BY TAMARA PEARSON
SYDNEY — Around 2000 people mobilised in Town Hall Square on February 2 to demand the closure of the Australian government's appalling immigration detention centres, an end to mandatory detention of asylum seekers and their unconditional release.
Large banners with words such as "compassion" dominated the scene. Other placards declared, "Human rights not Ruddock wrongs", "Free the refugees" and "Detain Howard not asylum seekers". Speakers addressed the large crowd and condemned the inhumanity of the government's detention policy.
Roberto Jorquera, from Free the Refugees Campaign (which initiated the protest), said the "Australian government should be charged with crimes against humanity... It is important that we stand together with the refugees when they protest and make sure their voices are heard."
Sister Susan Connelly, from Mary McKillop Foundation, pointed to the lack of articles in the mainstream press that respect asylum seekers as human beings and as valuable potential citizens.
Pip Hinman, from Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (ASAP), declared that Prime Minister John Howard and immigrations minister Philip Ruddock "don't act for us" in their "racist, immoral, inhuman and illegal treatment of refugees".
A representative from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra declared that indigenous activists there are offering political asylum to refugees and, by doing this, the refugees are the only people in the past 60,000 years to have been invited to Australia by the indigenous community.
When it was time to march, a sense of determination and unity was evident in the chanting, which didn't stop when protesters arrived at immigration department office.
Participants loudly agreed with FRC's Paul Benedek, when he declared that from now on, "wherever Ruddock shows his face, we'll be there".
One of the last speakers was Hussain, a refugee who spent eight months in the Woomera detention centre. He received loud cheers of support.
On January 29, a lunchtime rally, organised by the Refugee Action Coalition and endorsed by NSW Labor Council, attracted a crowd of around 600. Amanda Tattersall from Labor for Refugees, Labor Council secretary John Robertson, Greens state MP Ian Cohen and RAC's Ian Rintoul spoke.
Around 300 people marched to the immigration department offices afterwards.
From Green Left Weekly, February 6, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.