JUSTICE FOR REFUGEES RALLY : PERMANENT VISAS FOR ALL, END OFFSHORE DETENTION

Hundreds of refugees and supporters are expected to converge at Sydney Town Hall, 2pm , Sunday 24 July. (Details below.)

The rally is part of national protests to mark the ninth anniversary of 19 July 2013, when Kevin Rudd declared Pacific Solution II and  that asylum seekers who arrived by boat would be sent to Manus Island and Nauru and never allowed to settle permanently in Australia.

19 July set the stage for the Coalition’s Operation Sovereign Borders and was the beginning of nine long years of abuse and demonisation of refugees and people seeking asylum.

The end of the Morrison government has left over 19,000 refugees on Temporary Protection Visas and SHEVs; people who worked during the pandemic are separated from their families, denied the right to travel, and their children denied tertiary education.  Labor has promised they will all be granted permanent visas – but they are still waiting to hear when and how that is going to happen.

Thousands of others are on bridging visas that have to be renewed every six months. Afghanistan is firmly in the grip of the Taliban and crisis has paralysed Sri Lanka. Thousands of people from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan who can never return to their countries are victims of the fast-track processing system that has rejected their protection claims.

Thanus, a Tamil refugee brought  to Australia from PNG under the Medevac laws, said “…July 19 policy has destroyed our lives & continues to make us suffer… this Government could change one or two words in this visa, just to let us study, to travel, but there has been no change.

“We can look after ourselves; we just need permanent resettlement…A permanent visa, that is it, that is all.”

“When he was elected Anthony Albanese declared that ‘no-one would be left behind’. But refugees and asylum seekers are being left behind,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, “Some of the punitive conditions imposed by the Morrison government could be changed with a flick of the Minister’s wrist.

“The people left behind in Nauru and PNG could be brought to Australia immediately. More than 500 of the people who were exiled offshore will not have a permanent future unless Labor grants them a permanent future.”

Abdullah, a Bangladeshi refugee on a TPV, said, “We are very tired. After nine years, we have waited enough.”