Amnesty International Australia-Tas’s Urban Group were able to collect 209 signatures on petition, within 2 hours, on Parliament House lawns, Hobart, today.
The petition requests our Federal Government to:
Immediately release all of the children and families from mainland (133) and offshore immigration detention (107) facilities and,
to adopt alternative policies in the best interest of all asylum seeker and refugee children.
There were a number of people encountered who knew nothing about the issue or that children are in detention and there were others who did not want to sign but the majority who came past either enthusiastically signed or said that they had already signed online.
The visual image of a cage with toys inside helped raise interest and awareness of the issue.
The recent Human Rights Commission report on children in detention puts forward a clear case for why we need to immediately release all children from detention centres.
Amnesty states;
This report provides disturbing evidence of the harm inflicted on children in detention, with those as young as 12, exposed to high degrees of violence, committing acts of self harm and experiencing significant mental health problems.
and….
Public debate has been distorted by myths and misconceptions, with government policy shaped around border protection concerns and the idea that asylum seekers are “breaking the rules”.
The result is asylum seeker policy that is ineffective, inefficient, inhumane and in many cases in violation of international human rights law
Let’s call for the release of all children from detention.
Yabbo Thompson and Andrew Badcock Urban Group Amnesty International Aus-Tas
