Bello Nambucca RAR Newsletter 25th February 2020 Inbox

Roadside demonstration report

Coffs Harbourside market: Sunday 8^th March, 9.00 am to 1.30 pm

Harmony Time: a concert on Sunday 15^th March at 2.00 pm

A huge thank you, and a fond farewell

Refugee organisations react to last week’s ICC report

Behrouz Boochani’s book: No Friend but the Mountains

Roadside demonstration report

We were a small band of enthusiasts at our roadside demonstration last week, but we succeeded in getting lots of attention and support from passing motorists. We acknowledged that it is not easy to maintain the momentum after so many years of standing by the roadside. However, we quickly agreed that what we are doing is but a tiny sacrifice when compared to the terrible suffering inflicted on refugees and asylum seekers by our political leaders on both sides of parliament. They have been denied their freedom, their dignity and their human rights for almost seven years.

We will keep up the fight!

Our next roadside demonstration will be on Thursday 5^th March on Waterfall Way in Bellingen from 2.30 to 4.00 pm. You will find us in our usual spot near the Yellow Shed, opposite the entrance to the golf club. Please consider joining us if you possibly can.

Coffs Harbourside market: Sunday 8^th March, 9.00 am to 1.30 pm

A reminder that our next market stall will be at the popular Coffs Harbourside market on Sunday 8^th March. We are still looking for helpers for the market, so, if you can lend a hand for an hour or two, then please let Mike know by emailing him at: mandm.griffin2@bigpond.com. 

Harmony Time: a concert on Sunday 15^th March at 2.00 pm

The previous RAR concert was throughly enjoyed.

A reminder that our Harmony Time concert will take place in the Nambucca Community and Arts Centre in Nambucca Heads on Sunday 15^th March, starting at 2.00 pm. We have a terrific line-up of musicians to uplift and entertain you, including members of the Coffs Harbour Conservatorium, the Eleventh-Hour Choir, and Heather Rose and friends.

We hope that you have the date in your diary and that you will encourage your friends and family to join us. Our aim is to raise a four-figure sum for the Asylum Seekers Centre in Newtown.

Tickets are priced at $20 for adults and $10 for students. There is no charge for children under ten. You can purchase your tickets NOW from Helloworld Travel, situated on Bowra Street in Nambucca Heads, or you can order them for collection and payment at the door by contacting Mike at: mandm.griffin2@bigpond.com. or by phone: 6569 5419. Alternatively, you can purchase your tickets at the door on 15^th March.

We will have our RAR stall and a raffle, and there will be works of art on sale at bargain prices.

If you can help out on the day of the concert, or if you can contribute something for our raffle hamper, then please contact Marlene at: marlene.griffin46@bigpond.com.

Vintage Opaline Glass Vases

A huge thank you, and a fond farewell

This week, two of our longstanding supporters, Carol and John Vernon, are leaving the area to take up a new life to be close to family in Melbourne. They were founding members of the Bellingen and Nambucca District RAR group, established in 2014, and they have been wonderful and steadfast activists since that time. Many of you will have met them at our markets, our roadside demonstrations and our fundraising events over the years. We will greatly miss their enthusiastic support, their friendship, their generosity and their conversation. We wish them well in their move to Melbourne.

The good news is that, as they are downsizing, we now have in our possession a large number of items for our next lunch/ auction. So, if you would like to be the new owner of some excellent Vernon memorabilia, then watch this space for the date of our next fundraiser.

For the past year or so, John has managed our blog, so if there is anyone out there who could take on the job, which John tells us is not onerous, then please let Mike know by emailing him at: mandm.griffin2@bigpond.com. 

Refugee organisations react to last week’s ICC report

In last week’s newsletter, we reported on the findings of the International Criminal Court in relation to the Australian government’s “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” of asylum seekers and refugees in offshore detention. A number of groups, including Amnesty International Australia, Asylum Seekers Centre, the National Justice Project, the Refugee Council of Australia and others, have responded swiftly and collectively to the ICC judgement. 

Dr Graham Thon, of AI Australia, states: “This should be all the encouragement the Australian Government needs to secure third-party resettlement options so people who have suffered so much can start to rebuild their lives. It is completely unconscionable, when there are offers on the table from countries like New Zealand to resettle people, that Australia keeps them detained in conditions that have been found objectively to be cruel and inhumane.”

The Refugee Council of Australia, Paul Power, states: “This long-running ill-treatment of people seeking protection from persecution has done untold damage to Australia’s reputation. Any point that the Australian government wanted to make to the world was clearly made years ago. It’s pointless and unbelievably cruel to be still holding people seven years later.”

  

We clearly still have much work to do!

Behrouz Boochani’s book: No Friend but the Mountains

Many of you will have read Behrouz’s now-famous book, but you might be interested to know that it is now available in some local libraries as an audio book. It is read by an interesting variety of voices, including Richard Flanagan, Thomas Keneally, Isabel Carmody and Geoffrey Robertson. There is a long waiting list at Coffs Harbour library.

The book is also available on Audible.

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 >670 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

 

Bello Nambucca RAR Newsletter 19th November 2019

Not the roadside demonstration report

Bellingen market report

Have you signed up yet for B, B and B on Sunday 1^st December?

Behrouz Boochani is finally free

Not the roadside demonstration report

Unfortunately, due to the smoke haze in Coffs Harbour on Thursday, we had to cancel our planned demonstration by the Big Banana. We did contact everyone who we thought might be planning to attend, and do sincerely apologise if anyone was inconvenienced.

Our next demonstration will be at the same location – by the Pacific Highway beneath the Big Banana - on Thursday 28^th November from 2.30 until 4.00 pm. We do hope that you will consider coming to join us if you can. 

Bellingen market report

We had an excellent time at the Bellingen market on Saturday, with eleven supporters turning up at different times to lend a hand. We were in a really good spot, with lots of market-goers passing our stall, enabling us to collect more than 200 signatures on our open letter, engage in many fruitful conversations, and collect a number of generous donations for the Asylum Seekers Centre in Newtown. A big thank you to our team of supporters and to Kaz and the market crew for allocating us a site at such a busy junction.

Our next stall will be at the Valla Beach market on Saturday 7th December from 9.00 am until 1.00 pm. If you can help out for an hour or two, then please let Mike know by emailing him at: mandm.griffin2@bigpond.com.

Have you signed up yet for B, B and B on Sunday 1^st December?

Our final fundraiser of the year is now less than two weeks away, and we would be so pleased if you would indicate soon that you are planning to attend. You can revisit the full details in the newsletters for the past three weeks, which you can access by clicking on the link to our blog at the end of this newsletter. Briefly, for the benefit of our new supporters who signed up at the Bellingen market, the plan is to gather at 39, Rogers Drive, Valla Beach at 11.30 am on 1^st December. We’ll have a gentle walk through the Jagun nature reserve and along the beach, before returning to the house for lunch at about 12.30 pm. Drinks will be provided, and you are asked to bring a plate to share if you can, and to donate $20 towards our $10,000 target for the Asylum Seekers Centre. Please let Mike know soon if you are planning to attend, which we hope you will. Email: mandm.griffin2@bigpond.com. If you don’t feel like the Bush and Beach parts, just arrive at 12.30 pm or earlier for lunch.

Directions will be provided in next week’s newsletter.

Behrouz Boochani is finally free

So many people at the Bellingen market were overjoyed to learn that Behrouz Boochani had arrived in New Zealand from PNG on Thursday, after spending more than six years in offshore detention. Many of you will have read his award-winning book: “No Friend but the Mountains”, in which he depicts his experiences of his flight from Iran and his life in detention. He was able to obtain travel documents to leave PNG to give a presentation to the Christchurch writers’ festival later this month, and was warmly welcomed with a civic reception in Christchurch. He has a temporary one-month visa, but, unsurprisingly, he has vowed never to return to PNG. A New Zealand government MP Golriz Ghahraman, who, like Behrouz Boochani is a Kurdish refugee from Iran, had this to say: “I’m just so proud that New Zealand gets to stand as the counterpoint to the kind of politics that has led to Australia’s prison camps being in operation for so long. We’ve got a man like this, a human being, trapped for six years, and we get to be the country that stands for inclusion and for human rights and for freedom.” Asked if she had a message for the Australian government, Ghahraman said: “Close the camps…they amount to torture. It’s time the Australian government acts like a good international citizen.”

The contrast between the actions of the New Zealand government and the cruel and punitive policy of the Australian government could not be starker.

Labor senator Kristina Keneally, the party’s immigration spokesperson, issued a statement welcoming Behrouz Boochani’s freedom, but he was, rightly, having none of it, describing her statement as “shameful,” and reminding her that it was a Labor government that had exiled him and many others to Manus, and that her party has supported the Coalition’s offshore detention policy ever since. He told her: “If you are honest, do something for others who are suffering in PNG and Nauru. In my view, anyone who supports the policy is a criminal and a terrorist.”

Let us hope that Behrouz will finally be able to rebuild his life in New Zealand or the USA, where he has been accepted for resettlement. He has so much to offer, as undoubtedly have so many other people who we have left in limbo on Nauru and in PNG for purely political purposes.

 

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 >670 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

Bello Nambucca RAR Newsletter 12th November 2019

Roadside demonstration: Thursday 14^th November, by the Big Banana

Next market stall: Bellingen, 16^th November, 9.00 am to 1.30 pm

Bush, Beach and Bash event: Sunday 1^st December from 11.30 am

Bomana prison, Port Moresby. A living hell.

Why the Medevac legislation must stay

Roadside demonstration: Thursday 14^th November, by the Big Banana

Our next roadside demonstration will be in Coffs Harbour on Thursday 14^th November, from 2.30 to 4.00 pm. You will find us in front of the Big Banana, next to the Pacific Highway. Please join us if you can to support our campaign to end offshore detention and to demand a compassionate response to the refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru and in PNG whose lives have been on hold for more than six years. Their suffering is unimaginable, and we must continue to fight for their resettlement in Australia, New Zealand or other safe countries willing to accept them.

Next market stall: Bellingen, 16^th November, 9.00 am to 1.30 pm

Our next market stall will be at Bellingen Market on Saturday 16^th November from 9.00 am until 1.30 pm. We have been allocated Site C13, which is next to the bridge leading to Section A, so we are guaranteed lots of traffic. Access to Section C is via the Park Street entrance. As usual, we’ll be handing out information leaflets, engaging with market-goers, collecting signatures on our open letter to the PM, and selling merchandise to raise much-needed funds for the Asylum Seekers Centre. If you can lend a hand for an hour or two, then please let Mike know by emailing him at: mandm.griffin2@bigpond.com. If you are planning to visit the market, then do please drop by to sign the open letter.

The forecast is for a warm and sunny day. Let’s hope that the smoke has cleared by then!

Bush, Beach and Bash event: Sunday 1^st December from 11.30 am

Behrouz Boochani is free, in New Zealand.

Don’t forget that our final fundraising and social event is planned for Sunday 1^st December at 39, Rogers Drive Valla Beach. (see newsletters from two weeks ago and last week). The plan is to take a walk through the Jagun Nature Reserve and along the beach before returning for lunch at around 12.30 pm. If you don’t wish to join the walk, then please simply arrive for lunch at around 12.30 or earlier, armed with a plate to share. Drinks will be provided. We are asking for a donation of $20 to help us reach our target of $10,000 for the Asylum Seekers Centre. We do hope that many of you will want to come along. To help us plan the occasion, please let Mike know SOON that you intend to join us. Please email him at: mandm.griffin2@bigpond.com. 

Bomana prison, Port Moresby. A living hell.

Seven representatives of the Catholic community in Australia visited PNG last week to gain a better understanding of conditions for asylum seekers and refugees in PNG. One of the delegates described the situation at the Bomana prison as highly alarming. Carolina Gottardo, Co-convenor of the Catholic Alliance for People Seeking Asylum (CAPSA), stated: “We were told that many men indefinitely detained in Bomana were experiencing conditions equivalent to torture – including not getting basic food and losing weight, being unable to contact family members and having no access to medication, legal advice or visitors. These men need to be out of Bomana as a matter of urgency. They should be allowed to resume their lives, have access to safety, to appropriate healthcare and to complementary pathways.”

Fr Giorgio Licini, the Secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference in PNG, is more blunt when describing the situation for asylum seekers and refugees in PNG: “Telling these exhausted people to start a life in PNG, forcing them to start a life in PNG, well, you will kill them. They will come out, they will roam around- no jobs, no food, no security- thugs will attack them. They will be in a very, very dramatic situation. If Australia intends to kill that way 200 people, well, you will take an historic responsibility.”

Meanwhile, in a Senate Estimates hearing, the head of Operations Sovereign Borders, Craig Furini, tells us that he is unfamiliar with the conditions inside Bomana prison, (“We have no visibility of what goes on inside”), but under questioning from Senator Nick McKim, admits that he has not taken any steps to familiarise himself with the conditions, notwithstanding the fact that the Australian government has spent $22 million building the place, and funds the entire operation. When questioned further about whether any Operations Sovereign Border staff of the Australian Federal Police were assisting with the operation of the Bomana prison, Furini opted to take the question on notice. Visitors to Bomana prison last week noted burly guards with Australian accents and SERCO uniforms!

Why the Medevac legislation must stay

Senators returned to Canberra this week, but the government’s repeal bill relating to the medevac legislation does not appear on the week’s agenda papers, which would indicate that the Senate leader, Matthias Cormann, has not yet succeeded in persuading Senator Jacqui Lambie to get behind the government’s obsession with repealing the legislation. Her vote is crucial to the future of this legislation, which by all accounts is working well, is doing exactly what it was planned to do, and has saved lives.

Our national RAR committee, together with other groups, organised vigils in several national cities at the weekend to demand that the legislation remains in place. The Chair of the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce, Rob Floyd, had this to say: “The government policy changes and long-term detention of refugees and people seeking asylum has caused the very critical and current medical and health needs that the Medevac legislation is addressing. We welcome the fact that the medical evacuation program is saving lives and reducing misery and we thank the members of Parliament who continue to support this important humanitarian initiative of the last Parliament. Refugees and people seeking asylum have a human face. The Medevac transfer program has saved lives.”

Please contact Senator Jacqui Lambie this week, and urge her NOT to support the government’s move to repeal the legislation.

Email: senator.lambie@aph.gov.au. Tel: 02 6277 3614

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 >670 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

About No Friend but the Mountains. Pan Macmillan

"The book begins with Boochani boarding a boat somewhere on Java, hoping to reach Australia. In elegant prose, he brings to life the refugee journey through detailed observations of his fellow travellers. He describes a rapid collapse of order: 

Men lie in the arms of another’s wife, children lie on the bellies of strangers. It seems they have all forgotten … the energy spent establishing a gender-based order. 

Cruel, and no deterrent: why Australia’s policy on asylum seekers must change: The Conversation

Poet Behrouz Boochani, who has been detained on Manus for six years.

The Coalition’s election victory on May 18 had an immediate psychological effect on the refugees on Manus Island, with reports of several people attempting suicide. 

Two class-action lawsuits currently before the High Court allege “torture”, “persecution” and “other inhumane acts” in Australia’s offshore detention centres. This action follows an action for damages in 2018 that the federal government settled for A$70 million, effectively admitting that the claims of mistreatment were well-founded. 

Newsletter for 2 April 2019 Rural Australians for Refugees Bellingen and Nambucca Districts

_{Fundraiser report}

_{Our Change.org petition to confront hate speech and fearmongering}

_{Next Market Stall: Valla Beach Market: Saturday 6}^th _April

_{Testimonies from Nauru: Médecins Sans Frontières}

_{The Invisible Man}

_{Fundraiser report}

_{The rain came down with a vengeance for our fundraising lunch and auction in Mylestom on Saturday, but we were well prepared and our spirits were in no way dampened. It was a hugely successful and enjoyable occasion, attended by more than forty supporters. Our target was to raise at least $2,000 for the Asylum Seekers Centre in Sydney, but we exceeded that by a very significant margin. Our provisional total is that the lunch and auction raised a total of $3,464. A huge thank you to all those who donated items for the auction and to all the generous bidders. A very special thank you to Margie and Georgie who hosted the event in their lovely home and cooked up the wonderful main course, to Ton who provided the exquisite desserts, to Marlene who took care of the money, and to Mike our auctioneer.} 

_{We know that the ASC will put the money to good use in supporting asylum seekers and refugees in the Sydney area. A great team effort!}

_{Our Change.org petition to confront hate speech and fearmongering}

_{Have you signed yet?}

_{So far, the response to our petition has been very slow. Could you please read the petition, the text of which is reproduced below, then click on the link to sign. It’s as easy as that! This is surely the moment to call time on the normalization of the demonization of asylum seekers, refugees, Muslims and other minority groups who call Australia home. We would be greatly encouraged, therefore, if you could take a couple of minutes to sign the petition and then forward it to your friends.}

_{A call on companies to withdraw their advertising from the Alan Jones Breakfast Show}

_{Members of the Bellingen and Nambucca District Rural Australians for Refugees call on all the companies who advertise on Alan Jones’ breakfast show to withdraw their advertisements. We urge them to join with the Australian community in demonstrating in the clearest possible way that they will no longer support intolerance and bigotry on the airways.}

_{The tragic events of Christchurch leave us all searching for explanations. Many commentators have written about far-right white supremacists and their ability to share their extreme beliefs on the internet. But these extremists don’t exist in a vacuum. For years we have increasingly normalized bigotry, anti-Muslim and anti-asylum seeker sentiments in Australia. Demonising, demeaning and mistreating those who are “not like us” has been mainstreamed by sections of the media, radio shock jocks and politicians on the right.} 

_{This has to stop if we are to have any real hope of developing a multicultural nation at peace with itself, a nation where people respect and celebrate difference. We must cease using fear, mistrust and vilification as a political weapon to garner votes.}

_{The Alan Jones Breakfast Show is the favourite echo chamber for leading politicians on the right – from Abbott and Dutton to Morrison and Abetz.  Their regular discourse with Jones has done much to spread fear of the “other”, and to demonise refugees, asylum seekers and members of the Muslim community.  Jones donated $10,000 to One Nation’s successful campaign to elect Mark Latham to the NSW Legislative Council. Latham has a long history of preaching intolerance, and advertisers should not associate themselves in any way with his brand of politics. This fearmongering has to end, and it needs to end now.}

_{Please sign our petition.} 

_{https://www.change.org/p/bellingen-and-nambucca-rural-australians-for-refugees-we-call-on-companies-to-withdraw-their-advertising-from-the-alan-jones-breakfast-show}

_{Next Market Stall: Valla Beach Market: Saturday 6}^th _April

_{A reminder that our next market stall is at the Valla Beach market on Saturday 6}^th _{April from 9.00 am until 1.00 pm. As usual, we’ll be talking to market-goers, handing out leaflets, selling our merchandise and inviting people to sign our open letter to Minister Dutton. If you can help out for an hour or two, then please let Mike know by emailing him at: mandm.griffin2@bigpond.com.}

_{Testimonies from Nauru: Médecins Sans Frontières}

_{A recent report by MSF paints a harrowing picture of life in detention on Nauru. MSF provided mental health support for asylum seekers before being forced to leave the island in October 2018. Ashan (not his real name), tells MSF “We fled Sri Lanka because of the war. The army was looking for my dad, so he left first. My mother, my siblings and I left later. We didn’t expect to be sent to Nauru. There, we spent four years living in a tent. We didn’t feel safe there: there were bad accidents that happened. When refugees would return to the camp at night, sometimes locals would kick them and take their money.}

_{My younger brother’s mental health was very bad when we were on Nauru. He made a suicide attempt four or five times…washing powder, cutting his hand. We fled Sri Lanka in search of a place where we could live in safety, but on Nauru my brother was doing worse than in our home country.}

_{Now in Australia, my brother is slowly recovering. He is good at school and he’s being seen by a counsellor, but still sometimes he gets angry and scared.”}

_{Our government, supported by the opposition, has inflicted untold harm on so many people who have sought safety on our shores. Let us keep up our efforts to seek a more humane and compassionate approach to refugees and asylum seekers.} 

_{The Invisible Man}

_{The extraordinary story of Behrouz Boochani, the stateless refugee who won Australia’s richest literary award while living on Manus Island, but remains unable to set foot in this country. Here is the link to the ABC iView site of Australian Story that aired last night. Highly moving.}

_{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}