Letter re refugees held in hotels during Corvid-19 pandemic

Dear Minister Tudge,

These are difficult times for the Australian people, and the government deserves credit for the actions that it has taken to date – notwithstanding the Ruby Princess debacle – to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control.

There remain, however, a number of vulnerable groups who are at

serious risk of contracting the virus and spreading it in the community. I am particularly concerned about the plight of asylum seekers, many of whom are living in crowded detention centres and APODs  where social distancing is well-nigh impossible. The Mantra hotel in Melbourne is a case in point, and was discussed recently in a RN interview with Dr David Isaacs. He explained that these places are inherently unsafe and that the inmates face the real danger of contracting COVID-19. Many of the men in the Mantra hotel have been held there for up to nine months, awaiting, but largely not receiving, the medical care for which they had been evacuated from PNG. This is plainly unacceptable. Dr. Isaacs described the situation as “unforgivable”, and I agree with him.

Could you please explain why the government will not release these people into community detention, where many of them have family, friends and other community members who can help to support them?

Could you please explain why the government chooses to spend up to $350,000 per annum keeping a single person in detention, when they could spend their time in community detention at a fraction of the cost? This is surely a serious and negligent waste of taxpayers’ money. Money which could be used elsewhere to support our communities in these uncertain times.

I urge you to take the necessary and urgent steps to release all asylum seekers currently awaiting medical attention or the determination of their claims for protection into community detention.

Yours sincerely,

Mike

Valla Beach, NSW

Bello Nambucca RAR Newsletter 28th April 2020

Detention Centres are Not Safe Places for Refugees   There is little doubt that pressure is now growing to persuade the government to release the people currently held in onshore detention in Australia. There are more than 1,400 of them, and it is surely now time for the government to take action, in the midst of this COVID-19 pandemic, to ensure that these people are safe from harm. Other countries have taken action to release asylum seekers from locked detention into the community, in recognition of the fact that crowded detention centres, where social distancing is impossible, are dangerous places at this point in time. The Mantra hotel in Melbourne, which is being used as an Alternative Place of Detention (APOD), is a case in point, and it has attracted a lot of publicity in the past two weeks.  A group of refugee advocates staged a drive-by peaceful protest, with placards in their car windows advocating an end to the detention of the asylum seekers, who mostly comprise men who have been transferred from PNG for urgent medical treatment. The organiser of the peaceful protest was arrested at his home before the protest, had his house searched, his computer and other devices confiscated, and was held at the local police station for a number of hours. He, and all those who participated in the protest, were handed hefty fines on the basis that they were contravening the COVID-19 legislation relating to gatherings. One of the refugees, Fahad Bandesh, appeared recently on Q and A to plead with the government to allow them to be placed in safe, community detention. He has also been vocal in representing the needs of the refugees staying at the hotel. His reward was to be moved from the Mantra hotel last week, against his will and without his possessions, and is now detained at the Melbourne detention centre (MITA). Dr David Isaacs spoke out in recent days about the plight of the refugees in the Mantra hotel and other places of detention. He explained to Radio National listeners that these crowded places are inherently unsafe and that there is a real danger that the inmates will contract the COVID virus. He reminded us that many of these men have been cooped up in the hotel for up to nine months, awaiting, but largely not receiving, the medical care for which they had been evacuated from PNG.  He described the situation as “unforgivable”, and a form of torture.  He explained clearly that the men should be released and that they should be in community detention. Many of them have friends and family in the community who could help to take care of them. He also reminded us that this cruel policy is incredibly expensive, costing some $350,000 a year for each refugee!

Could you please consider writing to the acting Minister for Immigration, Alan Tudge, and to your local Federal MP, who for most of us is Pat Conaghan? Point out to them that crowded detention centres and hotels are not safe places, during this pandemic, to hold asylum seekers and refugees. Remind them that these people have been held for long periods of time, which is both unnecessary and hugely expensive. Ask that they be released into community detention as a matter of urgency. Ask them to reply to the points that you have raised. Contact:  Alan.Tudge.MP@aph.gov.au. Tel: 02 6277 7790 or 03 9887 3890                   Pat.Conaghan.MP@aph.gov.au.  Tel: 02 6277 4446 or 02 6652 6233

LUNCH INVITATION REMINDER  Dear RAR Supporters It’s almost time to close the non-existent orders for the virtual lunch. Please check out the menu to get your orders (donations) in. Last order by Friday, 8th May. All funds go to the Asylum Seekers Centre in Sydney  https://asylumseekerscentre.org.au NB. We have received a donation of two cases of champagne from the Northern slopes of the famous Mt Isa Vineyards – it will flow at the non-event! Thank you to all who have already generously donated. Georgie and Margie 0414 592 519

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It includes articles from many sources and letters to politicians and newspapers.
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Australians want to open their homes to locked-down refugees. The government should let them : The Guardian

"by Craig Foster

I’ll take them.

At a time when real decisions are being made about social worth, of who will be left out or left behind, it is refugees and asylum seekers along with international students and migrant workers who capture the ugliness of “us and them”.
Working every day in essential services to feed the vulnerable exposes the true nature of our response. Students who prop up our universities, kids whose parents entrusted us with their academic futures and immediate wellbeing, left destitute and hungry. A million migrant workers, who toil to keep the country operating, going without. You’re only good for what you provide to us, after all, we’re not real friends.

But it is not only they who suffer, it’s our own concept of self. A virus that reduces humanity to one, that penetrates all artificial barriers, brutally exposes the differences that we refuse to overcome.

Similarly, the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers is not an abstraction that relates to a group of humans here and offshore, it’s central to the very concept of Australia. It’s the true test.

Everything we have done to the thousands of people on Manus and Nauru, in Villawood and Mantra, speaks directly to me, you, us. Do we protect their rights, see ourselves in them, recognise the commonalities between all races, minorities and human beings?
Treating each other well, our families and children, friends and colleagues, doesn’t validate our humanity, that’s easy. Child’s play. There’s social pressure to conform, workplace legislation and anti-discrimination laws to force compliance, our own social and economic interests directly impacted.

The real test is when there’s no social capital, no personal gains to make. When speaking up for marginalised people will cost friends, business, social influence, will we stand by and let people die? Will we pen them for seven years and continue to turn a blind eye?
Now as we, like they, are detained, will we acknowledge the hypocrisy of what we’ve done? While they fled for their lives and we said “that’s not right, they should get in line”. When threatened, we punched on for a bog roll. How exactly did we go with “lines” and “queues” when our loved ones were at risk?

While they sit in small rooms for 23 hours a day, locked up for seven years for no crime, in fact for asserting their human rights, we talk about our mental health and how suffocating it is to be caged. Will we still look away as they rot, day after day, from the inside out?

We talk about using our time to learn, reconnect with family, educate ourselves and prepare for our next assault on the economic dream, when they scream just to walk free, without guards at their door.

And when we assess worth in a stimulus package and talk about keeping others safe by staying home, we’re not talking about everyone, are we? We’ve let prisoners out into the community because they’re us gone wrong, but refugees, who are at the most severe risk with chronic health conditions and compromised immune systems, well, they’re different. Like the students. And migrant workers.

But no, they are us. The truest version. Australia is not Sydney 2000, America’s Cup, our bushfire response, or our togetherness against Covid. We are asylum seekers and refugees, we are the damned because we’ve damned them, we are the medicated because we’ve ruined them. We cannot take pride in the way we help those who reflect us, if at the same time we ruin those who are condemned by the concept of who we purport to be.

Refugees in Port Moresby told me that they imperilled their loved ones’ lives because they believed Australia to be a place of democracy, human rights and of people who care. An El Dorado of egalitarianism. Where people struck out in pursuit of humanitarian gold, and died in the attempt.

I still believe passionately in who we are, and what we sell. I’ll never give up on that dream. But we’ve proved them wrong for seven years. It’s time we proved them right.

Like the 9,900 members of I Have a Room who have offered to house all those detained in immigration centres around the country at severe risk of infection, I will give my house to people that have become our national conscience.

I will fly Mostafa Azimitabar and Farhad Bandesh, two Kurds who’ve endured hell for seven years that we have turned into husks of people and who are my friends, to Sydney at my own expense, house, feed, clothe and take responsibility for them during Covid-19 and recently made this offer to the Australian government.

I’ll pay a bond if necessary, and they’ll live exactly as they should. As my brothers. Family members. As equals.

And I call on the Australian government to release the 1,440 immigration detainees into the care of fellow Australians who feel the same way.

Because that was the vision that you and I inherited for Australia, and for which they risked their lives.

• Craig Foster is a former Australian footballer and now television analyst for SBS and Amnesty human rights and refugee ambassador
  
  Read the original The Guardian article by Craig Foster

5 questions about temporary protection visas in the age of COVID-19: UNSW Newsroom

The Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law 

COVID-19 is having an impact on everyone around the world, but particularly the most vulnerable.

 Image: Shutterstock

In Australia, government responses so far have been directed toward protecting public health, and supporting businesses and employees. We asked Sarah Dale, the Centre Director and Principal Solicitor at the Refugee Advice and Casework Service (RACS), about how this public health crisis is affecting refugees and people seeking asylum who are on temporary visas.

Q1. Who are the refugees and asylum seekers on temporary visas in Australia?

'It’s a place where they try to destroy you': why concentration camps are still with us : The Guardian

"Mass internment camps did not begin or end with the Nazis – today they are everywhere from China to Europe to the US. How can we stop their spread?

 By Daniel Trilling"

.........

" One evening in February this year, I watched the Kurdish author Behrouz Boochani give a talk by video link to an audience at Birkbeck, University of London. Boochani, who currently lives in New Zealand, spent four years in Australia’s “regional offshore processing centre” for asylum-seekers on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. Australia has pioneered a type of long-term detention for unwanted migrants that is now becoming more common elsewhere in the world. Boochani and his fellow detainees were not merely being held for “processing”, but in harsh conditions intended to act as a deterrent to future travellers. The Australian government forbade journalists to report on the full extent of these conditions, which included the beating and abuse of detainees, and introduced a law threatening doctors and social workers with up to two years in prison if they spoke in public about what they had witnessed.

Boochani, however, smuggled out accounts of life in detention, via text messages sent to his translator by WhatsApp, that were turned into articles for the Guardian and other outlets – as well as a memoir, No Friend But the Mountains. Boochani explained to us how he saw his detention as part of Australia’s – and Britain’s – longer history of treating non-white people as disposable. “It’s worse than a prison,” he said of the Manus camp. “It’s a place where they take your identity and freedom from you, and try to destroy you.” Detainees were given numbers, he said, which the guards used instead of their names; his was MEG45.

The camp on Manus Island was eventually shut down by the Australian government, after widespread public criticism, although its broader asylum policies remain largely the same. For Boochani, writing was not simply a way to expose his conditions and link up with campaigners against detention on the outside, but to challenge the very basis on which the treatment of people like him was justified. “I never use the language and the words that the [Australian] government use,” he said. “I say ‘systematic torture’, I say ‘political prisoner.’” One of the things that gave him hope in confinement, he said, was the fact that animals could wander in and out of the spaces where human freedom was limited – a reminder that the structure which held him was built by people, and could therefore also be dismantled. “Nature,” he said, “always tried to reimpose itself on the prison.”

Read the original The Guardian article

Pics from our very successful RAR Nambucca Concert

As you might have read in this week’s newsletter, we were able to donate $2,000 to the ASC in Newtown, which might be the last donation that they get from us for some time. They, and other relief agencies, are going to find it really tough in the months ahead to keep their vital services running.

The concerted efforts of regional Australians, musicians and concert audience members in this case, is assisting legal asylum seekers incarcerated by the Australian government.

Bello Nambucca RAR Newsletter 17th March 2020

Harmony Time concert report

What happens next?

Roadside demonstration: Thursday 19^th March, 2.30 to 4.00 pm

Sydney High School student speaks at the UN

The suffering continues for Medevac evacuees

 

Harmony Time concert report

We had a wonderfully uplifting and entertaining concert on Sunday to raise funds for the Asylum Seekers Centre in Newtown. The musicians were simply outstanding and those attending told us how much they had enjoyed such a varied performance by so many talented musicians.

A huge thank you to Heather Rose and friends, to the Eleventh-Hour Choir and to the musicians of the Coffs Harbour Conservatorium of Music for their inspiring performances.

Also, a big thank you to Marlene who organized the event so superbly, and to our loyal band of RAR supporters for making it all work so well on the day.

Ticket sales, donations, the sale of paintings and the raffle mean that we have been able to donate $2,000 to the Asylum Seekers Centre, which is an excellent outcome.

What happens next?

The spread of the corona virus, and the consequent necessity to curb public gatherings and other activities will no doubt impact on us all, and will severely limit our ability to campaign and to fundraise in the months ahead. Bellingen market, scheduled for Saturday 21^st March, has been cancelled, and no doubt Valla Beach market will also be called off.

We were hoping to organise a fundraising get-together lunch and auction towards the end of April, but that too will now have to be postponed.

We will continue with our roadside demonstrations for now, and will keep the situation under review.

Given the significant limitations on our activities in the months ahead, our newsletter will be published once a fortnight, rather than weekly, until further notice.

Roadside demonstration: Thursday 19^th March, 2.30 to 4.00 pm

Our next roadside demonstration will take place on Thursday in Coffs Harbour, by the Big Banana, from 2.30 to 4.00 pm. The forecast is for a sunny day, so why not make a resolution to join us to help to keep the plight of refugees in the public eye? Don’t forget to wear covered shoes to keep the ants at bay! 

Sydney High School student speaks at the UN 

Australian high school student Renuga Inpakumar has addressed the United Nations about the plight of two Tamil refugees in a Victorian detention centre. Source: Facebook

A week ago, Renuga Inpakumar, a year 12 student from Sydney, travelled to Geneva to address the 43^rd session of the UN Human Rights Council. She spoke passionately about the plight of Tamil refugees, who face persecution and worse in their homeland, and she was very critical of the Australian government’s treatment of Tamil asylum seekers who have sought protection in Australia. Renuga is a dedicated advocate of two Tamils, Sivaguru Navanthirasa and Loganathan Janurupan, who, she stated, have languished in “various Australian detention centres for more than ten years.” She reminded the meeting that Australia is in breach not just of the “spirit of brotherhood”, but of its obligations under international law.

It seems extraordinary that our government continues to treat people in such a cruel and inhumane manner. In response, Minister Dutton simply reminds us that he is tough on border protection issues, and that his job is to keep Australians safe.

The suffering continues for Medevac evacuees

 Our government seems determined to add to the suffering of refugees who were transferred to Australia for medical treatment. Many of them have received no medical treatment at all to date and remain in lockdown in hotels in Melbourne, Brisbane and other centres. In one hotel in Melbourne, costing $160 per night, plus huge security bills, there are 56 refugees,

including a young man who goes by the name of Moz. He reports that the men are all confined to the hotel, except for the two occasions each week when they are transported to the MITA detention centre, where they exchange the four walls of a hotel room for barbed wire fences. “It’s a kind of torture”, says Moz. “The Australian government is really expert at torturing us. We really need help. We were tortured on Manus for seven years and now we are locked up in this place. For what crime have we been imprisoned for seven years? What is our crime?”

These men should, of course, be released into the community, and they should receive the medical treatment that they clearly need.

If you would like to contact the Acting Minister for Immigration, his details are:

Alan.Tudge.MP@aph.gov.au.

Tel: (02) 6277 7790

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

Roadside demonstration: Thursday 5^th March, Waterfall Way, Bellingen

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

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

Did you watch Stateless on the ABC?

The Biloela family remain in limbo on Christmas Island

Roadside demonstration: Thursday 5^th March, Waterfall Way, Bellingen

A reminder that our next roadside demonstration is on Thursday 5^th March from 2.30 to 4.00 pm on Waterfall Way, Bellingen. You will find us at our usual spot near the Yellow Shed, opposite the entrance to the golf club. Please join us if you can, and let Australia’s refugees and asylum seekers know that we have not forgotten them, and that we will continue to highlight their suffering until they are all free. We have lots of banners and placards to share, we just need you to come along to join our faithful core group of campaigners to help make our voices heard.

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

A reminder that we have our stall at the Coffs Harbourside market next Sunday from 9.00 am to 1.30 pm. As usual, we’ll be handing out leaflets, talking to market-goers, asking people to sign our open letter to the Prime Minister and selling our merchandise to raise funds for the Asylum Seekers Centre in Newtown. At the time of writing, we are very short of volunteers, particularly from 11.00 am until 1.30 pm. If you can lend a hand for a while, then please email Mike at: mandm.griffin2@bigpond.com. , otherwise he is on his own!

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

Musicians from the Coffs Harbour Conservatorium

As you will know from earlier newsletters, we have a great programme of entertaining and uplifting music lined up for you on Sunday 15^th March at the Nambucca Community and Arts Centre on Ridge Street, Nambucca Heads, starting at 2.00 pm.

A huge thank you to all our supporters who have volunteered to help on the day - we now have a full team!

Tickets are on sale at Helloworld Travel on Bowra Street in Nambucca Heads, priced at $20 for adults and $10 for students. If it is more convenient, you can order tickets for collection and payment at the door by phoning Mike on 6569 5419. Tickets will also be available on the day, though it helps our planning enormously if people book in advance.

Please encourage your friends and family to come along to our first major fundraiser of the year. All profits from the concert will be donated to the Asylum Seekers Centre, who do vital work supporting asylum seekers in Sydney.

If you would be willing to bring a plate of goodies to help with refreshments, then please contact Marlene at: marlene.griffin46@bigpond.com to let her know.

Did you watch Stateless on the ABC?

This six-part film highlights the shocking reality of the detention of asylum seekers through the eyes of the various protagonists, and portrays the dehumanizing impact of our detention regime. You can watch in on the ABC on Sundays at 8.30 pm and on iView. Cate Blanchett, an executive producer and actor in the series, had this to say about the work: “At what cost are we maintaining our borders? What fundamental aspects of our humanity have we allowed to be eroded? As a parent, when I go to film with the UN Refugee Agency and see children in detention, my heart breaks and I just do not understand how we allow that to happen.”

Let us hope that the film will be watched by a wide audience and that it will help people to open their hearts and their minds to the shocking reality of our treatment of some of the most vulnerable people on earth. 

The Biloela family remain in limbo on Christmas Island

The shameful treatment of the Tamil family from Biloela is set to continue for many months, following a hearing in the courts last week to determine whether the youngest child, Tharunicaa, is entitled to have an application for a protection visa to be heard. Common sense and humanity should have prevailed in this case long ago, and the minister should have used his discretion to allow the family to stay in Australia. They were well settled in Biloela, they were valued members of their community, and had reasonable grounds to claim asylum.

They will now have to wait months to find out if Tharunicaa’s claim can be heard, and then probably a lot longer for the whole process to be concluded. Then, at the end of it all, our government could agree that this young child has a right to remain in Australia, but that her family do not.

All this, to demonstrate that we are tough on protecting our borders and keeping Australians safe. Utterly shameful.

The acting Minister for Immigration, Alan Tudge, can be contacted at: Alan.Tudge.MP@aph.gov.au. or by phone: (02) 6277 7790.

 

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

Newsletter: Refugee Action Coalition forum - Sydney Events

Refugee Action Coalition forum Offshore hell: Manus refugees still stranded in PNG

6pm next Monday 2 March
NSW Teachers Federation, 23-33 Mary St Surry Hills

There are still 400 refugees and asylum seekers in PNG and Nauru. With the US deal close to exhausted, those remaining have few hopes of resettlement. Those in PNG have been moved into a vulnerable situation in the community where they are being forced into poverty. Join us to hear first hand accounts about the situation and discuss why we need to keep fighting to Bring Them Here.

Speakers:
Fr Giorgio Licini (via Skype)
Giorgio is a Catholic priest in Port Moresby who is assisting refugees brought from Manus. He helped advocate for those thrown in the Bomana prison and will give a first hand account and update on the situation they face now. He has spoken out calling for their resettlement and exposed the appalling conditions they face in numerous media interviews including in The Saturday Paper, Radio NZ and elsewhere.

Refugee formerly on Manus
A refugee brought to Australia for medical treatment from PNG will speak on the transfer from Manus Island to Port Moresby

Ian Rintoul
Ian from Refugee Action Coalition remains regularly in touch with the refugees in Port Moresby and will discuss the current situation there.

 

---

Palm Sunday rally for refugees 2020
 2pm Sunday 5 April, Belmore Park
 

Speakers include:
Craig Foster (Football legend and "Game over" campaign)
Most Rev. Vincent Long (Catholic bishop of Parramatta and Vietnamese refugee)

Invite your friends on Facebook
www.facebook.com/events/564065847707489/

• Nauru and PNG: End the torture
• Permanent protection and family reunion

---

Donate to Manus and Nauru medical transfer support fund

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