BY STUART MUNCKTON
CANBERRA — With the Coalition government on the back foot over its refugee policies, activists from around Australia are planning to converge on Parliament House on February 12 to call for a more humane refugee policy. February 12 is parliament's first day of sitting for 2002.
The ACT Refugee Action Committee is working with other refugee-rights groups nationally to mobilise as many people as possible. ACT RAC has called a 12.30 rally outside parliament, and will be organising a "freedom embassy" during the day.
"As the Woomera hunger strikers enter their second week of protest and solidarity protests take off in other detention centres, the policy of mandatory detention is coming under greater criticism", said Pat Brewer from ACT RAC.
"This is fuelling protests, including the resignation of ministerial adviser Neville Roach. The government is on the defensive — now is the time to pull out all stops."
Activists from Melbourne, Sydney, Wollongong and Newcastle are planning to join the protests.
Roberto Jorquera from the Sydney-based Free the Refugees Campaign believes the protest is an opportunity for people to express opposition to the government: "[Immigration minister] Philip Ruddock claims to have the support of mainstream Australia. He's wrong. The hunger strikers have taken a courageous stand and they need our solidarity."
Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific is also supporting the protests. ASAP spokesperson Pip Hinman told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly that the government is already under mounting international pressure. "Previously racism in Australia was associated with Pauline Hanson. Now it's Prime Minister John Howard's government" Hinman said.
Following a solidarity call made by ASAP, Feminist Action in New Zealand called a protest outside the Australian consulate in Auckland on January 26.
"[The refugee crisis] is a defining moment for all Australians", Pamela Curr, who received 15.3% of the vote in the federal elections running for the Victorian Greens on a pro-refugee platform, told GLW. The Victorian Greens are planning to attend the protest.
"We have a government acting in our name and shaming Australia", Curr continued. "The opening of this parliament is symbolic because we have a Coalition government planning to implement a harsher regime for refugees and we need people there saying "No!". We will be going to Canberra to say that this government does not speak for all of us."
Socialist youth group Resistance has been campaigning to make the protest huge, pledging to do everything it can to end mandatory detention of asylum seekers. In 1998, Resistance high school activists acted as the collective conscience of Australia taking to the streets to protest Pauline Hanson's racist policies. "Now that Howard has adopted Hanson's policies, we have to redouble our efforts", Canberra activist Jo Hunt told GLW.
"Many young people feel sickened and angered by policies which lead to people sewing up their lips in desperation", she said. Resistance is also calling on all young people at school, on TAFEs and elsewhere to go on hunger strikes in solidarity with the Afghan asylum seekers.
Hunt said that Resistance is already urging school and college students walk out on February 12 and join the peaceful protest.
National Union of Students welfare officer Jillian Ferguson said on January 24 that the refugee campaign outside detention centres was growing significantly in response to the escalating refugee resistance within the camps.
NUS has pledged to work alongside refugee groups, trade unions and community organisations to build the campaign against the government's policies.
"Students played a key role in the '50s and '60s ending the White Australia policy.", NUS national education officer Camille Barbagello told GLW. "Students again played a key role in the Springbok protests in 1971 that led to Australia breaking links with the apartheid regime in South Africa. Students will again rise to meet this new challenge. NUS will be making it a priority to build this movement on campuses around Australia."
Socialist Alliance activists are discussing initiating a hunger strike in solidarity with detainees — beginning on February 11. James Vassilopoulos, alliance candidate for the seat of Fraser in the federal elections, told GLW that this would be a "significant symbolic act".
Another possibility, he said, is the establishment of a "tent city" outside Parliament House on the night of February 11.
Others supporting the protest include: the Sydney Refugee Action Collective; Rural Australians for Refugees; Margaret Reynolds (president of the United Nations Association of Australia); Women Against War and Racism; Dorothy Buckland-Fuller (Women's International League for Peace and Freedom); Father Claude Mostowik (national coordinator of the MSC justice and peace office and co-convenor of Pax Christi NSW); the Campaign for a Royal Commission into the Commonwealth Government's Treatment of Refugees; the ACT Trades and Labor Council; and the University of Wollongong Student Representative Council.
To get involved or come along, contact your local Resistance centre, as listed on page 2.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, January 30, 2002.
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