Approximately 1300 people turned out to the Melbourne 2012 World Refugee Day rally held June 17. The rally began at Parliament House and heard speeches from Aunty Diane Kerr, traditional owner; Jessie Taylor, Human rights lawyer; Godrey Yoganathan, Tamil refugee; Sarah Hanson-Young, Greens senator; John Gulzari, Hazara refugee; Yustin Papuana Motte, West Papuan refugee and Louise Connor, state secretary, Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance. There were also performances by the Future of Rap and The Conch.
The theme of the rally was to highlight that this year marks the 20th anniversary of the enactment of the notorious legislation enforcing mandatory detention upon asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat. Also highlighted were the plight of children in detention, the injustice of indefinite detention of refugees with adverse ASIO security assessments without appeal, and the recent success of releasing asylum seekers into the community on bridging visas.
To start the rally, the protesters burst through a footy banner painted with prison bars to symbolise letting refugees out of detention. Mock cages were also constructed with children inside to demonstrate the appalling plight of children in the immigration detention system.
The rally finished by converging with the multicultural EMERGE festival in Fitzroy.
Many refugee community groups were represented in the rally, including the Tamils, the West Papuans, the Hazaras, the Eritreans and others. There was also representation from a wide variety of church, community and political organisations.
The rally received coverage on ABC TV.
Photos of the event can be found here.
And below is video of the rally.
A big thank you to all the volunteers who put in enormous effort to make this day work – Sr. Briged, Liz Walsh, Sue Bolton, the speakers, the performers, the children in the cage, the volunteers who created the footy banner, plus many others not named here without whose help the rally would not have been possible.
More to come.