The Combined Refugee Action Group (CRAG) launched its campaign to highlight the cruel treatment of refugees in the country鈥檚 most marginal electorate, Corangamite, on April 7.
Refugee rights campaigns and actions
About 80 people attended a rally called by the Refugee Action Collective on March 2 to protest against the Australian government's plan to reopen the detention centre on Christmas Island and send refugees from Manus Island and Nauru there.
Children are off Nauru, Hakeem is back in Australia and parliament has passed the medical evacuation bill. For what feels like the first time in forever, the refugee rights movement is making gains, writes Zebedee Parkes.
Teachers, education support staff and even some principals walked off government and private schools across Victoria and assembled at the State Library on November 20, in support of refugees currently being detained on Manus Island and Nauru. A similar protest was held in Brisbane that same day.
Australian Education Union (AEU) members in Queensland will be joining their Victorian colleagues in walking off the job on November 20, Universal Children鈥檚 Day, to demand the federal Coalition government gets kids and their families off Nauru.
The Department of Education and Training Victoria today advised school principals聽to oppose leave for teachers who wish to participate in the Walk Off for Refugees on November 20. Teachers For Refugees (TFR) has called on teachers and education support staff to walk off the job on Universal Children鈥檚 Day and demand that the federal government remove all children and adults from offshore camps and resettle them in the community.
The Australian Education Union (AEU) Victorian Branch Council has endorsed a planned Walk Off by teachers and education support staff in support of refugees on November 20, Universal Children鈥檚 Day.
More than 4000 young people and adults packed into Birrarung Marr park on October 21 for a Children鈥檚 March for Nauru, to demand聽all refugees imprisoned on the Pacific island be resettled in Australia. Chanting 鈥渘urture not torture鈥 and 鈥渒ids out, all out鈥, participants marched into the city.
Refugee advocates are campaigning to stop the deportation of Huyen Tran, a Vietnamese woman who fled her home country by boat due to religious persecution in 2011.
Twelve people have died in Australian offshore detention centres in the past five years as a result of murder, suicide and medical neglect, according to Angelica Panopoulos from the Refugee Action Collective (Victoria).
"The refugee crisis is a union issue, as well as a social justice issue," Australian Services Union (ASU) NSW and ACT deputy secretary Judith Wright told about 100 people on June 27 at the "Change the Rules for Refugees" forum organised by Unions for Refugees.
"The ASU has members in support services for refugees. They see first-hand the results of the oppression and violence suffered by asylum seekers," she said.
A desperate rooftop protest by an Iranian refugee being held on Christmas Island was restarted on June 11 after being subjected to further inhumanity.
Ghazi (not his real name), and another refugee took to the roof of the detention centre in late May to protest the conditions and the lack of access to medical care. According to the Refugee Action Coalition (RAC) both men had been in detention for over 3 years and were apparently taken to court and charged over an alleged incident prior to the May protest.
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