Walking For Freedom
Walking For Freedom
Media Release - January 29th, 2015
Thursday January 29th, 8:30pm
Advocates of Indefinitely Detained Refugees Complete 32 Hour Walk Around ASIO National Office
Refugee advocates from around Australia travelled to Canberra to call for an end to the indefinite detention of refugees.
Their 32-hour walk around the national office of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) finished tonight with participants delivering by hand a letter from negative security assessed refugees.
Those walking this week asked for increased transparency in the cases of the 32 refugees who were given adverse security assessments in 2010-2011 and have been suffering in Australian detention since then.
“Both advocates and refugees have written countless letters to Immigration officials and Members of Parliament”, according to Jasmine Pilbrow, the head organiser of the walk. “After attending many information sessions, fundraisers and marches in Melbourne and trying to advocate and raise awareness for the 32 refugees in this situation, we decided that we needed to come to the place where the decisions are made”.
Each hour walked around the ASIO national office represented one refugee who is still in detention after five years.
The group asks that the 54 refugees who were given adverse security assessments by ASIO 5 years ago are told in full the basis for their assessments, that the 32 still in detention are released into the community, and that all are granted the right to apply for full citizenship and compensated for the years of freedom they have lost in Australian detention.
“Most of the refugees still in detention are seeing their friends - who arrived on the same boat as them - gain permanent residency and many are now applying for citizenship,” says Pilbrow.
“I have learnt so much from the friendships I have made with the refugees in detention. They are the people who - despite being marked by ASIO as a threat to our country - have taught me the most about forgiveness, patience, hope and life”.
Group member and psychology student Lucy Allan says "These people are being locked up without any clue as to why or for how long. Can you imagine what that's like? The biggest security threat here is to the mental health of these victims of war".
"We're all tired and sore at the end of the walk, but the 32 still locked up after five years are tired as well, and unlike us they don't know when their tiredness will cease."
The group finished their 32-hour stint with a public speakout in front of the ASIO building and delivering by hand a letter from the refugees they are representing.
However, the group will meet in front of Parliament House tomorrow at 11am for an open discussion about what to do next for their friends in detention.
No response has been made from any representative of ASIO or the Government.
About the ASIO negative assessments
Between January 2010 and November 2011, ASIO issued adverse security assessments to 54 refugees who had arrived in Australia by boat. These refugees, mostly Sri Lankan Tamils, were indefinitely detained onshore. Reasons for their negative assessments were kept from them, leaving them unequipped to defend their own cases.
In 2012, the High Court deemed the refusal of a protection visa to a genuine refugee unlawful and at odds with the Migration Act, even with ASIO’s adverse security assessment.
Since then, ASIO has employed retired high court judge Margaret Stone to independently review the cases. However, throughout her two year contract which has recently been renewed for a further 2 years, she was only able to release 20 refugees. To date there are still 32 refugees indefinitely detained onshore without knowledge of when they will be released or for what reason they are detained.
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Editor’s Notes
Media Spokespeople:
Sam Quinlan 0439 815 008
Lucy Allan 0435 293 586
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