News from Woomera, Tuesday, 9 July.
PHONES STILL OFF
The mobile phones, through which the public and the media can contact
detainees inside of the Woomera Detention Centre are still turned
off. They were turned on briefly on the fourth of July, but were
taken away from the detainees the next day, supposedly because DIMIA
feared a national security threat. The paranoia came because some
students travelled through Port Augusta, South Australia (170km south
of Woomera) on their way to a Students for Sustainability conference
in Perth. Although the authorities have known since the students
left Port Augusta for Perth that same day, that they represented no
threat to Woomera or to the national security, the phones have
remained turned off.
Selected members of the media who agree to write what the Government
wants them to write, and to ask only the questions that the
Government wants asked, are being allowed limited access to the
detainees, as they enter the 16th day of their hunger strike to the
death. The hunger strikers are at the stage now, where permanent
physical damage could result. Earlier this year, they staged a
15-day hunger strike, and some detainees were in hospital for weeks
and months afterwards as a conseuence.
HUNGER-STRIKERS FACE ARREST
The Australian High Commissioner in London ordered that
hunger-strikers outside Australia House in London be arrested if they
refused to move away from Australia House, on the grounds that their
presence took away from the "decorum" of Australia House.
The Hunger Strikers have moved a short distance away, despite the
fact that they had earlier received permission to stage their protest
outside the embassy.
However, they have announced that they will move back to the spot
immediately in front of Parliament House, and court arrest at 11:30am
Tuesday morning, London time. Some of them are prepared to go to
jail to highlight the inhumanity of the present Australian Government.
This action by the Australian High Commissioner is just one more
evidence of the brutal attitude that our Government is taking toward
the democratic right to protest against their cruel and inhumane
policy toward asylum seekers. This war against refugees is gradually
turning into a war against Australia's own citizens. The cries of
"shoot the refugees" being heard from Hansonite supporters of John
Howard all over Australia, are now turning to "shoot the protesters".
We call upon our Government to show compassion and common decency in
its treatment of asylum seekers and those who support asylum seekers.
SUPPORT SPREADS WORLDWIDE
Reports of hunger strikes in other countries continue to come in,
including strikes in Mexico, Israel, India, the U.S., and in London.
While the National Day of Fasting has come and gone, many centres
around Australia continue to have rolling fasts. People in Newcastle
are being issued with black armbands, to be worn in solidarity with
the starving hunger strikers at Woomera Detention Centre, in support
of their fast, which has entered the 16th day today.
In Kyogle, New South Wales, one woman has taken a vow of silence for
twenty-four hours, as a symbol of solidarity with the detainees who
have been silenced by the Government's efforts to isolate them
through incarcertation in the most remote areas possible, denial of
visits, phone calls, media access, and through interference with
their mail.
We cannot stress strongly enough the obvious lack of credibility any
government must have when it must cut off all links of communication
which may provide information to contradict its own lies. Until the
links of communication are opened, we can only believe the worst
about anything that Phillip Ruddock and John Howard choose to say
about their policy on asylum seekers. The bottom line in all that
they say is that they are totally unaccountable... to the courts, to
the media, to the U.N., to the general public, to the lawyers acting
on behalf of the detainees, and most of all to the asylum seekers
themselves. Liars invariably hide the truth. Truth and secrecy are
contradictions.
CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL SANCTIONS
The Refugee Embassy and other refugee advocate groups in Australia
are now calling on the governments of the world to impose sanctions
on Australia, in the same way that they did with South Africa, in a
bid to end apartheid. The psychological torture that our governement
has systematically imposed on the prisoners in their concentration
camps has resulted in an epidemic of mental illness and suicide
attempts within those camps. Children as young as nien years old
have tried to commit suicide. The present strike to the death is the
final effort by extremely brave but extremely desperate people to
make themselves heard before they die.
It is time that the world and the Government of Australia stood up
and listened to the pleas of oppressed and totally innocent
civilians.
BAXTER OPENING
The Refugee Embassy bus will be travelling to Baxter today, to be
present at the "grand opening" of yet another prison for innocent
people in Australia. It is hoped that the bus will be able to then
travel on to Adelaide, where it will stand in support of a hunger
strike in front of Parliament House there, which has been going for a
full week.
Ross Parry, at the Embassy bus can be contacted on 0407-238805
Dave McKay can be contacted on 0422-142-702 or on (02) 4954-2590.
Dave McKay and Ross Parry
Refugee Embassy
--
for the moment, mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] will be automatically
forwarded to [EMAIL PROTECTED], so you may reply to either
address and it will reach me.
--
Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/
Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop
Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink
Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
