An online event
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When: Monday 4 May, from 4:30pm Perth time
Where: Online via Zoom
You can register in advance for this event here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcld-6trjsoGNAjhoQY1RbVKOlyHG_VqHfW.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Organised by RAC Victoria and supported by RRAN WA, Refugee Action Coalition Sydney and Refugee Action Collective Queensland, we invite our supporters to join this Zoom meeting.
Speakers will include:
- Moz from Manus – refugee and freedom fighter detained at the Mantra in Preston
- Julian Burnside QC – Liberty Victoria spokesperson
- Craig Foster – commentator, advocate and former Socceroos captain
- Chris Breen – RAC activist facing ‘incitement’ charge
RAC member Chris Breen has been charged with “incitement” under the 1958 crimes act for helping to organise a safe car convoy protest calling to free refugees because of the risk of COVID-19. The activists who were threatened with fines have received them in the mail.
The charge of incitement sets a worrying precedent for unions, climate activists and all social movements. Even after the health laws are long gone, if Chris is convicted the same law could be used against unions for organising picket lines or industrial action if deemed not to be legal.
The refugees in the Mantra, in the Broadmeadows detention Centre, and in detention centres across Australia have been escalating their protests inside the camps, demanding freedom, and the right to protect themsleves from coronavirus.
Resources for the defence campaign can be found here:
https://rac-vic.org/defend-the-right-to-protest-free-the-refugees/
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When: Monday, February 17, 2020 at 6 PM – 8 PM
Where: Citiplace Community Centre, 378 Wellington St, Perth, Western Australia 6000
17 February marks 6 years since Reza Barati was brutally murdered while detained by the Australian government on Manus Island, PNG. At the time, then Immigration Minister and now Prime Minister, Scott Morrison attempted to blame Reza Barati for his own death. Since Reza was murdered, 11 other men have died on Manus and Nauru under Australia’s lethal “offshore processing regime”. Each death is a result of systemic violence that continues to this day.
To mark this anniversary we invite you to join us for an important film and discussion. We will screen Lukas Schrank’s 2015 short film ‘Nowhere Line: voices from Manus Island’, which recounts the night that Reza Barati was killed and discuss how we can hold Scott Morrison to account, dismantle Australia’s abusive border policies and secure justice for refugees.
We acknowledge that this gathering will take place on the unceded land of the Whadjuk Noongar people.
When – 6-7 and 13 November, 10am
Where – Central Law Courts (501 Hay Street, Perth)
RRAN will gather outside the Central Law Courts on 6 November from 9:15am to speak on why we believe the system of mandatory detention must end to prevent future deaths. We call for justice for Nasim’s friends and family and hope that after waiting more than 3 years since his death they finally get the answers they’re looking for. This is the third inquest in Perth this year of someone who died in a WA detention centre. The other two men were Fazel Chegeni Nejad and Ali Jaffari, both of whom also died in 2015.
We invite you to join us.
Following the speakout we’ll head upstairs to Court 51 to sit in on the inquest hearing.
(The inquest hearing will run from 10am on 6, 7 and 13 November)
REFUGEE RIGHTS ACTION NETWORK MEDIA RELEASE
The Coronial Inquest into the death in custody of Fazel Chegeni Nejad, a Faili Kurd who was detained on Christmas Island at the time of his death, is scheduled to be heard from 30 July – 10 August 2018.
Refugee Rights Action Network WA have called for people to gather outside the Coroner’s Court on the opening day bearing paper cranes. Fazel used to spend countless hours folding paper cranes for the happiness of others, which his visitors would then take to people in hospital, aged and hospice care on his behalf. Following Fazel’s death, people in detention and in the community folded paper cranes to honour his memory.
Fazel Chegeni had been held in immigration detention for over 4 years at the time of his death. He was found to be owed protection in early 2012 but remained in detention after being charged for a minor incident while he was detained at Curtin IDC in 2011. As someone who could not be refouled to Iran, the punitively applied ‘character test’ meant that he was denied a visa and effectively sentenced to indefinite detention. His medical files document the deterioration of his mental health and decreasing ability to cope in the detention environment. There are people currently detained by the Department of Home Affairs whose circumstances are not dissimilar to Fazel’s, this includes an Iranian man who is currently detained at the Yongah Hill Immigration Detention Centre who has commenced a hunger strike after entering his 6th year in detention.
In December 2015 it was reported that Fazel’s body was found in bushland outside of the Christmas Island Detention Centre. This Inquest will examine the manner and cause of Fazel’s death.
Michelle Bui from RRAN WA stated, ‘In many cases, Coronial Inquests of people who have died in custody or while subject to Australia’s punitive immigration policies result in no recommendations or if recommendations are made, they are not implemented. Fazel was not the first nor last person to die under the system of mandatory detention. We hope the Coroner will carefully examine the systemic issues involved in his case and the context in which Fazel found himself in detention for such a prolonged period. We believe the best way to prevent deaths in custody is to end mandatory detention.’
Fazel’s death was a predictable outcome of policies and systems that devalue and dispose of human lives. People gathering to bear witness to the court proceedings call for Justice for Fazel which necessitates an end to mandatory detention and the suite of punitive policies that target refugees, people seeking asylum and increasingly people who do not hold Citizenship, some of whom have lived in Australia for much of their lives.
She continues, ‘The inquest findings into the death of Hamid Khazaei who had been detained by the Australian government on Manus Island are due to be handed down as Fazel Chegeni’s inquest begins. Earlier this month the inquest into the death in custody of Dunghutti man David Dungay Jr who died in Long Bay jail – just weeks after Fazel – began and has already revealed accounts of brutal treatment at the hands of prison officers. We believe the pattern of deaths in police and prison custody as well as in immigration detention signals that there are serious systemic issues across these institutions that must be addressed.’
When: Monday 30 July from 8:15am
Where: Perth Coroner’s Court at Central Law Courts (501 Hay Street, Perth)
Contact: Michelle Bui, at court (0412 860 168), Sally Thompson, off-site (0409 720 804)
Click ‘going’ on the Facebook Event here
On the 19th of July 2013, then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that all people seeking asylum who arrived in Australia by boat would not be resettled here. Five years on, and hundreds of people who sought Australia’s protection remain exiled in limbo on Nauru and Manus Island in PNG.
The policy was enacted arbitrarily and about a third of people who arrived by boat after this date were never sent offshore. Boat-mates were divided between Christmas Island, Manus Island and Nauru. Most people who remained on Christmas Island were eventually released into the community on a bridging visa and invited to apply for a TPV or SHEV. Some people from this group, however are still in detention on Christmas Island and elsewhere or living in limbo in the community.
This July marks 5 years too many. It marks 5 years in limbo, 5 years of abuse and 5 years without safety, particularly for those who are still in PNG and Nauru without any clear pathway to protection.
We call on the Coalition Government and the Labor party to immediately evacuate people offshore to Australia while permanent resettlement options are finalised and facilitated.
We call on the Coalition Government and the Labor party to immediately evacuate people to Australia while permanent resettlement options are finalised and facilitated.
Since 2014, the Australian government have killed 12 people by the policy of off-shoring refugees.
We echo calls of people held on these remote islands to #BringThemHere or #LetThemGo.
“Recording the moment is a photographer’s job. Here in Manus, we need some beautiful, transient distractions to help us tolerate continuous tortures…Those pictures are beautiful landscapes for you, but for me, they are just different corners of my prison.”
Photo prints from the ‘Beautifully Suffered’ exhibition launched last night in Perth are now available to order online here. Please jump on and order a print or two to support the artist, who is still in exile on Manus Island. You can hear Kaaveh speak at the opening here. Article published in the Perth Voice below:
Thanks to everyone who made it to the Perth premiere screening of ‘Chauka Please Tell Us the Time’ this week. We had a great turnout with an almost full house! We appreciate your support and are glad that so many people got to see this very important film. A special thanks to the co-director Behrouz Boochani for joining us live from Manus Island for discussion, following the film.
Unfortunately there won’t be any further cinema screenings in Perth however the film is now available online to rent on Vimeo!
See link here.
WHEN: 20 June (Wednesday) from 7pm
WHERE: City Arts Space (Corner of James St/Lake St, Northbridge)
An artist / photographer from Iran has been suffering island imprisonment in Manus since 2013. “Kaaveh Maleknia” hasn’t lost his skills but something has changed in him forever. Visit his first photo exhibition of Manus Island’s landscapes and hear him speak about his work, while he is still locked up.
Photo prints will be available to purchase/order. Funds raised will be sent back to support “Kaaveh” while he remains in limbo on the island.
We acknowledge that this exhibition will take place on the land of the Whadjuk Nyoongar people and pay our respects to Elders past, present and future. Sovereignty was never ceded. This always was and always will be Aboriginal land.
RRAN Meetings
RRAN WA is currently meeting on Mondays from 6.30pm at the Activist Centre, U15/5 Aberdeen Street, Perth (just north of the McIver Train Station). For more details, send us a message via our Contact RRAN WA page, or call/text us on 0412 860 168. Fremantle RRAN meets at 6pm on the first and third Wednesday of each month. Contact Fremantle RRAN