Roadside demonstration: Thursday 14th November, by the Big Banana
Next market stall: Bellingen, 16th November, 9.00 am to 1.30 pm
Bush, Beach and Bash event: Sunday 1st December from 11.30 am
Bomana prison, Port Moresby. A living hell.
Why the Medevac legislation must stay
Roadside demonstration: Thursday 14th November, by the Big Banana
Our next roadside demonstration will be in Coffs Harbour on Thursday 14th 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, 16th November, 9.00 am to 1.30 pm
Our next market stall will be at Bellingen Market on Saturday 16th
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 1st December from 11.30 am
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| Behrouz Boochani is free, in New Zealand. |
Don’t forget that our final fundraising and social event is planned for Sunday 1st
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.
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