Seeking justice for all

A BRISBANE Catholic has held a week-long vigil outside an immigration centre near the city’s airport at a time when the Church joined with other denominations condemn-ing Australia’s policy towards asylum seekers.
Greg Rolles, from the Catholic Worker community in South Brisbane, maintained the vigil 24 hours a day outside the Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation facility, at Pinkenba, to show welcome and solidarity to the 55 asylum seekers inside – mostly Hazara men from Afghanistan.
Mr Rolles said the idea was to time the vigil to start on August 26, the 11th anniversary of the Tampa incident that was a turning point in the national debate about the treatment of asylum seekers.
“This is just an injustice happening on our doorstep,” Mr Rolles said outside the immigration centre.
“I’ve been coming up visiting them (asylum seekers) and trying to do practical stuff but I feel there is not much attention drawn to the human side of this issue, that people are actually suffering in detention.”
Mr Rolles said if the vigil led to more awareness of the suffering of detainees it would have been successful. “These are human beings who are suffering,” he said.
Meanwhile, Church leaders are standing united in their concerns over the Federal Government’s reintroduction of offshore asylum seeker processing.
In a joint statement released last Sunday, Church leaders, including Australian Catholic Bishops Con-ference president Archbishop Denis Hart, said the principle of “welcoming the stranger” was core to the Christian faith.
“Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan guides us as we seek to care for those who are vulnerable and marginalised in society,” the statement, also signed by leaders from the Anglican and Uniting churches, Churches of Christ, Salvation Army, Religious Society of Friends, and Congregational Federation of Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand, said.
“As Christians we are called to cross the road to help and to not turn away from those in need.”
The statement said the Seventh Forum of the National Congress of Churches in Australia in 2010 called on all political parties to meet Australia’s responsibilities by “accommodating and processing in Australia asylum seekers who reach Australian territory”.
“We welcome the commitment of the Government to increase the number of places in our humanitarian program to 20,000 and hope that it will continue to increase the program as the Houston Panel has recommended,” the statement said.
“However, we are deeply troubled by the potential for asylum seekers to suffer adverse mental health consequences and to experience other detrimental impacts as a result of this legislation.
“We are concerned that this damages our credibility and, in particular, our ability to negotiate a humane regional system of protection.
“Finding answers to this complicated humanitarian challenge is difficult. As long as our world is broken and countries are ravaged by war, then people will flee violence and persecution.
“But as a rich and secure nation, Australia has a particular responsibility to ensure that we work positively with other nations to develop a range of strategies that are grounded in compassion and that seek to honour the moral responsibility we have to victims of violence and persecution.
“It is only through such co-operation that we can provide asylum seekers with real alternatives to undertaking a desperate boat journey to find safety.”
The week-long vigil outside the fences of the Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation facility also wound up over the weekend with a small memorial service. Mr Rolles said he wanted to get a message out to fellow Catholics and the wider community about the injustice of mandatory detention.
“Mandatory detention is inhumane and illegal especially in a time when we are moving back to offshore processing,” he said.
He said if the vigil resulted in an increase in visitor numbers to the Brisbane facility it would be a bonus.
The memorial prayer service was held last Sunday to end the vigil. The few supporters at the service prayed for and remembered the 27 detainees since 2000 who had committed suicide in Australia while in detention, those whose deaths in detention were unrecorded and those who had perished at sea while on their journey to Australia.
Those at the service included members of the Catholic Worker movement and Fr Martin Arnold.