Direct Action Public Forum
NO RACISM! NO WAR!
Speakers:
Sam Watson – Aboriginal activist, community leader, novelist, playwright and filmmaker
Van Rudd – artist, cultural activist and member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party
Brian Senewiratne – long-time campaigner for the rights of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka
Hamish Chitts – Stand Fast, anti-war veterans group
Thursday March 4, 7pm (cheap meal available from 6:30pm)
Direct Action Centre: 8 Gillingham St, Woolloongabba
Phone: 3391 1903, 0400 720 757
Email: brisbane
The tide of racism and nationalism is growing everyday in Australia. Under Kevin Rudd’s racist Government, Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory are forced to queue in separate lines at supermarkets under laws that only apply to them. They are being forced from communities on traditional land into Aboriginal ghettos on the fringes of larger towns. While claiming to help Aboriginal people and improve living conditions the Government has not been able to build a single house in over two years of these measures and in many places caused greater household overcrowding.
People from India living in Melbourne are now 2.5 times more likely to be bashed than anyone else, yet the police continue to deny the racist character of the crimes.
Our politicians imprison thousands of refugees on Christmas Island and in Indonesia. These people are not ‘queue jumpers’: under international agreements people fleeing for their lives have a right to seek asylum in another country. The Government relies on racism to deny shelter to those in need. Racism is used by the media and Government to deflect attention from the reasons people are seeking asylum. Australia supports the genocidal attacks on Tamils by the Sri Lankan Government and directly participates in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan = wars which are creating refugees as people are displaced from their homelands.
Working people here actually have more in common with working people in Afghanistan than we do with the tiny minority of obscenely rich that run this country.This meeting will provide a forum to discuss this situation and the struggle to build campaigns against racism and against narrow minded ideas about what divides cultures, nations and embrace diversity and our common plight.
On the eve of the Indonesian President’s visit to Australia, one of his senior advisers is calling on the Rudd Government not to wash its hands of the asylum seeker stand-off in the port of Merak.
More than 240 Sri Lankans have been refusing to disembark their vessel for four and a half months.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has personally asked Susillo Bambang Yudhoyono for Indonesia to intercept the boat.
But President Yudhoyono’s spokesman Dino Jalal, concedes people smuggling is not as big a concern for the Indonesian Government, as it is for Australia.
President Yudhoyono will visit Sydney and Canberra in mid-March, and will address both houses of parliament.
See See Indonesia wants asylum seeker calm
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Pamela Curr
Campaign Coordinator
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
12 Batman st West Melbourne 3003
ph 03 9326 6066 / 0417517075
As we read in the papers today of undisclosed millions to be spent on more security assessment tools, it is worth questionning whether the money might not be better spent in other areas – Mental health care for our young as just one example.
Who remembers the money spent on useless armed guards on planes- a scheme since dropped but heartily embraced by politicians at the time?
In 2000-02 the Director-General revealed that, out of the 5986 security checks that ASIO had performed on boat people, no individuals had been assessed as a security risk.
In 2004–05 ASIO visa security assessments found two unauthorised arrivals from a total of 4223 assessments had an adverse assessment. This represents approximately 0.05 per cent of the total number of assessments for unauthorised arrivals.
In 2007-08 ASIO visa security assessments found that two applicants (or 0.00003 per cent) were assessed to pose a direct or indirect risk to security and received adverse assessments.
Only two adverse assessments against immigration detainees have come to public attention in recent years. In August 2005, two unauthorised arrivals, Mohammed Sagar and Muhammad Faisal, both Iraqi nationals detained on Nauru for some years, received adverse security assessments. They were given no reason for these assessments.
Mr Faisal’s case was later reviewed by ASIO. The adverse assessment was removed and he was granted a permanent visa in 2007.
Mr Sagar was resettled by UNHCR in Sweden.
—
Pamela Curr
Campaign Coordinator
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
12 Batman st West Melbourne 3003
ph 03 9326 6066 / 0417517075