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RAR's historic inaugural public meeting held on November 5th 2001 was a great success with over 400 people attending. The meeting followed several weeks of RAR "street work" with supporters manning information stalls in our local plaza, working hard to educate and inform our local community about the facts concerning asylum seekers. Fact sheets and our ten point plan were widely distributed and lively street discussion and education took place.
The November public meeting was a successful combination of facts on the situation of asylum seekers and refugees from Brigadier Adrian D'Hage and David Bitel, President of the Refugee Council of Australia, as well as personal experience from Ms Abeda Eqbal, an Afghan refugee and member of the Afghan Womens Association.
RAR co-convenor Susan Varga called on rural and regional people across Australia to work to change the existing inhumane system of processing requests for asylum in Australia and presented the core of RAR's ten point plan.
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A crowd of over 400 people gathered in the Bowral Memorial Hall. |
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Ms Abeda Eqbal, Dr Helen McCue, RAR co-convenor, and Brigadier Adrian D'Hage. |
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Ms Abeda Eqbal, an Afghan refugee and member of the Afghan Womens Association. |
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