- Join the Melbourne Palm Sunday Walk for Justice for Refugees on Sunday 10 April from 1.30pm at the State Library, Swanston Street. Facebook event is here: https://fb.me/e/11WCiGAAy – please share! See poster and leaflet here.
- Also join the ONLINE FORUM: Fair Go for Refugees: Australia can do better – Australia is failing refugees: what a decent approach would look like.
Wednesday 6 April, 7pm – 8.15pm AEST. REGISTER here: https://amnestyau.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMpceyvqz8rGN04nQ7rAQOn5hi9PRdranbe with Abbas Nazari (Tampa refugee) and Craig Foster, advocate for refugees. See further detail below. Share on Facebook: https://fb.me/e/1DfGgHyMw - See listing of other Palm Sunday Actions, ideas for planning local actions, and online actions you can take at https://aran.net.au/actions/palm-sunday-2022/
ABOUT THE WALK FOR JUSTICE: The 2022 Melbourne Walk for Justice and Freedom for Refugees will be on Sunday 10 April at 2pm, commencing at the State Library (music from 1.30pm). People from all faith groups, community organisations and unions are invited to join the Palm Sunday Walk for Justice for Refugees, bringing banners and other messages of support in solidarity with refugees and people seeking asylum. After our speakers, including the Rev Tim Costello AO, a speaker with lived experience of living on a TPV, and a panel of faith speakers, the Walk will proceed to the Park Hotel, where around 30 refugees are still imprisoned. There will be an address from one of the refugees still held in the hotel, and Arnold Zable, then more music, and a wrap up speaker.
We look forward to seeing members of your group standing with others in solidarity with refugees on Palm Sunday. Please share the Facebook event https://fb.me/e/11WCiGAAy
Across the country people will be turning out on Palm Sunday to support Justice for Refugees. Let’s work together to make sure the Walk in Melbourne is bigger than ever to demonstrate the growing concern across the community about the harsh and punitive treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.
Key messaging for the Walk in Melbourne this year is: Justice & Freedom for Refugees – End Detention, Permanent Visas, Safe and Secure Futures
Australia’s treatment of refugees continues to be cruel and unjust:
- Around 30,000 people have been on Bridging visas for many years in the community, with uncertain futures, and a significant number of these people, including families face destitution as the government has withdrawn income and housing support for most of these vulnerable people, who have difficulty getting full time employment, having been denied the right to work for many years. Our Government is still not offering permanent protection to the children and their families being brought here from Nauru in 2018– so their uncertainty continues
- Hundreds of people remain in detention across Australia, including the 18 Medevac refugees still held in the Park Hotel in Carlton.
- After nearly 9 years, around 250 people are still stranded on Nauru and in PNG, with no prospects for permanent resettlement – the New Zealand resettlement offer needs to be accepted to provide safe futures for these people.
- Thousands of people are stuck on limbo on Temporary visas and SHEV visas – even though they are refugees and should have been permanently resettled here years ago. Children of refugees have grown up here, but still do not have a secure future.
Support the Palm Sunday Walk for Justice for Refugees, and stand up for justice, decency and compassion!
ONLINE FORUM: Fair Go for Refugees: Australia can do better – Australia is failing refugees: what a decent approach would look like
Join us on Wednesday 6 April, 7pm – 8.15pm AEST. Register here:
https://amnestyau.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMpceyvqz8rGN04nQ7rAQOn5hi9PRdranbe
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining online forum.
This online forum, hosted by the Australian Refugee Action Network and supported by Amnesty International, will explore our treatment of refugees and those who seek protection, and how this could be entirely different, with some reflection on Australia’s more enlightened response to the Vietnamese refugee crisis in the late 70s. Instead of punishing refugees for seeking safety as we currently do, Australia could be offering safe resettlement and treat people who seek our protection with dignity, fairness and compassion. Australia should have a more generous approach to refugees and work with regional neighbours to create safe resettlement options and pathways for people fleeing persecution and war.
Speakers:
- Craig Foster – former Australian of the Year, former soccer player, and refugee rights advocate.
- Shabnam Safa, Chair National Refugee-led Advisory and Advocacy Group (NRAAG) https://www.refugeeweek.org.au/shabnam-safa/
- Asher Hirsch, Refugee Council of Australia https://asherhirsch.com/about/
- Dr Claire Loughnan, University of Melbourne https://arts.unimelb.edu.au/school-of-social-and-political-sciences/our-research/comparative-network-on-refugee-externalisation-policies/people/network-team/network-team/dr-claire-loughnan
- Abbas Nazari – author of After the Tampa (Tampa refugee 2001 and Fulbright Scholar) https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/126003168/from-taliban-to-tampa-to-aotearoa-one-boys-remarkable-journey
Register now for this important forum, and invite your friends! Help us to promote by sharing the FB event through your social media network: https://fb.me/e/1DfGgHyMw
For more information email austrefugeenetwork@gmail.com