About 200 people packed the largest room at the Griffin community centre
tonight to welcome refugees to Canberra.
The meeting was initiated by the Refugee Action Committee when we heard
that about 50 mainly Iraqi and Afghani refugees were being sent to our
city. We had been appalled when we read of refugees being dumped in a
Melbourne backpackers with $50 and a map of the CBD and wanted to make sure
refugees were made to feel welcome in our city.
The meeting got absolutely no publicity from the media; and none of them
bothered to turn out to cover it. Yet the attendance makes it one of the
largest political gatherings of Canberra residents held in the city in any
year.
The size of the meeting also showed that people had not been deterred by
the coverage of the uprising at the Woomera concentration camp.
People bought cards and small gifts as tokens of welcome to the refugees.
One church congregation raised about $150 and used the money on phonecards.
About a dozen refugees came to the meeting, and proceedings were translated
for them.
Speakers included Marion Le, a long time activist for refugee rights and
now with the Independent Council for Refugee Advocacy; Jeremy Pyner,
Secretary of the ACT Trades and Labour Council; Rob Craigie from the
Aboriginal Tent Embassy, who read a message from Isabell Coe; Radwa Hadid,
a volunteer working with Iraqi refugees; and Tanya McConvell from RAC.
Rob Craigie talked about how Aborigines had been made refugees in their own
country, and welcomed the new refugees to Australia on behalf of indigenous
people, offering them "safe haven" here.
The audience heard harrowing stories of the impact of detention on the
lives of refugees. Radwa Hadid pointed to the role of American bombing in
creating large numbers of Iraqi refugees that are now being treated as
"illegal". Tanya McConvell talked of the way the Department of Immigration
"screens out" refugees. If they fail to use the right words at their first
interview, a so-called "security interview", saying they have a well
founded fear of persecution on this or some other grounds, and if they fail
to spontaneously ask for refugee status, they are "screened out". They
don't even get a form claiming refugee status to fill in. No-one tells them
what they need to say to get to the next step. We can see in this technique
the way so many asylum seekers from Iraq and Afghanistan find themselves
told they are going to be deported. No wonder their response has been mass
protest within the detention camps.
Speakers from the floor made the link between attacks by the Liberal
government on refugees, single parents and Aboriginal people.
Ifti Haider from the Al-Haadi Welfare Association told the meeting that the
refugees' greatest needs are jobs and a room to live in. After the
detention centre, it is destructive for them to be idle, he said. Anyone
who can offer assistance should just contact me.
The meeting launched a new petition demanding an end to mandatory
detention. Anyone wanting copies of the petition can email me,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] and I'll send you a copy by post or electronically.
PHIL GRIFFITHS
--
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