Refugee Rights Action Network WA
MEDIA RELEASE
THE REFUGEE RIGHTS ACTION NETWORK TO JOURNEY TO CURTIN DETENTION CENTRE IN FAR NORTH WA EASTER LONG WEEKEND
Alarm over conditions in detention grows as self harm and suicides on the increase.
Over the Easter long weekend the Refugee Rights Action Network will be making the long journey by bus to the Curtin Detention Centre from Perth.
It is their intention to visit with some of the many asylum seekers at the centre that they have been in contact with, as well as assessing the conditions at this remote camp.
RRAN hopes to work collaboratively with staff at the centre in order to facilitate visits in an orderly fashion, and gain some access to the people they have been supporting. RRAN believe these visits are an important way of demonstrating our common humanity and a method of challenging the government’s attempts to isolate asylum seekers and dehumanise them.
The Refugee Rights Action Network is opposed to mandatory detention. Visits are designed to overcome the barriers that are put in place to conceal from the Australian public the abusive nature of the detention network.
RRAN is currently in contact with hundreds of asylum seekers, and are made aware by those detained and by detention centre staff, of the rising levels of despair and self harm that are now regular features of life for those unjustly detained.
The “Dictionaries for Detainees” project has delivered hundreds of dual language dictionaries to asylum seekers as just one practical way for RRAN and its supporters to demonstrate a caring and compassionate side to Australia.
“Those making this journey represent a broad slice of the Australian community, united by a common belief that people seeking asylum deserve protection not imprisonment,” said Victoria Martin-Iverson, a RRAN spokeperson.
“To imprison refugees in harsh conditions that have a measurable and well documented negative impact on their mental health is an abuse of their fundamental human rights.”
“We shall be peaceful but firm in our efforts to reach the center and to visit the many young men who are eagerly awaiting to meet the people that have been offering regular words of compassion & support.”
Refugee Rights Action Network
0417 904 329
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