Nationwide marches call for halt to plans to deport 267 asylum seekers back to Nauru or Manus Island and for those there to be processed in Australia

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Thousands have rallied in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Darwin and Canberra as part of a national campaign calling for asylum seekers bound for offshore detention to be allowed to stay in Australia.

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Organisers say more than 50,000 people across Australia turned out for the national Welcome Refugee rallies on Palm Sunday, calling for compassionate treatment of asylum seekers.

Demonstrators reported a large turnout of more than 10,000 in Melbourne, where the rally was addressed by Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, Daniel Webb from the Human Rights Law Centre and former asylum seeker Nasir Yousafi from the Afghan Australian Association of Victoria among others.

Chris Breen from the Refugee Advocacy Network, an umbrella organisation of asylum seeker groups responsible for organising the Melbourne rally, said the speakers all called for an end to offshore processing.

He said the day’s message was: “We are determined and we are not going away.

“We are going to keep coming out until Manus and Nauru are shut. There has been a heartening response to the Let Them Stay campaign ... Public opinion is beginning to shift and we think we will get Manus and Nauru closed.”

Carrying “Free the refugees” placards and chanting “let them stay”, protesters gathered in Sydney’s Belmore Park before marching through the central business district.

Organisers are calling for 267 asylum seekers brought from Manus Island or Nauru to Australia for medical treatment to be allowed to stay.

Police, including officers on horseback, stood between the large crowd and a small but vocal group of anti-refugee protesters.

Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul said it had been 50 days since the Australian government revealed it would remove the asylum seekers, after a high court action to keep them in the country failed.

“I’m here to say very clearly to you and those people on Manus Island and Nauru, we have not forgotten any single man, woman and child on Manus Island and Nauru,” he told the crowd to loud applause.

“We will not rest until all of them are safe in Australia.”

Brisbane rally speaker comedian and ABC presenter Tom Ballard, who led the crowd in a chant of ‘We are better than this’. Photograph: Trina McLellan

In Brisbane, speakers including comedian and ABC presenter Tom Ballard and reverend Peter Catt, a key figure in the church sanctuary movement, addressed a rally of about 300 people.



Ballard in a popular address led the crowd in a chant: “We are better than this.”

Other speakers included John-Paul Sanggaran, a doctor who after working at Christmas Island detention centre with colleagues raised concerns about medical treatment and human rights breaches of asylum seekers.

The crowd, which included unions, church, Indigenous and refugee action groups,

than marched from Queens park on a circuit through the city centre.

Crowds also gathered in front of St George’s Cathedral in Perth on Sunday afternoon. The Perth event was organised by all church denominations, several church and Christian agencies as well as unions.

Rallies were also held in regional cities including Armidale and Lennox Head in New South Wales, Margaret River in Western Australia, Echuca in Victoria and Toowoomba in Queensland.

Australian Associated Press contributed to this report