Queensland town stands up for refugee family

Biloela
Contributed from Queensland

Biloela is a typical small town in Queensland, whose residents have done something that deserves to be better known by the rest of Australia.

They have come together to defend an asylum seeker family, which has been living in the town.

The Tamil couple has escaped from Sri Lanka and now have two children born in Australia.

Australian Border Force members seized the family last Monday, and flew them to immigration detention in Melbourne, where they were allegedly coerced into signing documents supporting their “voluntary removal.”

Bilboela residents have responded by starting up a change.org petitiont as part of their effort to convince the Australian government to “return this family to Biloela, their home, where they are wanted and welcome.”

The United Nations has criticised Australia’s eagerness to deport Tamil refugees to Sri Lanka in the past, noting in October that, at least one such case faced “a serious risk of return to danger or persecution.”

Most Australians are tolerant and welcoming people, who believe that those who land on our shores because of desperation, should be treated humanely, and generally fast racked into settlement in Australia.

They do not like the way the government is treating these people in our name. Nor do they like the reputation the country is getting as an intolerant place, prepared to use what are really, remote concentration camps, in open violation of global standards of civilised behaviour and agreements that Australia is signatory to.

The treatment of refuges is one example, in a catalogue of changed that are causing an ongoing erosion of rights, aimed to promote fear that other people pose a threat, as as a manipulative political tool .

Biloela has gone one step further and taken practical action in one case, which serves as a positive example to other Australian communities.

 

 

 

6 Comments on "Queensland town stands up for refugee family"

  1. Pamela vorbach | 12 March 2018 at 2:30 pm | Reply

    Bugger of dutton most people know about the secret deal with the govt of their birth to continuely prosecute them…let them go back to the community thst supports thrm .

  2. Janelle Paterson | 12 March 2018 at 5:04 pm | Reply

    Please free this family, let them continue to contribute to society.

  3. Janice Creed | 12 March 2018 at 7:20 pm | Reply

    You can look at this situation of Priya and Nadas and think “oh it will be forgotten tomorrow, Biloela will never forget this kind and gentle family who are a members of our community”.

  4. Carol. Goldsmith | 12 March 2018 at 9:21 pm | Reply

    Let them stay give them a chance

  5. Melissa Meldon | 13 March 2018 at 4:49 am | Reply

    Regional centres need good people. It makes no sense not to free this family.

  6. Catherine Bateson | 14 March 2018 at 7:12 am | Reply

    Return this family to Biloela – a community that they are a contributing part of and a community that wants them returned

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