Alex Bainbridge

Protesters tore through a giant run-through banner that read "free the refugees" as part of World Refugee Day rally in Melbourne. Below the slogan, symbolic bars were broken representing the breaking of the fences imprisoning refugees.

More than 2000 protesters took to the streets in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra on the weekend of June 16-17 to say 20 years of mandatory detention is 20 years too many.

The rallies mark the annual World Refugee Day and highlighted the fact this year is the twentieth anniversary of the introduction of the policy of mandatory detention.

Perth City rangers were conspicuously absent as more than 60 people spoke freely in the Murray Street Mall on May 26. This speak-out was the first action called by new group Defend Free Speech Perth in response to a recent pattern of rangers harassing activist events.

Organisations represented at the rally included the Nyoongar Tent Embassy, the Maritime Union of Australia and the United Motorcycle Council of WA.

A newly formed group, Defend Free Speech in Perth, has put some early runs on the board by forcing the Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi to respond to an open letter to the council.

Independent filmmaker and anti-fracking activist Zeb Parkes has been fined $500 by the City of Perth for taking part in a rally against gas fracking on April 21. Parkes intends to defend the matter in court rather than pay the fines.

Larrakia woman June Mills gives "welcome to country" to the Darwin rally for refugee rights on April 6, 2012 - the first day of the national convergence for refugee rights.

Read the report about the rally.

[Read more of Green Left's refugee rights coverage.]

Photos from refugee rights rally, April 6, 2012 in Darwin. Read the full report here.

On the first day of the Darwin convergence for refugee rights, activists visited the Darwin Airport Lodge (DAL) after rallying in the city.