. Every day it gets closer. It’s never
been so critical.”
Since December 2017, at least 14
challenges have been brought before the federal court seeking immediate orders
that seriously unwell children be moved from Nauru to receive the urgent
medical care that they needed. All have been successful. Our government is
playing a deeply cynical and cruel high-stakes game with children’s lives. It
has to stop!
Please consider contacting minister
Dutton to protest about this cruelty and to demand that ALL
children and their families be brought to Australia without delay. (There are
still approximately 130 children detained indefinitely on Nauru).
Telephone: 02 7277 7860. Email: minister@border.gov.au.
Migration (Validation of Port
Appointment) Bill 2018
A recent court judgement ruled that
the government’s attempt to excise Ashmore Reef from Australia’s migration zone
16 years ago was invalid. The government’s action at the time was an attempt to
prevent any asylum seekers who entered Australia through Ashmore Reef from
making claims for permanent protection. Rather than accept its mistake and
allow the 1600 asylum seekers affected to apply for protection – as is their
right – the government introduced legislation to parliament which would allow
it to retrospectively legitimize the error in law of 16 years ago. Sadly, the
government succeeded in passing the legislation last week, with the support of
the Labor opposition. Only 3 MPs – the independents Cathy McGowan and Andrew
Wilkie, and the Greens MP Adam Bandt – opposed the legislation.
We clearly still have a long way to
go before our parliamentarians begin to act with humanity and principle in
relation to our responsibilities for asylum seekers and refugees. All the more
reason to keep up the fight as the federal election approaches.
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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The National RAR web site is at www.ruralaustraliansforrefugees.org.au
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