(You are welcome to download and distribute the material on this site
provided you acknowledge its source)

Australia¡¯s treatment of asylum seekers is harsh and punitive. It has been condemned by human rights bodies worldwide have condemned it. Asylum seekers do not commit any offence by arriving here without papers. Australia imprisons innocent people. We must bring this system to an end.

 

Useful links and resources at Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre

More useful resources at Refugee Council of Australia

Organisations who are helping refugees: click here.

 

Spare rooms for Refugees invites you to register your willingness to house a refugee or a refugee family in a house or flat of your own:click here

 

  1. News Overboard: a fascinating and timely book by Iain Lygo

 

  1. Helping Hazaras on the community: click here

 

  1. New website: The Justice Project

 

  1. Write to politicians using this letter writing kit: follow the instructions carefully; tell your friends about it: this will help change government policy

 

  1. Useful links to human rights and humanitarian organisations

 

  1. Report on effects on children of mandatory detention: Medical Journal of Australia

 

  1. On Burning Out: House Rules and Human Rights: Kate Durham¡¯s address at Melbourne University

 

  1. From Nothing to Zero: letters from detainees in Australia¡¯s concentration camps
    thanks to the hundreds who have written to detainees: your efforts have made the book possible

 

  1. Span: volunteer tutoring to people otherwise unable to access appropriate education

 

  1. All about TPVs (Temporary Protection Visas)

 

  1. Contact the Hazara Association of Victoria: they need help getting Hazaras from Afghanistan settled in the community: you can befriend them, take them to lunch or the footy ¨C make them welcome. Ring Hamid Saberi on 03 9547 0849 or 0438 895 728.

 

  1. Numbers in Australian on-shore detention centres as at February 2003

 

  1. Newspapers from the Middle East and Asia

 

  1. Report on conditions in Nauru:
    "Soldiers Sailors and Asylum Seekers", launched by Carmen Lawrence on 20 Dec

 

  1. Photo gallery: Nauru and on-shore detention centres

 

  1. UN Working Group report on arbitrary detention in Australia

 

  1. Human Rights Watch have just produced a damning report on Australia: depressing reading

 

  1. Response to deportation of refugees, 20 November 2002

 

  1. HREOC report into asylum seekers transferred to State prisons

 

  1. Human Rights Commission report on detention centres

 

  1. Emmanuel Ortiz: a poem for September 11

 

  1. Refugee resource site in 10 languages

 

  1. A useful list of refugee resource websites, useful for letter-writers

 

  1. 10 things you can do to help: click here.

 

  1. Update on Nauru: click here.
      BBC2 "Correspondent" report on Nauru
       NauruRefugees website

 

  1. SievX website; and download a 4-page dossier of the Siev-X evidence

 

  1. Senate Committee report on Children Overboard affair: see how the government lied

 

  1. Some information about TPVs (Temporary Protection Visas)

 

  1. Speech by Julian Burnside: Hypocrisy and Human Rights

 

  1. Tips on visiting Baxter; a report on conditions in Baxter

 

  1. If youhave a spare room and you are willing to consider making it available to a refugee, click here.

 

  1. If you donot have a spare room available, but would like to make a donation to the groups who are helping refugees, click here.

 

  1. If youcannot help with a room or a donation, but want to register a protest at the government¡¯s treatment of refugees, you can email the minister by visiting the website of the Department of Immigration Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs

 

 

NEW online forum

  1. Help Afghans who are forced to return to their country: Aust Afghan Volunteer Ass'n
  2. Some useful information about refugee issues and detention centres
  3. Submission (by Melbourne working group) to HREOC enquiry into Children in Detention
  4. Submission (by Action for Children, SA) to HREOC enquiry
  5. Submission (by Alliance of Helath Prefessionals) to HREOC enquiry
  6. Submission (by Brisbane Refugee Health Network) to HREOC enquiry
  7. A list of resources and refugee organisations.
  8. Research material concerning asylum seekers and refugees(at Dancing Spiders site)
  9. Flood Report
  10. A powerful article about Woomera by Susan Owens: click here
  11. A link to articles about refugee policy on Julian Burnside's website
  12. Click here to create an email to politicians about the treatment of refugees
  13. Update #1 (progress report Dec 2001)
  14. Update #2 (progress report Feb 2002)
  15. To read the facts, click here
  16. To read the arguments, click here
  17. Read some of the messages of support we have received: click here
  18. Lobby the government: to see how, click here
  19. Here is an online petition calling for a Royal Commission into the asylum seeker issue
  20. The Pacific Solution: click here
  21. The cost of Australia's detention policy: click here
  22. Trying to find out what was going on in Nauru and Manus Island:click here
  23. Read theOxfam report on Australia's Pacific Solution.
  24. The cost of Australia's Pacific Solution: click here
  25. Take part in our online forum: click here

What you can do

 

  1. Write letters of support to refugees in detention centres: email us and we will provide names of some detainees who would be delighted to hear from someone outside the wire who wants to make them feel welcome.
  1. Letter writers: if you want links to sites which translate between english and various middle-eastern languages, click here.
  1. Tell people the facts, explain the arguments.

 

What has been done so far

 

  1. Hundreds of Australians, from every part of the country, have contacted us during the past few weeks offering help and asking what they can do.
  2. Hundreds of Australians have provided firm offers of accomodation and have given us their names, addresses and contact details; they have told us how many refugees they could accommodate.  Many of the emails are very touching; all of them are very generous.  For extracts from a few of the hundreds of messages we have received, click here
  3. Most of the people who have written to us express their outrage, anger and distress at the government's policy of putting innocent people in detention centres to suffer the wretched humiliations and misery of those blighted places.
  4. Many of the people who have written to us have subsequently written to detainees, and have received replies. 
  5. John Tomlinson has written 2 poems about the issues: The Woomera Hunger Strike, and Asylum seeking in Australia
  6. Welcome Townshas established a pilot scheme: 3 country towns are lobbying government to allow asylum seekers into the community: this would benefit both the community and the detainees.
  7. Contact us if you would like more information, or if you would like to offer a Spare Room to a refugee.

 

Kate Durham and Julian Burnside