All asylum seekers still based on Manus Island and Nauru should be transferred immediately to Australia for processing, and resettled safely in Australia or elsewhere, according to Heather Drew, Convenor of the Mudgee Amnesty Action Group.
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Amnesty International believes that both offshore centres should be shut down, and that Australia should abandon its deterrence-focused strategy and instead adopt a protection-based one.
In recent weeks pressure from 6,000 members of the Australian Medical Association, churches and numerous other groups including Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and Save the Children has led to the Australian government arranging for the transfer of some critically-ill children and their families to the mainland.
According to MSF, its records show that at least 78 of their patients had attempted suicide or considered it. The organisation’s staff were forced to leave the island earlier this month, and has expressed grave concern for the plight of their patients, many of whom are children.
The government’s Community Sponsorship Program accepts only 1,000 refugees per year when the community would be happy to sponsor and support a much larger number.
To focus on the precarious situation for these refugees, and explain some more humane means of supporting them, the Mudgee group of Amnesty will hold a stall in front of Mudgee Newsagency, 77 Market Street, on Saturday, October 27, from 9am to 1pm.
