Sarah Stephen
SYDNEY — On April 10, 250 people rallied in support of refugees in Bradfield Park, Kirribilli. Organised by the Refugee Action Coalition, the protest marked the third year that refugee-rights supporters have converged over the Easter weekend calling for an end to the politics of fear, with a focus on the treatment of refugees.
Fifty people travelled from Melbourne to be part of the lively demonstration, and others came from Adelaide and Canberra.
Before the protest began, police set up a temporary operational headquarters with mobile fencing, three generators, massive floodlights, two marquees and five portaloos.
The state government deployed close to 200 crowd-control officers, water and mounted police, the dog squad and helicopters. There were three police paddy wagons, six caged vans, a police truck, three police buses, a rescue van, nine police cars, a fire truck and an ambulance on the scene.
Protest organiser Ian Rintoul told the April 11 Melbourne Age that this was designed to "make residents here and the general public think there is some reason to be afraid of us when all we are doing here today is exercising our right to free speech in a peaceful fashion".
The ridiculous deployment of police gives a lot more weight to those who have been warning that increased police powers will be used much more widely than for their stated aim of pursuing terrorists.
The Eureka and the Duyfken, two of the boats taking part in the Flotillas of Hope, which will travel to Nauru for World Refugee Day, joined the protest from the water, in view of Prime Minister John Howard's Sydney residence, Kirribilli House. They carried large banners reading "Refugees are us" and "End mandatory detention".
Some protesters held an overnight vigil in the street outside Kirribilli House, singing songs and chalking slogans on the ground.
On April 11, 100 people rallied again in Bradfield Park, this time bringing together those opposed to the Iraq war, supporters of Aboriginal rights and education activists, as well as refugee-rights supporters. They again marched to Kirribilli House.
From Green Left Weekly, April 21, 2004.
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