Sarah Stephen, Sydney
Up to 1000 asylum seekers remain behind bars in Australia's immigration detention centres, including 168 children. The majority are from war-torn countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq - places the Australian government advises its citizens not to visit. Yet the government is more than happy to deport so-called "failed" asylum seekers back to these countries, without concern for the consequences or monitoring of their safety on return. More than four people are known to have been killed after the Australian government deported them to unsafe countries.
Since the Tampa-influenced federal election in 2001, disgust at the Coalition government's inhumane treatment of refugees has grown. This has been reflected in opinion polls and a series of large protests, and in the increasing number of people supporting refugee organisations, visiting detention centres, writing to asylum seekers and working with refugees.
Socialist Alliance branches in Sydney are aiming to draw on this sustained support by launching a refugee sanctuary campaign to close the detention centres. A range of suburbs and electorates will "adopt" a detention centre, and lists will be gathered of local residents who are prepared to provide detainees with temporary emergency accommodation in their home. When sufficient names have been gathered to house all detainees from a particular detention centre, this community pledge will be taken to local, state and federal governments along with a demand that the detention centre be closed immediately. Offering to house asylum seekers will undercut the lie that they cannot live in the community pending their assessment.
The campaign will also demand that the $57 million ($160 per person, per day) currently spent on detaining 1000 asylum seekers be reallocated to fund English-language classes, trauma counselling, employment, permanent housing and resettlement assistance.
The Sydney west and Canterbury-Bankstown Socialist Alliance branches are gathering names of people prepared to accommodate the 467 people detained in Villawood detention centre.
Raul Bassi is the Socialist Alliance's candidate for the federal seat of Blaxland, which includes the suburb of Villawood. He told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly: "Our community doesn't want or need a detention centre in our midst. The sanctuary campaign is an excellent way of publicly demonstrating that."
Lisa Macdonald, the Socialist Alliance candidate for Reid, pointed out the flawed logic of the government's argument that asylum seekers need to be detained to stop them from disappearing into the community.
"In the past three years, more than 15,000 visitors to Australia claimed asylum. Only one in 10 were granted refugee status, but you don't see the government running a scare campaign about them. That's because there is no problem of asylum seekers disappearing.
"This demonstrates really clearly that mandatory detention is used by the government primarily as a political tool to punish and demonise asylum seekers who arrive by boat. Through the sanctuary campaign, the Socialist Alliance wants to demonstrate that the community categorically rejects that scapegoating."
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, June 9, 2004.
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