Human Rights Day rally: Sat 5 Dec - Asylum is a Human Right

On the eve of Human Rights Day, tell Kevin Rudd:

ASYLUM is a HUMAN RIGHT

* Let the refugees in

* End ties with repressive regimes: Sri Lanka & Israel

* Bring the troops home from Afghanistan

RALLY AND MARCH FOR JUSTICE, DEMOCRACY & HUMAN RIGHTS

Sat 5 Dec

Gather: 12:30pm, Wesley Church (cnr Hay & William Sts)

March: through the city

Phone:

Australian Tamil Congress: 0419 942 613

Alex Bainbridge: 0413 976 638

Phil Chilton: 0417 904 329

Victoria Martin-Iverson: 0410 589 064

Asylum is a human right - let the refugees in!

In August 2001, John Howard turned back the Tampa, with 453 rescued asylum seekers on board. Declaring them 'illegal', these asylum seekers - most of whom had fled persecution in Iraq and Afghanistan - were the first casualties of Howard's 'Pacific Solution'. Hundreds more asylum seekers languished in detention centres on the Australian mainland.

Re-enacting Howard's inhumane policy, Kevin Rudd last month turned back the Australian customs ship, the Oceanic Viking, with rescued 78 Tamil asylum seekers on board. Declaring that these asylum seekers too were 'illegal', Rudd announced that their applications for asylum should be processed in Indonesia, despite the fact that Indonesia has no obligation to do so, never having signed The United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. 

 In the first half of this year, Australia accepted only 1% of all global asylum seeker applications. Since the turning back of the Tampa, in 2001, the numbers of refugees being accepted by Australia has declined as a proportion of Australia's overall migration intake.

We demand that the Rudd government allow entry to Australia by all those seeking asylum, regardless of how they arrive, and that the policy of mandatory detention of asylum seekers be ended once and for all.

End ties with repressive regimes: Israel & Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka today, some 300,000 Tamils are being kept in military-run internment camps with no access to the outside world. Killings, abductions, torture and rape are rife; but not a word of criticism has been uttered by the Australian government. In just four months this year, 20-50,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the Sri Lankan government's war against the Tamil people. Discrimination against Tamils and the 'disappearances' of journalists and human rights activists, including from among the majority Sinhalese community, are standard practice of the Sri Lankan regime.

Israel's recent bloody assault on Gaza resulted in the deaths of 1400 people. It maintains a crippling economic blockade. This is just the most recent episode in the Apartheid-like campaign of occupation and dispossession against the Palestinian people.

In place of self-interested commercial and geo-political considerations, Australia's foreign policy must be governed by a commitment to human rights and global justice. Australia must condemn the wars against the Tamils and Palestinians and end ties with the repressive regimes in Sri Lanka and Israel. Further we must support full self-determination for Sri Lanka's Tamils; and the complete withdrawal of Israel from the occupied territories and the dismantling of all anti-Palestinian discriminatory policies within Israel itself.

Bring the troops home from Afghanistan

The recent fraudulent elections in Afghanistan expose the fact that the puppet regime of Hamid Karzai supported by the US, NATO and Australia has no legitimacy or popular support. Eight years of occupation have resulted in thousands of civilian casualties, expansion of the war into Pakistan, growth of support for the Taliban and continued rule by warlords. The occupation is the cause of the problem, not part of the solution. Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama want to expand the war. Demand an end to the war. Bring the troops home.