BRISBANE’S Catholic Justice and Peace Commission (CJPC) is establishing a network of Catholics to write support letters for refugees whose Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs) have expired and are desperate to stay in Australia.
The commission sent a supporting letter to the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) for an Afghan woman, Zahra Alawi, and her family, who were at the centre of an Advent refugee campaign the commission organised in 2002.
Zahra, 22, was pregnant when she and her husband Zehir and a son and daughter arrived seeking asylum in Australia in April 2001.
After a few months in a migration detention centre in Woomera they were transferred to Brisbane on TPVs.
Their children are now aged six, four and two, and Zahra is pregnant and soon to give birth.
The Alawi family is among a group of refugees in Brisbane whose TPVs have expired in the past few months, and who are applying for permanent residency.
The Refugee Review Tribunal’s hearing of the Alawis’ case started in Brisbane on March 19 and a decision was not expected for two weeks.
CJPC executive officer Peter Arndt said many refugees would need support from Catholics when their TPVs expired.
CJPC member Camilla Cowley, a refugee advocate who has befriended the Alawi family, said the Alawis had been an integral part of bringing the asylum seeker ‘alive’ in Brisbane archdiocese.
Mr Arndt said the CJPC would be approaching social justice groups and parishes throughout Brisbane archdiocese to participate in a campaign to support TPV holders.
