Refugees & migrants

Activists in Melbourne rallied on November 22 to protest the decision to send asylum seekers to detention on Manus Island.

The Iranian asylum seeker who has maintained a 36-day hunger strike was admitted to hospital last night after he began excreting blood, the Refugee Action Coalition said. Ian Rintoul from RAC said: “The Minister says he opened Nauru because he was concerned about the loss of life at sea. He literally holds the power of life or death of at least one asylum seeker on Nauru. Is he going to turn a blind eye to one life that he could save?”

Features interviews with Sue Bolton, the newly elected Socialist Alliance councillor for Moreland in Melbourne and Lindsay Hawkins, one of the Progressive PSA team that have won control of the union representing NSW public servants.

An Iranian man known as Omid, who is held in the Nauru detention camp, has been on hunger strike for 33 days. Refugees said medical staff had told Omid his kidneys and brain were going to fail and he would be moved to hospital “in the coming days”. The rest of the group decided to end their 13-day hunger strike this morning, said, after Amnesty International said it would visit the island on a fact-finding mission next week.

Green Left Weekly’s Alex Bainbridge spoke to an asylum seeker imprisoned on Nauru on November 12 as a hunger strike involving hundreds of detainees reached its twelfth day.

This month is the start of the wet season on the tiny island of Nauru, where more than 370 refugees are being detained in Australian army tents that leak and do nothing to keep mosquitoes out.   In these appalling conditions, more than 300 men are refusing food and some are refusing water in a bid to have the department of immigration hear their claims for asylum.   That’s right — people that came to Australia exercising their legal and moral right to seek protection are on a hunger strike because the Australian government has decided to make an example of them.  

The Refugee Action Coalition Sydney released the statement below on November 8. * * * An ASIO negative Tamil refugee attempted to hang himself at the Villawood detention centre overnight. The man has been in detention for over three years. He was taken to the emergency department at Liverpool hospital and has now been admitted to the hospital.

A protest in solidarity with hunger striking refugees on Nauru took place in Perth on November 8. It was organised by the Refugee Rights Action Network.

"Are we there yet... in the race to rock bottom on refugee rights?" asked Dianne Hiles from Children Out of Detention (ChilOut) at a November 8 protest in Sydney against the detention of asylum seekers by the Australian on Nauru Island.

Refugees held on Nauru say more than 300 men are taking part in the indefinite hunger strike, which has now entered its second week. They say they will continue until Australia’s department of immigration guarantees them passage to Australia and an immediate starts on their asylum claims. Immigration minister Chris Bowen told refugees last month that their claims for protection would not be heard for more than six months.

Asylum seekers imprisoned on Nauru released the statement below on November 5. The asylum seekers are currently on hunger strike, demanding that the Australian government process their claims for refugee status. * * * Today, dated 5/11/2012, we all asylum seekers in Nauru Hell are on hunger strikes. Today is our 5th day of hunger strike, and this is very clear from our hunger strike that in which conditions we are.

Green Left TV brings you the words of a refugee, imprisoned by the Australian government on Nauru who is calling for freedom. He explains about the hunger strike on Nauru and the conditions that the refugees face.