MEDIA RELEASE REFUGEE COVERGENCE ON CANBERRA
Rally on Parliament House lawns, 12.30pm Monday 8 September Speakers include: Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett; The Greens; Carmen Lawrence; Peter Malone, secretary ACT Labor Council; Anne Coombs, Rural Australians for Refugees; Pat Power, Auxilliary Bishop Canberra and Goulburn; Diana Abdulrahman representing ACT Muslim community; Refugee Action Committee, Canberra Hundreds of refugees on temporary protection visas will converge on Parliament House, Canberra, Monday 8 September. A convoy of cars carrying mostly Iraqi refugees will depart from Campbelltown, Sydney at 7.00am.The Sydney convoy will be joined by Afghan refugees. They will be joined in Canberra by Iraqis TPV holders travelling from Melbourne. "The uncertainty has become too much," said Ian Rintoul, a spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition. "Thousands of TPV's have expired, but there is no indication of the government processing Iraqi applications for further protection. Those Afghan applications that have been processed have all been rejected." The central concerns of the rally are permanent protection, the right for family re-union, the right to travel, and the right to study. An appeal from the Iraqi TPV holders will be read to the rally and handed to Parliamentarians. "Most of us have been in Australia for more than three years without any capability to travel or to be re-united with our families or to apply for other visas," the appeal says in part. "Our questions have long been left without any response… Please do not keep us in trauma," it continues. The rally comes at the beginning of the parliamentary sitting in which Immigration minister Philip Ruddock is to introduce new regulations to entrench the temporary visa regime. If accepted, the new regulations would also widen the minister's discretionary powers to grant refugee visas. This use of ministerial discretion is already the subject of a Senate inquiry over the cash for visa scandal. The refugee movement is calling for the new regulations to be disallowed in the Senate. "The situation with the Iraqi and Afghans shows why we do not the temporary visa regime to be extended," said Ian Rintoul. "Under the present system Iraqis could be left on temporary visas indefinitely. There is no way that Iraq is safe or stable, yet the refugees are denied permanent residency. The Iraqis are being used as pawns in the government's political game of border protection," he said. For more info contact: Refugee Action Coalition Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713 or Iraqi representatives Mueen 0412 209 997 or Kamal 0422 334 893 -- -- 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 Sub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]