Refugee detention centres have to go!

BY PAUL BENEDEK

SYDNEY -- Chanting “Refugees yes, racism no, detention centres have got to go” and “Free the refugees now!”, more than 1500 people marched on the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre on August 26. The demonstrators, organised by the Refugee Action Collective (RAC), demanded an end to the federal government's racist treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.

Yasmin from the Muslim Refugee Support Group exposed the hypocrisy of the Australian government's rhetoric about human rights and democracy, as it locks up innocent people and treats them “worse than the animals at Taronga Zoo”. Ray Jackson from the Indigenous Social Justice Association pledged his solidarity and urged all present to join the protests for indigenous people's rights on September 15.

Other speakers included Alistair Gee from Amnesty International, Mufti Taj-el-din el-hilali, Zainab Al Turkey from the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees and the Worker Communist Party of Iraq, and Amanda Perkins from the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union.

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