SYDNEY — Over a hundred refugees and supporters of refugee rights gathered at Dorothy Reserve in Bankstown here Aug. 31, protesting conditions faced by asylum-seekers on longterm bridging visas in Australia. They called on the government to grant them permanent visas.
Three days earlier 23-year-old Mano Yogalingam died in Melbourne after setting himself on fire. He had spent more than a decade on a bridging visa with an uncertain future in Australia.
He was seeking to appeal his claim for refugee status, which had been rejected under the government’s so-called Fast Track system.
“Mano was driven to despair,” Sowriya Vishnuvarman, a 19-year-old Tamil refugee from Sri Lanka, told the rally. “He was denied the right to work or access to Medicare.”
In 2014 the federal government adopted a new law mandating that all asylum-seekers who arrived by boat between August 2012 and December 2013 without a valid visa have to apply for refugee status through Fast Track.
“The Fast Track system strips away rights, and is rigged against refugees from the start. The rejection rates are staggeringly high,” Renuga Inpakumar, a spokesperson for the Tamil Refugee Council, said.
Refugees who are denied Medicare are unable to access health care, because they can’t afford it, she added. “It’s a denial of basic human dignity.”
Vishnuvarman described her own situation, having lived in Australia since she was a young girl. She graduated from school but can’t go onto university because of her visa status. “Australia is our home but we are treated like outsiders,” she said.
Chanting “What do we want? Permanent visas!” the crowd marched to the office of federal Minister for Immigration Tony Burke. There is an ongoing 24/7 picket outside his office by the Tamil Refugee Council.