National Day of Protest for Lombok : Melbourne Indymedia

This October marks four years since Australian Navy ships forced asylum seeker boats from Australian waters and back to Indonesia. Even though they were exercising their right under the UN Refugee Convention to claim asylum. Even though they were fleeing the most repressive regimes in the world.

Today, more than 90 Afghan, Iraqi and Vietnamese asylum seekers, including children, remain in limbo in an Australian-funded camp on Lombok, Indonesia. They are denied the right to work, study, travel or be reunited with their families. They are only just tolerated by Indonesian authorities. They are forced to rely on the scant charity provided by Australia and the International Organisation for Migration. Despite these difficult conditions, all are too afraid to return to their homelands.

Here is what one asylum seeker trapped on Lombok wrote recently: "It has been nearly four years I am in suffocating situation and without clear future, and It has been more than one year I have been given Temporary Protection under UNHCR in Indonesia, so for how long I should be in such suffocating situation without destiny, under T.P in Indonesia, temporary means temporary not years and years as we are wasting all our age and suffering."

This Friday, 28 October is four years to the day that the “SIEV 7” vessel was boarded by Australian Naval officers at Ashmore Reef and forced violently back to Indonesia. Refugee groups across Australia will stage protests to demand the Australian Government to face up to its responsibilities to its cargo and other asylum seekers stranded on Lombok and resettle them in Australia.

Melbourne Protest Details
12.30pm, Friday 28 October
Outside GPO, Bourke Street Mall

Speakers include:

· Pamela Curr, Asylum Seekers Resource Centre

· Tim Petterson, Refugee Action Collective - Victoria.

· Melanie Mumford, Rural Australians For Refugees (South Gippsland)

A speech from an asylum seeker on Lombok will be read out and four-year anniversary cards will be signed by the public to be sent to Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone.

Organised by: Refugee Action Collective, Refugee Action Coalition & Rural Australians For Refugees.

For more information, contact: Tim Petterson 0438 399 973