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Geelong: Snap Action
31 October 2017 @ 4:30 pm - 5:30 pm
Award-winning Australian author Isobelle Carmody is calling on Australians to join her in a daily protest leading up to the closure of the Manus Island Detention Centre at the end of this month.
As of October 31st, the Australian Department of Immigration is cutting off food and water and dismantling fences surrounding the Manus Island Detention Centre, in an attempt to force refugees into the local community that does not want them, or to return to the deadly situations they fled in the first place.
The U.N. has warned of a looming humanitarian crisis due to Australia’s failure to provide appropriate and safe accommodation, basic welfare and support services as the centre closes.
Let us try to turn the eyes of the world onto the activities of the Australian government on Manus Island in the hope that they will release the refugees to New Zealand who have offered them refuge from our brutality. Better still, let us change our policies and bring them to Australia.
WHAT TO DO:
Make a sign that begins # I AM WATCHING. You could leave it at that or write under it something you know about refugees that opposes all the lies that have been told. Cite the source, if you can.
Sit with the sign in a public place for an hour. Better still if it is a significant public place. Don’t go in big groups. Go alone and sit quietly. Shout nothing. If others ask what you are doing, tell them and invite them to sit with you for whatever remains of the hour. Suggest that on the next day, they make a sign and do the same for an hour, when they can spare it, wherever they are. Sit in a different place every day so that no one can target you. It need not be outside. Sit in a mall. It is enough to sit with the sign propped beside you in a café and have a coffee. Wait at a bus or tram stop with it. sit on a seat in the street. It will be read and noted.
Get a picture every day of yourself and whoever joins you, if they agree to it being posted. Make sure to ask. Tweet the picture and please post it and any stories you have to tell about your sit in to Isabelle’s facebook page https://www.facebook.com/isobellec/posts/1
0154893842921700 She will accept all the photos and posts and bounce all trolls. The hashtag is # I am watching.
If you don’t feel you can make a sign or sit-in, please help by sharing as many photos of the sit ins as you can, with the Hashtags #IAmWatching #Manus #SOS
Help to flood the internet with our sit in for the next ten days. Help turn the eyes of the world on Manus Island as they close the camp and abandon these refugees our governments have used as pawns in their brutal political games. Help keep them visible.
This is not about politics or parties. This is not about which cause is better or more important or deserving. This is about standing for what is right.
Please share this and the hash tag with anyone who might care to help.
HELP US KEEP THEM VISIBLE
More information:
https://www.facebook.com/isobellec/posts/10154893842921700
The Facebook event page is here: