Roadside demonstration: Thursday 13th December,
Coffs Harbour
Marble tombstones at ALP conference
Class action on behalf of offshore detainees
Tweets of the week
Roadside demonstration: Thursday 13th December,
Coffs Harbour
A reminder that our final roadside demonstration of
2018 is on Thursday from 2.30 to 4.00 pm by the Pacific Highway in Coffs
Harbour, opposite the Base hospital. The need to end offshore detention becomes
ever more urgent as men on Manus island continue to self-harm in
ever-increasing numbers, and as our government continues to block moves for the
medical transfer of sick refugees and asylum seekers from both offshore
detention centres. Please come and join us if you can to help us send a loud
and clear message to the government that this cruelty must be brought to an
end. We have lots of placards and banners to share, and we hope that many of
you will consider joining us on Thursday.
Our first roadside demonstration of 2019 will take
place on Thursday 10th January on Waterfall Way in
Bellingen.
Marble tombstones at ALP conference
The Labor party will be holding its national
conference in Adelaide at the weekend. You will recall that we collected more
than 2,000 signatures on an open letter to Wayne Swan, the party’s president,
earlier in the year. We urged the Labor party, at its national conference, to
commit to ending offshore detention and to resettling the refugees currently
held on Manus and Nauru in Australia or in other safe countries willing to
accept them. In addition to the open letter, we also posted ninety letters to Labor
parliamentarians, asking them to give their support to proposals from Labor
party branches to put an end to this cruel policy.
When delegates arrive in Adelaide at the weekend, they
will be confronted in the conference centre with a series of large marble
tombstone-like plaques bearing the names of the twelve men who have died as a
result of the policy that the party supports. The plaques are the work of Alex
Seton, and they are part of the “All we Can’t See” exhibition, which is devoted
to showing the horror of offshore detention. As the curator of the exhibition,
Arielle Gamble notes: “Each of these men died because of us, and they didn’t
have to.”
Let us hope that the Labor party finally listens to
the millions of Australian and the countless organisations who are demanding an
end to this shameful chapter in our history.
Class action on behalf of offshore detainees
This week the National Justice Project, a
not-for-profit organization, is mounting two class actions against the
government on behalf of all the detainees on Nauru and Manus. They will claim
in court that the government’s treatment of refugees meets the international
definition of torture. They will assert that government policy amounts to the
intentional infliction of harm, that it is causing serious mental suffering and
pain, and that the government is deliberately harming people in order to deter
others who might seek safety on our shores. As George Newhouse, a lawyer with
the National Justice Project explained in a radio interview, the cruel and
inhumane treatment of refugees is a matter of record, and this cruelty is
deliberately inflicted in order to achieve political objectives. He reported
that during the past week there have been no fewer than 29 serious incidents of
self-harm on Manus. The medical facilities on the island are woefully
inadequate, and it is clear that the situation is at crisis point.
It is important that these serious issues are aired in
court, and that our government is held to account for its cruel and inhumane
policies.
Tweets of the week
“So, @ScottMorrisonMP would rather cease to govern
than provide medical attention to sick children. There you have it, total moral
bankruptcy.”
Father Rob Bower, Gosford Anglican Church
“Let’s get one thing straight. Australia’s offshore
detention policy has never been about preventing drownings. It has always been
about preventing genuine refugees from getting access to Australian courts.
Trust me.”
Paul Barrett – who served as the Secretary of the
Department of Defence under the Howard government.
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.
This newsletter is sent to >620 recipients
Our Face book is at https://www.facebook.com/Rural-Australians-for-Refugees-Bellingen-and-Nambucca-Districts-269696303205083/timeline/
(579 likes)
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
Facebook
No comments:
Post a Comment