AUSTRALIA’S ASYLUM SEEKER POLICIES ARE JUST NOT CRICKET

… PROTEST AT THE CRICKET WORLD CUP.

On the first day of the Cricket World Cup in Melbourne, a group of people have protested Australia’s asylum seeker policies at the Australia versus England match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and released the below statement

One person disrupted play by running onto the field wearing a t-shirt reading ‘I heart refugees’ (a reference to the February 14 Valentine’s Day match-date) and a cape with ‘#Justice4Refugees’, while a group in the stands unfurled a banner reading ‘Australia’s Asylum Seeker Policy, Just Not Cricket! #ShutDownManus’.

The action comes just two weeks after a wave of similar protests that also highlighted Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers, including a roof occupation of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s electoral office, the stopping of the movement of a Tamil man at risk of deportation from Melbourne on a plane at Tullamarine Airport, a thirty-two hour walk around the ASIO complex in Canberra to highlight the plight of indefinitely detained refugees, and the disruption of the Australian Open men’s tennis final. Protests and vigils have been organised in major cities all over the world including New York and Cambridge.

It also comes on the heels of the tabling of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s damning report on children in detention, as well as recent news of Independent MP Andrew Wilkie’s application to the International Criminal Court to have the Abbott government tried at the Hague for crimes against humanity over its treatment of asylum seekers.

The following is a statement released by the group:

“We call on the Australian people to show their true colours, step out of complacency, and stand up for justice.

We have decided to disrupt the Cricket World Cup in order to bring the world’s attention to the ongoing suffering of thousands of vulnerable people who are being mistreated by the Australian government’s asylum seeker policies.

Many of these people are imprisoned offshore in dangerous conditions in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Some have been detained indefinitely in onshore detention centres for more than five years because of legal loopholes.

Many languish in the community with temporary visas, under constant threat of re-detention and deportation, and without any hope of receiving permanent protection or being reunited with their families.

Others have already been returned to the nations that persecuted them in the first place, where they face imprisonment, torture, sexual assault, and death.

All of the above breaches numerous international laws and conventions that Australia has supposedly signed onto and ratified including; the Refugee Convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention Against Torture.

We are calling on the international community, including governments, businesses and consumers, to use all means within their power to force the Australian government to meet its international obligations and to end its mistreatment of asylum seekers, which has already resulted in numerous deaths. They can do this via economic sanctions, by boycotting Australian companies and products, through diplomatic pressure, and by taking the Australian government to the International Criminal Court at The Hague for crimes against humanity, and thus enforcing the international rule of law.

We call on the Australian people to show compassion, step out of complacency, and stand up for justice. We must right the wrongs done on our behalf by forcing our government to change its ridiculous abusive polices. We must ensure that both the Liberal party and the ALP enact humane asylum seeker polices. Actions like ours will continue to grow in frequency until there is serious political change.

The freedom of thousands of people is now in your hands. What are you going to do about it?”
AJ van Tonder, Emily Connors, WACA – WikiLeaks Australian Citizens Alliance