Socialist Alliance briefs
Speakout supports refugee rights
BRISBANE - A speakout on the steps of King George Square on September 14 condemned the federal government's scapegoating of refugees and called for public support for refugees in Australia. The speakout was sponsored by the Socialist Alliance.
Alliance supports refugees
NEWCASTLE - Forty people attended a Socialist Alliance public meeting titled "Free the refugees, open the borders", on September 14.
Speakers included Ian Rintoul, a Socialist Alliance NSW Senate candidate and a member of the Sydney Refugee Action Collective, and Sister Carmel Hanson representing Christians for Peace.
Members and supporters of the Socialist Alliance in Newcastle have pledged to help and harbour any refugees who manage to escape from the refugee detention camp that is being established at the Singleton army camp.
Refugees are welcome here!
HOBART - James McCormack, local head of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, accepted a sheaf of petitions calling for refugees to be allowed into the country at a protest action outside DIMA on September 11. The action, organised by the Hobart Socialist Alliance, heard speakers denouncing the federal government's treatment of asylum seekers.
"The Howard government's treatment of asylum seekers, and the support given them by the Labor party, is a racist disgrace", said Socialist Alliance spokesperson Kamala Emanuel. "The poor, the oppressed, those who are trying to flee persecution, are finding increasing barriers to their movement, as Australia, Europe, the US and Canada turn themselves into fortresses, protecting themselves with laws - and now gunboats!"
El Salvadoran political refugee Rene Aragon, Resistance activist Sarah Cleary and a spokesperson from the newly formed Tasmanians for Refugees also spoke.