BY BILL MASON
BRISBANE — Two-hundred and fifty people rallied in the Queen Street mall on January 25 to support the rights of refugees protesting inside Woomera detention centre.
The rally, organised by the Brisbane Refugee Action Collective, heard speakers condemn the Howard government's racist and inhumane polices on refugees and asylum seekers.
Speakers included Democrat Senator Andrew Bartlett, Greens representative Mark Taylor, and ALP state MP Karen Struthers.
Although police and mall authorities forced the shut-down of the loud-speakers, the crowd proceeded to march through city streets to immigration department offices.
The rally was followed by a hunger strike in support of the refugees, organised by Resistance.
Stuart Munckton reports from Canberra that 100 protesters, including a number of public servants, gathered at the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs for a lunchtime protest on January 23.
"We are hear to show our solidarity with the refugees on hunger strike in the Woomera detention centre", said Phil Davey from the Refugee Action Collective. Speakers highlighted the plight of refugees in detention.
"[Immigration minister Philip] Ruddock has said that refugees sewing their lips together has 'offended the sensibilities' of ordinary Australians", Kerryn Williams, the Canberra secretary of the Democratic Socialist Party, said. "But what offends my sensibilities is that a woman was thrown into detention for overstaying her student visa and, despite asking to be sent home to Vietnam, was kept in detention for months, and after two attempts to take her own life, died on her third attempt last week."
The crowd enthusiastically endorsed the convergence for refugee rights planned for the first day parliament sits, February 12.
From Green Left Weekly, January 30, 2002.
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