MEDIA
RELEASE
DESPERATE
REFUGEES PLEA FROM BEHIND THE WIRE AT DARWIN AIRPORT LODGE
Numerous
notes pushed through the wire, and messages crushed into paper balls
thrown over the fence greeted around 50 refugee protesters at Darwin’s Airport
Lodge this (Friday) afternoon.
Hundreds
of faces peered through the fence, fathers held the children over the fence
while other lined verandah’s to shout their cries for help and welcome to
the protesters.
One
desperate note read, “ I feel so sad, please help, I’m very boring I just 10
yeas (sic) old but I stay in detention 1 yeas (sic). I want to be free please
help me. Some time I very crazy. And I cut my hand three time but nobody know
that.”
DAL
holds around 400 asylum seekers, including 100 children.
“How
many people would know that almost 500 children are still in immigration
detention across Australia?” asked Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee
Action Coalition.
The
protest at DAL followed a successful march by 150 refugee supporters through
the streets of central Darwin, Australia’s detention capital.
MORE
PROTESTS
Protesters,
part of the Easter refugee convergence on Darwin will assemble at Northern
Immigration Detention Centre at 10am on Saturday. NIDC holds over 100 asylum
seekers and Indonesian asylum boat crew and fisher-folk.
“We
are going to NIDC to expose the plight of the long term detainees many victims
of the mental illness factories for mental illness after months and years in
detention. And we are going back to the Airport Lodge in the afternoon to make
good our promise to come back and let them know that there is a campaign still
fighting to end mandatory detention and free the refugees.”
On
Sunday, refugee activist will move their protest to Wickham Point, Darwin’s
newest detention centre, presently holding 800 asylum seekers
On
Monday, refugee supporters will make common cause with Aboriginal activists and
supporters calling or an end to the NT Intervention that has seen incarceration
rates of Aboriginal people rise by 40 per cent.
AROUND
THE COUNTRY
Easter
Monday will also see refugee protests in Sydney (meeting noon at Chester Hill
railway station to march to Villawood); in Perth (2.30pm at Perth detention
centre) and in Melbourne (meeting 2pm at Broadmeadows).
For
more information contact Ian Rintoul mob 0417 275 713
