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Posts tagged melbourne

May 8

May 7
could you at least be a bit less chipper about your enmeshment in the process of gentrification
that’s seriously all I ask

could you at least be a bit less chipper about your enmeshment in the process of gentrification

that’s seriously all I ask


Apr 26

courtneylovedcobain:

misandrwitch:

Hands up if large groups of aggressively loud white boys in your vicinity freak you out

Large groups of any men freak me out

idk what courtneylovedcobain’s race is but I feel like the “white” here is important actually

where I live and in a lot of other places, men of colour are routinely harassed by police under the grounds of “public safety”, young black men especially, especially when in groups

for super double irony, there’s a known predator in my area targeting young black men, attempting to murder them, who is suspected of responsibility for at least one death — this was brought up with the local police, who did nothing

so groups of young black men are not only not necessarily a threat, they might be in groups for their safety

in any case

it’s super racist to stereotype all men as dangerous to all women in all circumstances, given that fears for the safety of [white] women have so often been used as a justification for racist harassment and murder

(via wildbayou)


Apr 22

the Victorian state government has banned political meetings or doorknocking on all public housing estates in an apparent form of revenge for public housing tenants successfully organising against a sell-off of their open space to developers

I’ve been struggling for a while now to comment on this but something about it is so perfectly evil that it fries my higher cognitive capacities. 

there’s an action group “HOME — Hands Off Melbourne’s Estates” who are a bit less immobilised by shock, if you’re interested. 


Apr 15

ACTION: Tuesday 16 April @ 11am

RELEASE THE ASIO POLITICAL PRISONERS

The Minister for Immigration can release these people.

Meet at Brendan O’Connor’s electoral office:
13-15 Lake Street, Caroline Springs

27 refugees, all indefinitely detained because of ‘adverse’ ASIO assessments are on the 8th day of a hunger strike at the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (MITA) in Broadmeadows. 56 refugees plus children detained with their parents, have been given refugee status but are imprisoned indefinitely on the basis of ‘adverse’ ASIO assessments.

A new review process is expected to take months and leave ASIO and the Immigration Minister with the final say. New statements of reasons given to refugees by ASIO are a joke, they are a few lines long, and provide no evidence for ASIO ‘beliefs’, or any reason why these refugees would be a threat if released. The refugees have already been held for periods of up to 4 years, and do not know whether they are ever going to be released. They are desperate for a resolution “Four years is more than enough, let us be free. Death is better than live hopelessness” reads one of their banners “We are very very innocent” reads another.

“There is no legislation that says refugees with ‘adverse’ ASIO assessments must be detained, this is a decision of the Immigration Minister Brendan O’Connor, who has the power to release all these refugees today” said Sue Bolton for the Refugee Advocacy Network

“The Refugee Advocacy Network calls for the immediate release of all refugees with ‘negative’ ASIO assessments.”

For more information ring Sue Bolton on  0413 377 978 or Pamela Curr 0417 175 075 


Apr 12

All 27 of the strikers in detention at Broadmeadows have been assessed as genuine refugees. That means that the Immigration Department acknowledges that they faced persecution in Sri Lanka. But they can’t be allowed into the community because they have received adverse assessments from ASIO.

What do these assessments say? The refugees don’t know. They are not permitted to see the accusations against them, nor can they appeal. Though they have been charged with no crime, they now face detention without end.

“Australia’s Guantanamo isn’t offshore: it’s in Melbourne”, Jeff Sparrow


Apr 8
RISE says:
Refugees at the MITA detention centre are declaring a hunger strike. Please read below message…  MESSAGE FROM THE ASIO REJECTED REFUGEES: We are 30 people here at Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (25 Tamils, 2 Burmese and 2 Iranian) and 56 people all over the Australian detention. We have been here for four years and more. We cannot tolerate it any longer. We need to be released to save our lives. At 2 a.m. today (Monday, April 8, 2013) we began a hunger strike together. All 30 of us plan to keep doing this until there is solution, one way or the other. We will gather together in the grounds of the detention centre and stay there until we get a solution. If the Australian Government does not release us, we ask that they kill us mercifully. We have painted banners as part of our protest. There is one that shows many people hanging. That is what we want to happen to us if we are not released. for life here. People in here are jumping off rooves, they are going on hunger strikes, they are taking tablets, they are trying to hang themselves……It is a cruel and inhumane environment for everyone. We plead with you, the Australian people, to help us. We are on the edge of life and don’t know how much longer we can stand it. We ask Prime Minister Gillard, Immigration Minister O’Connor, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus Opposition leader Abbott and ASIO director David Irvine to stop this torture of all of us……. of men, women and children, who have done nothing to warrant this cruel treatment that is destroying our minds. We ask the authorities : You say we are a threat to this nation. So if we are such people why have they now put women and children and families in here with us? We are willing to be released into the community under strict orders if they think we are threats, which we aren’t. But whatever they want we will do. But we can’t keep living like this. We are not in detention. We are in a cemetery. We don’t want to die. We left Sri Lanka, Burmese and Iran because we fear to die. We came to Australia to live, not die. But death would be better than the life we have. SIGNED. ALL ASIO REFUGEES-AUSTRALIA.

RISE says:

Refugees at the MITA detention centre are declaring a hunger strike. Please read below message…

MESSAGE FROM THE ASIO REJECTED REFUGEES:

We are 30 people here at Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (25 Tamils, 2 Burmese and 2 Iranian) and 56 people all over the Australian detention. We have been here for four years and more. We cannot tolerate it any longer. We need to be released to save our
lives.

At 2 a.m. today (Monday, April 8, 2013) we began a hunger strike together. All 30 of us plan to keep doing this until there is solution, one way or the other.

We will gather together in the grounds of the detention centre and stay there until we get a solution. If the Australian Government does not release us, we ask that they kill us mercifully.

We have painted banners as part of our protest. There is one that shows many people hanging. That is what we want to happen to us if we are not released. for life here.

People in here are jumping off rooves, they are going on hunger strikes, they are taking tablets, they are trying to hang themselves……It is a cruel and inhumane environment for everyone.

We plead with you, the Australian people, to help us. We are on the edge of life and don’t know how much longer we can stand it.

We ask Prime Minister Gillard, Immigration Minister O’Connor, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus Opposition leader Abbott and ASIO director David Irvine to stop this torture of all of us……. of
men, women and children, who have done nothing to warrant this cruel treatment that is destroying our minds.

We ask the authorities : You say we are a threat to this nation. So if we are such people why have they now put women and children and families in here with us? We are willing to be released into
the community under strict orders if they think we are threats, which we aren’t. But whatever they want we will do.

But we can’t keep living like this. We are not in detention. We are in a cemetery.

We don’t want to die. We left Sri Lanka, Burmese and Iran because we fear to die. We came to Australia to live, not die. But death would be better than the life we have.

SIGNED.
ALL ASIO REFUGEES-AUSTRALIA.


The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre comments: AUSTRALIA is the ONLY country which sees fit to lock up Tamil refugees as a security threat. UK , Europe and Canada have hundreds of thousands of Tamil people living and contributing to their communities.

Here are some of the banners they have painted to communicate with the Australian community as they sit on the Soccer pitch at the MITA in Broadmeadows on hunger strike.

there are actually quite a few countries that regularly reject Tamil asylum seekers (most recently, the UAE) but it’s certainly the case that Australia’s immigration detention regime is incredibly harsh; also that Tamil refugees face extra barriers to security clearance


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