Letter Writing Campaign – Focus for November
Materials for Letter Writers (Contacts, Tips, etc.)
Here’s a quick and easy thing to do to help our campaign: Sign this petition calling on the Prime Minister to bring the people on Nauru and Papua New Guinea to safety. And please share widely!
Through his involvement in the campaign to help free Hakeem the young Bahraini footballer wrongly detained in Thailand, former Soccer captain Craig Foster became aware of the grave harm being done to innocent people trapped in Australia’s cruel system of immigration detention (as described in yet another report on the human rights abuses being perpetrated within this system). Since the successful “Free Hakeem” campaign, Foster has continued to be an outspoken advocate calling for immediate safe settlement solutions for the people being held in indefinite offshore detention, especially the men being held in Papua New Guinea. He was featured in a recent edition of ABC TV’s Australian Story. He has written very movingly about his visit to PNG in October. He’s right: the victims of our cruel and unjust immigration detention system have lived without hope for too long. We must be their hope. Please sign this petition now, and continue to write/ring our MPs (see contact list) calling for immediate safe settlement for the refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru and PNG.
Letters to the Editor needed this week! The Canberra Times has given indications that it would be happy to receive more letters about Medevac and about refugee policy more generally. In fact, it seems that the volume of letters received on a topic can influence the level of coverage that topic is given in the paper. So with the RAC rally coming up next Saturday, let’s see if we can get some letters into the Canberra Times to help promote the rally.
Issues to raise:
- What is the government doing to find safe resettlement options for refugees on Manus and Nauru who are not offered resettlement in the USA?
- The Government must accept the offer from New Zealand to resettle asylum seekers from Australia’s offshore detention centres. There is no logical reason for refusing NZ’s offer.
- More than 50 men continue to be held in a lock-up prison in PNG, without access to phones or to lawyers, after being arrested by PNG authorities over 2 months ago. Why have they been arrested? Why are they being held without access to legal support?
- The lack of transparency about why these men have been imprisoned and what the plans are for them is unacceptable.
- Medevac is a piece of moderate legislation, which enables very sick people to get the medical attention they need.
- It is crucial that decisions about medical transfers remain principally in the hands of medical professionals, not in Border Force bureaucrats.
Save Medevac Rally Garema Place Saturday 9 November 1pm
Thanks to all of you for all you do to support this campaign!
