The federal government may be guilty of piracy according to the organisers of a protest, to be held on Canberra’s main thoroughfare, against refugees being sent back to Sri Lanka.
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The Refugee Action Committee said there would be no disruption to peak-hour traffic when its supporters gather on Wednesday evening on the medium strip at the intersection of Northbourne Avenue and Barry Drive.
Associate Professor in politics and international relations at the ANU, John Minns, said the Canberra rally would protest against forcibly sending Tamil asylum seekers back to Sri Lanka.
“The protest will demand the federal government cease what it now admitted at last it is trying to do, to hand back reportedly 153 Tamil asylum seekers to the Sri Lankan Navy,” he said.
“This, we believe, breaches the most basic of obligations a country has, not to return asylum seekers to places where they fear persecution.
“If their boat was on high seas, then surely this is an act of piracy by the Australian government.
“If it was not, then at the very least it breaches our obligations."
A spokesman for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said: "The government notes the matter is currently before the court and, accordingly, will be making no further comment".
Dr Minns said Tamil asylum seekers had good reason to fear persecution in Sri Lanka.
“Indeed the conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper just last November boycotted the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Sri Lanka for precisely that reason, saying that Sri Lanka’s human rights record was poor and not up to the standards of the Commonwealth," he said.
“Conservative British Prime Minister David Cameron attended but made a speech criticising Sri Lanka’s human rights record.
“The United Nations Human Rights Commission has also attacked the current Sri Lankan government for its human rights position, saying disappearances of people, torture, extrajudicial killings and imprisonments without trial, continues.
“More than 100,000 Tamil refugees have fled Sri Lanka and are living in squalid refugee camps in India.”
Speakers at the rally will include Dr Minns, ACT Minister Shane Rattenbury and Unions ACT secretary Kim Sattler who is critical of Coalition and Labor policies on asylum seekers.
The Palm Sunday rally in Canberra on asylum seeker policy attracted several thousand people, while more than 1200 attended the Stand by the Refugees protest meeting at the ANU recently.
