Refugees & migrants

More than 300 refugee rights protesters descended on Broadmeadows Detention Centre, in Melbourne’s inner north, on July 9. The activists present were determined to have their voices heard, and make it known that ALP immigration minister Chris Bowen has backflipped on his promise to have all children out of detention by July. The centre, which accommodates only asylum seekers under the age of 18, is indeed still open and running. And it doesn’t look like closing its razor wire gates any time soon.

Resistance members in Perth took part in a protest outside the office of Melissa Parke organised by the Refugee Rights Action Network on July 1 to demand an end to mandatory detention and the immediate release of 16-year-old Indonesian Hadi Kurniawan from the Hakea adult prison.

The federal government said on June 29 it had met its “commitment” to move child refugees out of detention and into community-based accommodation. In October last year, 738 children were held in detention. Widespread public fears for the mental and physical damage caused by long-term detention forced the government to act. The immigration department said it would “begin moving significant numbers of children and vulnerable family groups out of immigration detention” into community detention.

Plans to give refugees deported from Australia a “special barcode” when they arrive in Malaysia were revealed by the June 29 Daily Telegraph. A final refugee swap deal between Australia and Malaysia is likely to be announced this month. More than 340 refugees have arrived since Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the plan on May 7 to “swap” 800 asylum seekers in Australia for 4000 “processed refugees” in Malaysia. The refugees affected by the deal are being held in various stages of isolation on Christmas Island.

Resistance organised a visit to Villawood detention centre on July 3. Twenty people came to show solidarity with the asylum seekers inside. We visited four different sections that house families and single people from many countries including Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iran and Iraq. I spoke with a family who live in Villawood with their three young children. The youngest two had never known life outside detention. They live in their own small house, and once a week a member of the family is allowed to go shopping, with guards, so the family can cook for themselves.

Three Tamil asylum seekers from Sri Lanka detained in Maribyrnong detention centre have agreed to share their experiences with Green Left Weekly. They are terrified that talking to journalists may cause their applications for refugee status to be impeded or denied. Due to this fear, these three men have agreed to share their experiences on the condition of anonymity.

I was 12 years old when for the first time in my life I became a citizen of a country — Australia. Before that, I was a stateless Palestinian refugee. There were two laments my parents always repeated whenever they spoke of their place of origin Palestine: if only we could have stayed and if only we could return. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in 2009 there were more than 10 million refugees around the world in need of assistance.

Over three nights last week, hundreds of thousands of people watched something very rare: a Reality TV show that actually showed some reality.

More than 1,000 people gathered on June 19 to protest mandatory detention and the Gillard government’s highly contentious asylum seeker swap deal with Malaysia –– under which Australia would exchange 4,000 processed and confirmed refugees from Malaysia for 800 unconfirmed asylum seekers from Australia. The crowd gathered at the Royal Exhibition Buildings in Carlton Gardens to hear speakers before marching to join the Emerge Festival at Fitzroy Town Hall. Speakers included Greens MP Adam Bandt, Julian Burnside QC, and several refugees.

About 120 people attended the Pitt St Uniting Church on June 18 for the launch of Refugee Week, which was the themed “Freedom from Fear”. Five women singers from Sierra Leone in traditional dress and headgear opened the event, which was hosted by the Refugee Council of Australia and NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors. The chairperson, SBS Dateline’s Yalda Hakim, who is also a former refugee from Afghanistan, said she had just returned from Tunisia where 100,000 foreign workers are crossing the border to escape the fighting in Libya.

The lawyer who won access for refugees to Australia’s courts last year has gone to the High Court again to prevent a family being split up by the federal government’s “Malaysia swap”.

I was 12 years old when for the first time in my life I became a citizen of a country — Australia. Before that, I was a stateless Palestinian refugee. There were two laments my parents always repeated whenever they spoke of their place of origin Palestine: if only we could have stayed and if only we could return. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in 2009 there were more than 10 million refugees around the world in need of assistance.