This morning, five people from the Whistleblowers, Activists and Citizens Alliance (WACA) scaled the Sydney Opera House with banners saying "Evacuate Manus" and "Australia: World Leaders in Cruelty - #BringThemHere".
Their banners reference the Australian government earlier this week cutting all electricity, food and water to an offshore Immigration Detention Centre on Manus Island (and both legally and physically threatening those who try to deliver essential supplies and much-needed medical aid to the 600+ men still in the facility), in an attempt to move them to a different, demonstrably unsafe and underprepared centre in East Lorengau, under the jurisdiction of Papua New Guinea. This comes after keeping these men in deplorable conditions in the prison camps for four years.
Read more about the situation on Manus Island here.
A facebook statement from WACA concerning this morning's Sydney Opera House action:
BREAKING NEWS FROM SYDNEY:
We are here atop Sydney Opera House because Australia has become a world leader in cruelty, cruelty endorsed by both our Liberal and Labor governments. This is a humanitarian crisis. The Australian government has reached a new low by allowing the men on Manus to dehydrate and starve. We call on both Liberal and Labor to end offshore detention and bring the refugees here immediately.
SHARE WIDELY. SHARE NOW.
#WeAreWatching #Manus #BringThemHere #EvacuateManus
WACA is the same network that organised the disruption to Tuesday's Melbourne Cup Day celebrations in support of the Manus Island Refugees in the form of scaling a crane overlooking the famed races, and (safely) blocking train tracks to the event with an old car loaded with messages in support of the detainees. (Read about it here)
RELATED LINKS:
ABC Article about today's action: here
Breaking News as I write this post: the Asylum Seekers have been given a notice that they must leave the Detention Centre within the next two days or they will be "removed by force": here
Follow updates from a journalist living inside the camp: here
Donate to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, who are taking practical actions to help provide (among other things) medical and legal support to the men on Manus: here (And see regular twitter updates from ASRC’s CEO here)
Donate to the Legal Funds for the WACA folks arrested this week: here
Click through to photos for image descriptions
