Melbourne, Wednesday 8 May, — Hundreds of Australians will hold rallies across the nation on
Friday to demand the release of Ranjini and her three children, as well as the other 55 ASIO rejected
refugees trapped in a legal black-hole in Australian detention centres.
From Cairns to Perth, people will gather to implore the Immigration Minister, Brendan
O’Connor, to invoke the Australian ideal of a “fair go” and use his power to release these
people into the community.
Simultaneous “Release Ranjini-Release Them All” candle-light vigils will be held in Perth,
Adelaide, Darwin, Newcastle, Brisbane, Cairns, Geelong, Ballarat, and Wonthaggi.
In Sydney, they will be held in the CBD and outside Villawood detention centre, where
Ranjini and her children are incarcerated, while in Melbourne there will be gatherings in the
CBD, Dandenong, Brunswick and Footscray.
Friday will mark one year since a pregnant Ranjini and her two little boys were hauled off
the streets by Immigration authorities in Mill Park in Melbourne’s north and bundled off to
Villawood.
Now the proud mother of a four-month old boy, Paari, which means “Lighting the world”,
Ranjini is suffering multiple psychological wounds as she attempts to cope with a baby born
in detention as well as two increasingly-disturbed sons.
According to media reports, her oldest son, now 9, has begun self-harming by plunging
sticks into his ears, potentially causing irreparable damage to his hearing. Psychologists have
said this is a direct result of his incarceration.
The Australian Government’s cruelty has not escaped international attention. Worldrenowned
author Noam Chomsky has a sent a message to the Tamil Refugee Council,
denouncing the policy of indefinite incarceration.
“The true measure of the moral level of a society is how it treats the most vulnerable
people,” Chomsky said.
“Few are as vulnerable as those who have fled to Australia in terror and are locked away
without charge, their terrible fate veiled in secrecy. We may not be able to do much, beyond
lamenting, about North Korean prisons. But we can do a great deal about severe human
rights violations right within reach.”
The “Release Ranjini- Release Them All” campaign is also designed to let Australians know
that the Gillard Government has abandoned its moral, ethical and legal responsibility to
ensure that all people in this country are treated fairly.
Even though these people have been declared refugees, and thus allowed to live in the
community, secret assessments that can never be challenged mean they are effectively
locked away for life.
Many have been held for as long as four years, most for more than three years, because of
adverse security assessments from ASIO. The end result has been countless suicide
attempts, hunger strikes and other forms of self-harm. Amid all this, the impact on the many
children held with them has been devastating, and, according to psychologists, in many
cases irreversible.
A spokesman for the Tamil Refugee Council, Trevor Grant, said the much-valued democratic
ideal of the presumption of innocence has been cast aside as the Government wrestles with
the fear of losing political capital if it releases 56 people held in Australia’s version of
Guantanamo Bay.
“The Gillard Government lives in fear of being declared soft on terrorism by Tony Abbott.
Yet there is no evidence at all to say these people have anything to do with terrorism,”
Grant said.
“They have had connections with the Tamil Tigers, like millions of Tamils who lived under
the Tamil Tigers’ government in the Tamil homeland for more than a decade. If you worked
in a bank, or swept the streets, you had a connection with the Tamil Tigers because they ran
that part of the country.
“The Tamil Tigers no longer exist. They were wiped out in a civil war fought within their own
country. They have never threatened Australia, then or now, and if ASIO thinks they were
such a threat why is it that the Tamil Tigers have never been on the proscribed list of
terrorist organisations in this country?
“As Noam Chomsky points out, these people have fled terror and persecution in Sri Lanka.
Our Government has recognised this by declaring their asylum claims legitimate and giving
them refugee status. Yet it is now terrorising them some more.
“These people deserve a fair go, if nothing else. Australian citizens are able to challenge
adverse ASIO assessments but not these people, even though they have already been
assessed as refugees, and thus, requiring our protection.
“What sort of protection is this? The sort you’d find in a police state that pays no heed to
democracy and human rights.”
For further information contact the Tamil Refugee Council: Trevor Grant (0400 597 351) or
Aran Mylvanagam (0404 431 913).
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