Refugee activist in court over delayed Qantas flight

A Tamil asylum seeker is forced aboard a plane in Melbourne. There is nothing to indicate to other passengers that the people beside the 25-year-old man are security guards, the restraints being hidden with their carry-on luggage.

He is being deported by the Australian government to Sri Lanka, where he will likely be detained by the Sri Lankan Criminal Investigation Department, known for raping and torturing Tamil men and women.

As he takes his seat, something happens. Jasmine Pilbrow stands up. She has been asked for help, and now the 22-year-old university student answers the call. She stands to protest the deportation of this man, to protest the government’s savage refugee policies and to protest Qantas’ complicity in their implementation.

Jasmine refuses to sit down. Two others on board Qantas flight 383 also stand up in solidarity. The plane can’t take off. Eventually, after close to an hour, they agree to disembark if the asylum seeker leaves too.

Fourteen months later, Jasmine is defending serious criminal charges for her simple act of humanity and defiance. Protesters gather in support near the magistrates court in Ringwood. After speeches, chants and choruses of “We Shall Not Be Moved”, we walk single file down the road to the court where Jasmine enters her hearing, on trial under the Civil Aviation Act. She pleads not guilty to a charge of interfering with a crew member.

“The people who should be getting arrested for what they are doing are our politicians”, a supporter told Red Flag. Jasmine’s statement says: “Pilots and cabin crew work hard every day to keep their passengers safe. Forcing vulnerable people to travel against their will should not be a part of their job description”.

Jasmine’s case comes after the High Court earlier this year threw out a major legal challenge to the government’s policy of indefinitely detaining refugees and asylum seekers in island camps. Time and again, when parliament and the courts have sanctioned cruelty to refugees, it has been ordinary people who have stood in the way.

Jasmine’s refusal to sit down until a frightened man was removed from a plane joins the actions of the doctors and nurses at Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in Brisbane who would not discharge a child they knew would be deported and the thousands of #LetThemStay protesters in schools and workplaces across the country who came together to demand the government stop torturing refugees.

Jasmine told Red Flag that the people who present a real challenge to the barbarity of Australia’s refugee policies are those “willing to break unjust laws in unjust situations”.

Her case returns to court on 10 May.