Armidale Rural Australians for Refugees (ARAR) held a vigil outside the old Court House on Tuesday.
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Four members – Bar Finch, Patsy Asch, Jeff Siegel, and Bea Bleile – joined 800 protesters at a rally outside Parliament House, Canberra.
They are calling on Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten to free 102 children held for five years on Nauru by Universal Children’s Day, November 20.
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“We really want to get the kids off Nauru,” ARAR member Jan Wyles said.
“These people have innocently got caught up in this government policy, and their lives are being radically distorted and destroyed.”
World opinion has denounced the detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island as violations of human rights; and the United Nations has declared vast numbers to be genuine refugees.
This very week, the UN working group on arbitrary detention called on the government to review its migration act, saying it had violated the universal declaration of human rights and the international covenant on civil and political rights.
About 1700 people, however, are still there, even after Manus Island officially closed.
Children have tried to starve themselves, while a dozen detainees have died.
Many have mental health problems.
Families have been split for years; some fathers have never seen their children.
This costs the Australian taxpayer $2 billion a year. The government spends more than $500,000 a year to detain a single person offshore.
“This is not the Australia I want to be part of," Ms Wyles said. “That humanitarian situation is unacceptable to us.”
With the Wentworth byelection coming up, Rural Australians against Refugees felt now was a good time to hold the rally in Canberra, and show the politicians that ordinary Australians were against the policy.
"They've been unbudgeable,” Ms Wyles said. “They're missing the feeling in the electorates, in the communities that we find it unacceptable in our names.”
ARAR members delivered a letter to New England member Barnaby Joyce, and held a rally outside his Tamworth electoral office.
“We're saying, this is really something significant in your electorate,” ARAR’s Elizabeth O’Hara said. “People across ages, socioeconomic groups, and political parties all feel that you cannot lock children up. That is never, ever the answer.”
Around 30 people attended the vigil outside the Old Court House, – some of them passers-by.
“One of the really exciting things,” Ms O’Hara said, “has been how people just walking past have asked us what we're doing, and then they've been so supportive, and stopped and joined us.”
They walked through the Mall to the Central Shopping Centre and back.
“The expressions of support were overwhelming!” Ms O’Hara said.
6000 doctors also delivered a letter to the prime minister, demanding children be immediately evacuated.
“All the medical people are appalled by what’s happening – destroying people slowly, bit by bit,” Armidale GP Dr Astrid Knirsch said. “It's inhuman, and all for some selfish political gameplaying.”
Liberal MPs Russell Broadbent, Craig Laundy, and Julia Banks have called on Mr Morrison to evacuate children and their families from the island.
“It really is a turning point,” Ms O’Hara said. “The announcement that three Liberal MPs were completely dissatisfied with the situation has just given the whole movement the impetus that perhaps things can change, and we can start rolling back this appalling situation.”
Mr Morrison’s reaction? Asylum seekers might be able to go to New Zealand – but never enter Australia.
When this bill was first raised in 2016, Liberal and Labor senators said it breached the United Nations’ refugee protocol and child rights protections, and unfairly discriminated against people of particular nationalities.
What can you do?
ARAR members urge readers to:
Go online and register your opposition to government policy at the Kids off Nauru website.
Join ARAR, which organises letter-writing sessions and other activities. The group meets on the third Wednesday of every month at 5.15pm in the Garden Room at Kent House, 141 Faulkner St.
Write to politicians, both federal and local, and let people know in every way you can.
Write letters to newspapers.
Find out more information on the Department of Home Affairs’ website (formerly the Department of Immigration), or borrow books about refugees’ plight from the library.
“Let your voice be heard, and support those people who are taking a stand!” Ms Wyles said.