A call for actions against mandatory detention on Palm Sunday March 29th

Australians and Allies Overseas Against Mandatory Detention released a video message calling for global protest action in Australia and around the world. The filming of the video involved over 100 people in 33 cities across 21 countries including Iceland, Palestine, Costa Rica, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Indonesia, the United States, Chile, Australia, and East Timor.

The video begins with the words ‘Dear Australia’ written on the back of two detainees on Manus Island. The text of the video message reads:

‘On Palm Sunday the 29th March and for as long as it takes thousands of people will take action around the nation and around the world. We demand an end to mandatory and indefinite detention. End torture of asylum seekers and refugees. Bring back community processing. We will not be silenced. In solidarity.’

The group is calling for an end to the cruel on-and-offshore detention policies that inflict deliberate cruelty on people fleeing war, genocide, and political or religious persecution. The video calls on people around the world to take action on or around Palm Sunday (29 March 2015) to demonstrate their opposition to Australia’s policies of mandatory and indefinite detention of asylum seekers.

‘We want to let those being held in detention know that we hear their voices, we support their protests, and we add our voices to the international call to end mandatory and indefinite detention to pressure our government to change their illegal and inhumane asylum seeker policies’ said Carol Peterson based in Berlin, Germany.

The global network Australians and Allies Overseas Against Mandatory Detention was formed during the mass hunger strike on Manus Island in January 2015. Vigils opposing Australia’s refugee policies and in solidarity with the detainees took place in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Houston (Texas), Austin, London, Cambridge (UK), Leeds (UK), Edinburgh, Glasgow, Sheffield, Dublin, Belfast, Berlin (DE), Brussels (Belgium), Geneva, Amsterdam and The Hague, Paris, Santiago (Chile), the West Bank, Hong Kong, Chang Mai (Thailand) and Japan.

For more information on Australians and Allies Overseas Against Mandatory Detention visit the Facebook and Tumbler pages.