Vigil for Omid – #CloseTheCamps, #BringThemHere
Date/Time
Date(s) - Tue 3 May 2016
17:30
Location
Garema Place
Categories
23 year-old Omid, an Iranian refugee detained by Australia on Nauru, died in a Brisbane hospital on Friday after setting himself on fire in front of visiting UNHCR officials. A witness reported his last words were, “This is how tired we are, this action will prove how exhausted we are. I cannot take it anymore.”
Omid joins Reza Barati, Fazel Chegeni, Hamid Kehazaei, Ali Ahmad Jafari, Reza Alizadeh, Mohammad Nasim Najafi, Khodayar Amini and Leo Seemanpillai as one of the victims of Australia’s barbaric detention regime, whose deaths lay bare the bipartisan boldfaced lie that these policies are designed to save lives.
His death comes the same week that PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill announced the Australian-run detention centre on Manus Island will close, following a Supreme Court decision that ruled it illegal. The announcement has left both Labor and the Coalition floundering for a response – their only solution being to restate the worn-out three word slogan, “stop the boats”.
It took a PNG court to tell us what we already knew: that our Pacific island gulags are illegal; that detaining people who have committed no crime for years in appalling conditions is breaking them; and that the only possibly solution to the current situation is for the Australian Government to finally grow up and take responsibility for those who fled to Australia seeking our protection.
These camps must close now, and all those sent to Manus Island and Nauru immediately be brought back to Australia for resettlement.
Join us in Garema Place from 5:30pm on Tuesday 3 May to mourn Omid’s unnecessary death, and to demand the Government #CloseTheCamps and #BringThemHere
Please bring placards and candles if you can. Please also invite your friends and share the event on Facebook to help get others along.
