Chappell and team on tour for refugees
11 September 2003
The looming refugee crisis period in Australia will be discussed at public meetings in Adelaide, St Kilda and Parramatta next week, with Ian Chappell heading a team of speakers taking their concerns to fellow Australians.
Organised by A Just Australia, the national campaign for just refugee programs, the tour includes:
- Adelaide Town Hall - 16 September, 7.30pm
- St Kilda Town Hall - 17 September, 7.30pm
- Parramatta Riverside Theatre - 18 September, 7.30pm
Lowitja O'Donoghue, Phillip Adams, Hanifa Deen, and Howard Glenn will be amongst the speakers at the meetings, together with local supporters, local Patrons and refugees who are facing an uncertain future.
"We need to let Australians know that our treatment of refugees is about to get a whole lot worse under current government policy", said Howard Glenn, National Director of A Just Australia.
"The people who fled persecution in Afghanistan and Iraq, did the dangerous boat trip, did their time in Woomera or another desert camp, proved their refugee status under long and rigorous tests, are still under threat.
"Since 1999 the Government has only offered three year "temporary protection" and has refused them a secure future. For thousands of proven refugees, their three years is coming up. The Government has started serving up notices to Afghans, giving them three choices:
- return to Afghanistan which is still a disaster area, and for many who fled, run by warlords who will continue to kill or persecute their ethnic group;
- fight the denial of protection in Australia through the tribunals and the courts;
- get put back into detention and be deported.
"Similar choices await the Iraqi refugees as soon as the Government is confident it can get away with it - meanwhile the Iraqi refugees have had their applications for protection put in the "pending" tray.
"Many Australians have made it clear they will not put up with this continued mistreatment of proven refugees. Over eight thousand proven refugees remain on temporary protection visas.
"We are proposing a better three point plan and urging the Federal Government to make the right choice:
- provide permanent protection for proven refugees, with assistance to return home on a voluntary basis;
- introduce a process for humanitarian visas or solutions for those stuck in the limbo of long term detention; and
- immediately release children and their families into the community.
"We will be meeting with a cross-section of Australians next week to explain our views and hear theirs. Adelaide is where the action is now on the long term detainees in Baxter Detention Centre, St Kilda is the heart of so much successful post WWII refugee settlement, and Western Sydney is where politicians claim the hostility to refugees comes from", Mr Glenn said.
|
