Over 100 days have passed since the eX-detainee refugees’ protest in Naarm (in the Central business district of Melbourne, Australia), where they are demanding permanent protection. eX-detainee refugees have been languishing in limbo as asylum seekers for more than 12 years with little to no rights, victims of Australia’s racist immigration laws. The fact that Victoria police made minimal effort to stop a group of hooded, mask-wearing Neo Nazis from terrorising the eX-detainee protestors with racist and white nationalist chants like “f–k off, we are full” and “Australia is for the white man” is also extremely concerning, but not surprising. Rather, Victoria police has been actively involved in disrupting the eX-detainee demonstration adding to their misery. While this was going on, the “progressive councillors” for the City of Melbourne did nothing but sleep and daydream in their offices and in fact at the latter stages the City of Melbourne council took part in this harassment and abuse of refugee protesters.
While our quest for freedom and safety has been sabotaged and questioned, while our lives are crushed and disabled permanently in Australian-run detention centres, while we are systematically discriminated against inside and outside detention centres in so-called Australia – White supremacist, colonial politicians, excelling at lecturing other countries on “democracy” and “human-rights” is a twisted and perverse joke of the century.
RISE eX-detainees demand that the Australian government end more than 12-years of cruelty, torture, and systemic abuse of thousands of asylum seekers and refugees who have came to “Australia” by boat.
– Grant all eX-detainee and detainee asylum seekers permanent protection with proper humanitarian, financial and medical support, without further delay.
– Give all ex-detainees living in Australia the right to family reunion under the humanitarian category right away, and expedite the processing of these requests.
– Fast track citizenship applications of eX-detainees
– ALL eX-detainee asylum seekers should be provided with proper humanitarian supports to help them recover from the torture and trauma inflicted on them before and after arriving in “Australia”
It’s a fact that, after First Nations people, Refugee eX-detainees are one of the most singled out, routinely persecuted and racially profiled communities in “Australia”. Human rights organisations and protest organisers consistently fail to draw attention to more than three decades of systematic torture of refugees arriving by boat, preferring to shift the conversation from one topic to another as successive Australian governments attack us on a daily basis. Some organisations start out “helping” us, but after depleting all the resources available to the refugee sector, they vanish into thin air after a few years. We eX-detainees are stuck here because we have no option, yet they become “burnt out” and disappear from the crime scene. In Australia, systematic abuse is perpetuated in this way. The current protest, how it started and where it is now, is one example out of many.
Australian detention centres are torture factories and have caused irrevocable harm to detention survivors. Let’s not forget all refugee detainees who have come by boat and have been held in concentration camps – are people of colour!. These politicians’ ongoing inhumane treatment of people—treating us like worthless dust—must stop. The survivors must take the lead in order for there to be an end.
“Australia” is a fictitious land that resides in the minds of white supremacists, thanks to your Labor, Liberal, and Greens mandatory detention refugee policy. You can’t address systemic abuse and torture of others when your own backyard is a breeding ground for these same atrocities.
Enough is Enough! Free all detainee and eX-detainee survivors out of these miseries.
Nothing About Us Without Us.
RISE eX-detainees