Palm Sunday Refugee Rally

ES Staff
14 April 2019

2 Comments

'Let's march together for justice today, and then beyond today, until we've restored justice for refugees.' We spoke to some of the people at today’s Palm Sunday march for refugees in Melbourne. Tens of thousands turned out at events throughout Australia.

Featuring (in order of appearance): Erin, ‘Love Makes a Way’; Josh Lourensz, Catholic Alliance for People Seeking Asylum; Bronwen Kellett, Xavier Social Justice Network; Rasika Crowley, Ignatian Service Coordinator at Xavier College; Rod Bower, President of the Humanists Society of Victoria; David Manne, Refugee Lawyer

Topic tags: Palm Sunday, refugees, asylum seekers

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In every town and city in Australia it would be very heartening to see a rally like this on Palm Sunday. There is a major highway dissecting the townships in our district and we could have quite an impact. On second thought, why wait. One Sunday a month until the government starts acting humanely.

Pam | 14 April 2019

For many years, church, peace, social justice and human tights groups have joined together for Palm Sunday peace rallies in cities and towns around Australia. This has been the case in Adelaide where I live. On Palm Sunday this year, there was another one. The main theme was justice for refugees which has been the main demand for many years. Thanks to the hard work of the Romero Group, a politically progressive group led by the famous Sr Janet Mead who put the Lord's Prayer on the Top 10 popularity charts in the 1970s, many participants carried placards demanding the release of Julian Assange. Sadly though, this issue did not get mentioned by the key speakers. I hope it did in other parts of the country. Another demand was to drop the trumped up charges against Witness K and Bernard Collaery by the current federal government. These two Australians greatly assisted Timor-Leste to obtain an international maritime border in the Timor Sea and greater access to its resources in the sea. Now they are being accused of undermining Australia's security. What they did was to assist in stopping Australia ripping off the poorest nation in SE Asia. Sadly, the ALP which claims to be the party of social justice is not lifting a finger to help these men. In addition, recent reports indicate that the Australian government has yet to make payments to Timor-Leste for oil and gas taken from its 1/2 of the Timor Sea despite signing an agreement to do so in March 2018. It is good that Palm Sunday peace rallies support asylum seekers, but I think that they should also promote other peace, social justice and human rights issues.

Andrew (Andy) Alcock | 27 April 2019

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Gillian Bouras
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Rosie Williams
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