Across Australia, hundreds of people are gathering at churches to learn how to engage in civil disobedience and protect asylum seekers from border force officials

“How many people here have ever been to a blockade where you’ve tried to prevent someone from doing something,” Misha Coleman from the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce asks a crowd of about 100 people gathered outside the Wesley United church in Melbourne.

A good dozen hands go up. Someone yells out that they’ve been involved in protests to stop the live export of animals.

“Those people who do have some experience, we really do want to get you to help us here today,” Coleman continues.

Churches hold 'sanctuary training' for those wanting to shelter asylum seekers Read more

“We’re not here today to be arrested. We’re here today to demonstrate what respect looks like. This is about a respectful way to challenge the current policy framework.”

The policy framework that those gathered have come to challenge is the federal government’s hardline stance on asylum seekers, which has left 267 asylum seekers currently in Australia facing deportation to offshore processing centres on Nauru or Manus Island. They could be removed at any time and there are 37 babies among them.

The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, last week reiterated the government’s position, despite numerous protests being held throughout the country in recent weeks calling on the government to let the asylum seekers stay.

As a result, hundreds of people gathered at churches around the country on Sunday, including at Wesley United church, to learn how to engage in civil disobedience and protect asylum seekers should border force officials try to forcibly detain them and send them to offshore detention centres.



Coleman tells the crowd that 120 churches are now part of a movement to offer the Old Testament concept of sanctuary to the asylum seekers should border force officials come for them, a statement which is met with applause. The idea is that human rights groups and advocates will try to get those asylum seekers to a church before the border force officials come and will then surround them by joining arms in a protective, peaceful human barrier to block them off from the police and border force staff trying to detain them.

GetUp! (@GetUp) Huge church presence protecting asylum seekers and saying #LetThemStay pic.twitter.com/GtNnCbcxnf

Peter Branjerdporn (@peterbranj) #letthemstay NonViolent Direct Action gathering right now St John's cathedral #brisbane @DeanPeterCatt #sanctuary pic.twitter.com/FeDzjLxkrm

A similar event occurred last month when staff at Brisbane’s Lady Cilento children’s hospital and a large crowd of their supporters from the community were involved in a week-long standoff with the immigration department to prevent a baby, known as Asha, from being discharged from the hospital and sent to Nauru.

Asha and her family are now in community detention but still face deportation to Nauru.

Shen Narayanasamy, the human rights campaign director for GetUp, draws on the Baby Asha case to explain what to do should such a time come when the people of Melbourne may have to protect an asylum seeker from deportation. As well as forming a protective barrier around that person, they could also take on the role of a “human rights observer,” she says and take thorough notes and photographs of the situation to ensure the story of what unfolded was accurately told.

Others could share photographs and people’s stories on social media to try to raise awareness of what was happening and to get other people involved. Someone else should nominate themselves as a police liaison officer, she said, to ensure that there was a clear and direct line of communication between the protesters and police, and vice versa.

“Remember, there is also some substantial support for us coming from the authorities,” Narayanasamy tells them.

While protesting against the removal of Baby Asha from Lady Cilento, a police officer had come up to her and said: “Hi, I’m a GetUp member. I hope you’re using my funds well.”

“The last thing we want is a deliberate confrontation,” she says.

Andrew Baker, dressed in a T-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘Let them stay’ which he made the night before, is in the crowd, and says he is not religious. Nor is he a member of or a consistent voter for any one political party.

“But I have a six year-old daughter, I’m a parent and I just don’t like the idea of children it detention,” he said.

“I think it is great that all different members of the community are coming together like this from all different backgrounds to work with churches to protect asylum seekers and their children. My daughter wraps up Christmas presents for asylum seekers every year. When I saw that this event was taking place, I decided it was a simple act of togetherness that could make a difference.”

Dr Natasha Layton, an occupational therapist, said she was deeply concerned about the health and wellbeing of asylum seekers. While not religious, she is a parent to two teenagers and said she wanted to set a good example to them about being compassionate in the hope that the next generation would treat asylum seekers with kindness and empathy.

Alycia Gawthorne (@AlyciaGawthorne) Dutton might think twice before sending Border Force up against this group. They're not going anywhere #LetThemStay pic.twitter.com/LERRmL8Mei

BRASS Network (@BrisRefugeeNetw) Despite tropical storms room overflowing for #letthemstay training #Brisbane @ChRefugee @GetUp #auspol pic.twitter.com/mJbcFWoceR

“I am here because I realised while it is all very well and good to be empathetic – what an organisation like GetUp is providing today are strategies to leverage off,” she said.

If an asylum seeker required sanctuary at a church near her, Layton said she would head to the church and help to provide a barrier between them and the authorities.

“I think it’s important to show my support by showing up and showing that I care,” she said.

Coleman and Narayanasamy use volunteers from the crowd to roleplay potential standoff situations between authorities and protesters. People in the crowd ask questions about what to do if police try to make them delete photographs from their phone (the answer is that the police usually don’t have grounds to make such a request) and whether or not they should think about getting legal representation if they attend a sanctuary protest. (If you have your own lawyer, it’s recommended, Narayanasamy says, though GetUp is also working with legal representatives.).

Reverend Alistair Macrae was also at the training, telling the crowd that the Liberal and Labor parties had failed asylum seekers with an inhumane approach. “It is unconscionable to send people back who have been harmed by their environment,” he said. At the end of the training, the group linked arms in front of the church and began chanting: “Let them stay.”

Turnbull and Dutton unmoved by calls to spare 267 asylum seekers from deportation to Nauru Read more

The largest crowd appeared to gather at St John’s cathedral in Brisbane, almost filling the church.

Dr Peter Catt, the dean of St John’s cathedral in Brisbane, said almost 250 people attended the training there. He believes the people of Brisbane feel empowered after protecting baby Asha and her family from deportation.

“I think the Brisbane people do feel empowered,” he told Guardian Australia. “We were one of the early cabs off the rank with this movement with Lady Cilento showing it can be done and you don’t need to be a hero, you just have show up.”

He said there were a number of roles people could play should another time come when sanctuary needed to be provided.

“There are those who might want to put themselves in the way of law enforcement but what we really need is the support of the general public,” he said. “This sanctuary movement has grown so much we’re in the process of turning the whole of Australia into a sanctuary. The whole nation is on board. People don’t have to form a human barrier, they can also just be there.”

He said he had “strategies in place” so that asylum seeker supporters would be made aware if someone faced imminent deportation and needed to be taken to a church.

“We’re not giving out too many details about how we will know,” Catt said. “If people feel the need to get sanctuary, we can get them there. I think the fact that the movement has now become so public and widely supported gives it a resilience that means we can do this and it will make it very hard for border force and the government to make a move on these people.”

There were also training demonstrations given at churches in Sydney, Hobart, Perth, Canberra and Adelaide, while Christ Church cathedral in Darwin will hold a demonstration later this afternoon. People shared photos of the training and its key messages on social media throughout the day.

The sanctuary movement follows vigils, protests and marches attended by hundreds of thousands of Australians throughout the country over the past five weeks, after the High Court rejected a legal challenge to the government’s offshore immigration detention regime clearing a path for 267 asylum seekers to be sent to Nauru.