Refugee protesters call for more civil disobedience

More than 50 refugee rights supporters occupied the Melbourne offices of the immigration department on 12 May. A crowd of more than 300 met at the state library before marching to the department offices on Lonsdale Street where some protesters rushed in through a side door to occupy the foyer and liftwells. They chanted “Let them stay!” and “Free free the refugees!”

Protesters ignored police directives to leave and shut the building down while they listened to speeches and scrawled anti-racist slogans on the windows. After around an hour, the protest moved outside to block a busy city intersection where the speeches and chants continued.

In the wake of recent suicides on Nauru and continuing protests by refugees on Manus Island and Nauru, activists felt it was necessary to take a more radical stand against the government’s abuses. As one protester Anastasia Kanjere put it: “I feel like the level of violence occurring in offshore camps is at a point where civil disobedience is the only way”.

The protest was organised by Family, Friends and Feminists Against Detention and advertised as a “March for Civil Disobedience and Refugees”. In the lead up to the event, FFAD argued that the refugee rights movement “can do more”.

“Let’s not wait for another murder, rape or suicide on Manus on Nauru. Join us to show the Australian government we will not stop until they close Nauru and Manus Island”, read the group’s call out for refugee supporters to attend.

The refugee rights campaign needs more of these types of actions. As the Australian government continues to heap horror upon horror on refugees, direct action and mass civil disobedience is the response demanded of us. Omid Masoumali, 23, died after being driven to self-immolation. Hodan Yassin, 21, is fighting for her life after also being driven to set herself alight.

Malcolm Turnbull warns us not to get “misty-eyed” about it all. Now is the time to draw a line in the sand and say enough.

But civil disobedience is not only about a moral imperative to act. It is effective. This was the lesson learned by protesters at the Lady Cilento hospital in Brisbane in February. It was the defiance of the hospital staff who refused to discharge baby Asha back to Nauru, and the union and community picket that blocked the exits, that stopped her being sent back.

We need to defy the government, to disrupt its operations and do everything in our power to stop this grotesque policy.