Phil Chilton, Perth
For the second time in a month, 30 refugee-rights activists maintained a vigil outside the Perth Immigration Detention Centre on July 17. Nine people stayed overnight.
The vigil was initiated by the Refugee Rights Action Network to highlight the ongoing detention of asylum seekers in Australia. ALP MP Kim Wilkie declined an offer from RRAN to attend.
The vigil heard from RRAN member Peter Wilkie, who explained that in spite of minor administrative concessions by the government and microscopic reforms to the ALP's policy, all of the physical and legal infrastructure of Australia's asylum seeker policies is still in place. "Detention centres are the primary physical expression of these policies and this makes it very important for us to continue to confront them", he said.
Wilkie floated the idea of nationally coordinated vigils at detention centres across the country and called for another protest convergence at the Baxter detention centre in South Australia.
[Phil Chilton is a member of the Refugee Rights Action Network and the Perth branch of Socialist Alliance.]
From Green Left Weekly, July 28, 2004.
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