SYDNEY — Thirty supporters rallied outside the Downing Centre Local Court on April 12 to demand that charges be dropped against refugee activists John Morris and Sunil Menon, accused of making false statements to enable escaped refugees to make applications for passports to allow them to leave Australia to seek protection in other countries.
Addressing the rally were Greens NSW MP Sylvia Hale, retired ABC radio journalist John Highfield and Refugee Action Coalition member Anthea Vogl.
"The detention of Cornelia Rau has revealed something of the abuse asylum seekers face in detention", said Vogl. "We do not believe that helping asylum seekers flee persecution in Australia and gain protection in another country is a crime."
Vogl pointed out that the September 4 report from the Edmund Rice Centre, Deported to Danger, documents two cases of asylum seekers deported from Australia who subsequently escaped and were granted refugee status in other First World countries, Britain and Canada.
"The Edmund Rice Centre has also documented the use of false documents by the immigration department to deport so-called failed asylum seekers, but there has been no federal police investigation of this", Vogt said.
Morris and Menon entered pleas of not guilty, and the case was adjourned to May 10.
Sarah Stephen
From Green Left Weekly, April 20, 2005.
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