Refugee advocates will set up a "refugee embassy" outside the office of the Immigration Department in Belconnen on Tuesday to protest against Australia's treatment of asylum seekers.
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Organisers say they will not criticise public servants during the late afternoon rally but will take aim at the government's policy on asylum seekers and the "kidnapping" of Sri Lankans at sea.
John Minns from the Australian National University said the protest by Canberra's Refugee Action Committee at the pop-up tent embassy would also canvass the proposal to send refugees to Cambodia.
"Cambodia is an absurd place to send refugees – it generates refugees, it doesn't take them," he said.
"Last year, there were just 68 refugees there, but 13,714 Cambodian refugees in other countries.
"Clearly this is not the kind of country that could conceivably accept refugees and deal with them.
"It is an extremely poor country with little capacity to look after its own people, let alone asylum seekers."
The group is planning to erect the tent embassy in other locations after Tuesday's inaugural event.
"The symbolism of the embassy is to illustrate to people that by definition, asylum seekers and refugees don't have an embassy to go to for protection," Dr Minns said.
"That's the whole nature of the international refugee convention from 1951, to recognise the peculiar situation that asylum seekers find themselves in.
"They should be protected by the country where they're seeking asylum, but that's not happening at the moment; they're being punished instead of protected."
Church, union and political figures have been invited to speak at the rally.
"People from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy are coming along to welcome the refugee embassy," Dr Minns said.
"We think staff from the Immigration Department have been quite unacceptably muzzled and ordered by [Minister] Scott Morrison to use language such as 'illegal' in referring to asylum seekers.
"We have had many people working for Immigration who've told us how appalling is that situation they find themselves in."
Dr Minns said refugee advocates would take part in the March Australia demonstration in Civic on Sunday.
"The way the government treats asylum seekers and refugees inevitably spreads to the way in which it treats others, including Australian citizens, whether they be students, the poor or young unemployed.
"This will be evident as refugee advocates join thousands of others in the demonstration on Sunday."
The two rallies coincide with the return of Federal Parliament after the winter sitting, and signals Australia is about to send up to 1000 asylum seekers in its care on Nauru to Cambodia.
The Australian and Cambodian governments remain in secret negotiations over the arrangement.
It is not known under what conditions refugees will be sent to Cambodia, nor how much the government will pay the south-east Asian country for its assistance, although the figure of $40 million has been widely reported in both countries.
