Bendigo Rural Australians for Refugees Newsletter Spring 2016

Australian Story: The road from Damascus ABC TV, Monday 21 November, 8pm Five years ago, Khaled Naanaa was 25, recently married and working as a nurse in a major Syrian hospital when civil war broke out and changed everything. Khaled headed to the rebel-held town of Madaya and for three years treated victims of the fighting. Now, with the help of an Australian journalist, he has the chance of a new life with his wife and daughter in Australia... more

Monday 21 November, 8pm Australian Story, ABC TV – The road from Damascus

Saturday 3 December, 9am – 5pm ASRC #Right Track Salvation Army Hall 65-71 Mundy St Bendigo See information below.

Monday 12 December, 5.15pm RAR Bendigo meeting (downstairs) Bendigo Library Meeting Room. Planning for 2017 Chair: Chris Cummins [email protected]

#RightTrack Saturday 3 December, 9am - 5pm Salvation Army Hall 65-71 Mundy St Bendigo Free workshop presented by the ASRC

Hands-on workshops: Join us … For a day of strategy, collaboration and How to have persuasive conversations action. Who and where to have conversations for maximum impact These workshops are for those who want to take action and will involve working with How to get the message across with politicians others in their local area to achieve a and media sustainable change in community attitudes. Planning for social change  Taking action in your local area Bookings:

We want to create a unified voice, providing local communities with the tools to speak positively and effectively about these issues. For further Information [email protected] Refugee deal rushed to avoid Trump

Rose Donohoe, The New Daily, 13 November 2016 A one-off deal to send refugees from Manus Island and Nauru to the United States was rushed by the government to stop it being scuttled by President-elect Donald Trump, according to the Refugee Council of Australia. The agreement was announced by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Sunday, just days after Mr Trump was elected, with a lack of detail frustrating refugee groups. While it was not opposed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Amnesty International slammed it as “an extreme step in shirking responsibility by the Australian government”. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said Labor was behind the move, but noted it would have been better to have finalised the deal before Americans voted in Mr Trump... more

What we DON'T know is what's in it for the US. Another 10,000 Marines in Darwin ? What has Turnbull given away ? I think we should be told. – Mike Carlton, journalist, on Twitter

Petition to sign: Safety for All Shen Narayanasamy, GetUp!, 13 November 2016 PM Turnbull has announced that some refugees currently in offshore detention will have the option to resettle in the US. This deal could be good news for some people, but we simply don’t know enough details yet. So we have to turn all our energy into ensuring whatever comes next is a plan that includes safety and fairness for everyone... SIGN

Some good ideas for Christmas gifts with these new releases?

More info: Nauru burning • What is a refugee? • Songs of a war boy • The bone sparrow

Fears no plan for Nauru, Manus refugees left behind Radio New Zealand, 15 November 2016 The Human Rights Law Centre says Australia’s plan to resettle refugees in the US could leave hundreds languishing in detention on Nauru and Manus. The government says 1,600 refugees it has detained offshore for three years are eligible for resettlement in the US. But the centre’s head of legal advocacy, Daniel Webb, said there was no plan for the refugees the US leaves behind. Mr Webb said the resettlement deal could lead to the deportation of 370 refugees from Australia including 40 children who were born there... more

Gillian Triggs’ contract with the HRC won’t be renewed Sydney Morning Herald, 16 November 2016 PM Malcolm Turnbull has confirmed that Australian Human Rights Commission President Gillian Triggs will be replaced with a new commissioner when her term expires next year. Fairfax Media has reported that the government was already scouring for a replacement, with the selection process to be “well underway” by the end of the Christmas

break... more

Lawyers want PMs in dock over asylum detention Sydney Morning Herald,14 November 2016 Every Australian PM from Howard onwards should be investigated for crimes against humanity, according to a group of international lawyers.The group of seven British, American and Australian lawyers, which includes Julian Burnside, has petitioned the International Criminal Court to investigate the treatment of asylum seekers by successive governments... more

Ambiguity over deal is tough for people who have little resilience left The Guardian, 15 November 2016 While it is encouraging to see the inertia around durable resettlement solutions for refugees on Manus and Nauru broken, the announcement that they will be resettled in the US raises more questions for those involved than it answers, particularly in light of Trump’s plans to ban Muslim immigration. This kind of ambiguity is particularly tough for a cohort who have already lived through

three years of uncertainty and have scarce resilience left to draw upon... more Behrouz Boochani: It’s hard for me to leave Manus Island without justice 13 November 2016 It’s a hard situation for me. I’m so glad that people will go to a safe place eventually but on the other side I’m so angry and sad because I don’t agree with the way that they processed people and treated asylum seekers in Manus. Everything is illegal and by force. I feel that I am a not a human because they have used my body for propaganda to send a message to the world and say go away now... more

Australia PM: No refugees will be sent to US this year Turnbull said 1,200 refugees from Nauru will not be resettled in the US before president-elect Trump takes office. Australia's prime minister said on Monday that resettlement to the US of many of the 1,200 asylum seekers from prisons on Papua New Guinea and the Pacific island of Nauru would begin after president-elect Donald Trump's inauguration in January. … more

African refugees reinvigorating rural Mingoola in social experiment to boost ageing community A radical grassroots resettlement plan has transformed an ageing rural community, bringing together two groups with very different problems. In the tiny township of Mingoola, on the border of New South Wales and Queensland, local woman Julia Harpham was grappling with a common problem in rural communities. … more