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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Elle Hunt, Melissa Davey and Calla Wahlquist

Let Them Stay: protesters gather around Australia to prevent removal of asylum seekers – as it happened

Protests have been organised across Australia the day after the high court ruled the country’s role in offshore detention on Nauru was legal
Protests have been organised across Australia the day after the high court ruled the country’s role in offshore detention on Nauru was legal. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

Summary

As sit-in protesters outside Malcolm Turnbull’s Wentworth electorate office and at a major intersection in Melbourne’s CBD have settled for the evening so it’s time to wrap up our live coverage.

The protests in Perth are yet to come, scheduled for 6.30pm WST, or 9.30pm east-coast daylight savings time, at the Perth Immigration Residential Housing in Kanowna Avenue, East Redcliffe.

According to the Refugee Rights Action Network, Perth is currently home to a number of families who could be among those deported following the High Court decision, including a Syrian family with young children. All were brought to Perth for medical treatment. The protest will be held outside the front door of their detention centre.

In brief:

  • At least 5,000 people attended a #LetThemStay rally in Melbourne and staged a sit-in outside the Liberal Party headquarters at the corner of Collins and Exhibition Streets. Trades Hall followed the lead of many Australian churches and offered to open its doors as a refuge to refugees.
  • Hundreds more people attended rallies in Canberra, Adelaide, Bendigo and Newcastle. Several thousand attended a rally in Sydney at lunch time.
  • Malcolm Turnbull refused to directly answer when asked in Parliament whether he would let the 267 people directly affected by the High Court Decision, including 37 babies born in Australia, stay in the country.
  • Immigration minister Peter Dutton said the government wouldn’t “drag people from churches,” in response to a pledge from churches across the country to offer sanctuary to asylum seekers.
  • And a report by the Australian Human Rights Commission says that children who fear being returned to Nauru have attempted suicide in Australian detention centres.

There will be another rally outside the Department of Immigration in Brisbane at 12pm Friday and at Nightcliff Pool in Darwin at 5.30pm on Monday.

Canberra Refugee Rally Husnia Hushang from Afghanistan now studying in Canberra at a protest in support of refugees in Canberra this evening, Thursday 4th February 2016. Photograph by Mike Bowers
Canberra Refugee Rally
Husnia Hushang from Afghanistan now studying in Canberra at a protest in support of refugees in Canberra this evening, Thursday 4th February 2016. Photograph by Mike Bowers Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian

Husnia Hushang moved to Canberra on a student visa 3.5 years ago to do her masters at the Australian National University. The Afghan woman knows first hand why people choose to flee their home countries.

“Just last week, close to my home town, there was a suicide attack. Nine people died,” she said.

She talks of her family left behind in Afghanistan. Some are considering making the treacherous journey to Europe by boat.

“They say to me, if we go by boat it is one time that we face the risk of dying, but every day in Afghanistan we face danger.”

The opportunities to come to Australia the right way, through official channels, are few and far between, Hushang says.

She attended the Canberra rally out of compassion for the families, particularly the young children, who face the “prison-like” conditions of indefinite detention.

Updated

Paul Karp is still at the sit-in outside Malcolm Turnbull’s Wentworth office. He spoke to People Just Like Us co -chair Joyce Fu, who says the group will stay until Malcolm Turnbull makes an announcement that the 267 asylum seekers can stay. If and when he makes that announcement, the protest will finish. Until then they’ll stay put “as long as we can”.

Here’s Paul:

She’s counting on reinforcements from Love Makes a Way and Grandmas Against Children in Detention and church groups. But it’s pretty lonely on the wind swept corner of New South Head Road and Edgecliffe Road where numbers are down to half a dozen.

Earlier, he spoke to the group’s other co-chair, Fabina Claridge. She said:

Today we are here to have a vigil to protest to say “let them stay”: the children, families, brothers sons and husbands...even the single men are someone’s brothers and sons. They should be allowed to stay, they’ve suffered enough at out hands.

There have been protests today to keep pressure up on politicians. It’s a sad day not just for asylum seekers and freedom in Australia but our court system which has allowed children and vulnerable young people to be sent back to Nauru.

In another development from Melbourne, Luke Hilakari, the secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council, has announced that Trades Hall in Melbourne will open as a refuge for refugees.

Other union officials confirmed.

It’s not clear how this would work - unlike the churches that have pledged to open their doors, Trades Hall does not have a historic power of sanctuary. Even churches may legal protection to provide sanctuary in Australia - the law has never been tested - but the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, after reminding people of this fact, confirmed earlier today that the government would not be “dragging people from churches”.

In another quick reminder that the world is watching to see Australia’s response to this latest chapter in its rather awful treatment of asylum seekers, here is part of the statement Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, made after the High Court handed down its decision yesterday.

Central to the decision was a retrospective amendment to the Migration Act which was passed by the Australian Parliament shortly after the case was initiated and which validated the offshore processing of asylum seekers. We are concerned that this amendment, as well as broader aspects of Australia’s policy on the treatment of migrants and asylum seekers arriving without prior authorisation, significantly contravenes the letter and spirit of international human rights law.

Another reminder: the group in question, 267 people, includes 37 children born in Australia and more than 12 women and at least one child, a five-year-old boy, who have allegedly been raped on Nauru.

Colville again:

We believe that transferring these 267 individuals to Nauru could further damage their physical and mental health, and would put Australia at risk of breaching its obligation not to return any person to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under the Convention against Torture. Moreover, sending these children to Nauru could contravene Australia’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. We remind Australia that children, regardless of their legal status, have the right to be treated as children first and foremost, and urge Australia to ensure that the principle of the best interests of the child takes precedence over migration management or administrative considerations.

(...)

We therefore urge the Australian Government to refrain from transferring all concerned individuals to Nauru.

Updated

Getting reports that the rally in Melbourne, which began at the State Library on Swanston Street, has stopped trams and became a sit-in.

According to comedian and trainee human rights lawyer Corrine Grant the sit-in has taken over the corner of Bourke and Exhibition Streets, near the Liberal Party headquarters. She reports that “thousands of people” are still arriving and joining in.

Pakistani-born NSW Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi spoke to Guardian Australia outside electoral office:

People are here today to give a loud and clear message to Malcolm Turnbull that if he has any vestige of decency and compassion in him he must rule out sending people - women, men, children, babies - back to the prison jails of Nauru.

It was incredible to see hundreds of people from all walks of life gathered today. According to international law Australia must provide safety for asylum seekers. But what the Lib-Nat govt and ALP have done is condemn asylum seekers to a life of persecution in the countries they are fleeing or the horror and abuse in offshore detention centres. What the community said today is they will not back down they will not rest until Australia changes its laws from the cruel and inhumane to one’s that provide safety for refugees.

My colleague, Paul Karp, is at a sit-in (well, stand-in, currently) outside the prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s Wentworth electorate office in Sydney.

Co-ordinated by group People Just Like Us, the protesters plan to stay put until Turnbull confirm the 267 people currently forcing deportation can stay in Australia. This is from co-convener Joyce Fu:

We invite you all to come, stay, and keep coming until our demand is met. Come with your placards and banners. Bring food, water, wet-weather gear, tents, and sleeping bags. Be prepared to stick around.

You can follow along or offer support here.

Hello, Calla Wahlquist here taking over from Elle Hunt. I’m on the lawn next to the Melbourne #LetThemStay rally at the State Library of Victoria and it is LOUD. More than 5,000 people chanting “Let them stay” will do that.

Do send me your stories from rallies around Australia on twitter @callapilla.

While the Melbourne crowd is enormous, there are smaller rallies taking place in Adelaide, Bendigo, and Newcastle at the same time.

In Adelaide, where Reverend Sandy Boyce, Deacon of Pilgrim Uniting Church, told the Adelaide Advertiser she was prepared to be jailed to provide sanctuary for refugees who faced being sent back to Nauru, several hundred people have gathered on the steps of Parliament house. A second rally is planned for Rundle Mall at 4pm Friday.

Bendigo and Newcastle both have slightly smaller crowds, but then they are slightly smaller cities. Protesters in Newcastle braved the rain to protest the possible deportation of 37 babies and their families, while protesters lined Bendigo’s Rosalind Park.

Victoria Jack, whose tweet we included above, spoke to the Newcastle Herald ahead of this afternoon’s rally:

“When it comes to kids, people are united. There’s momentum building.

“Unfortunately, [offshore processing] seems to be one of the reasons the government was elected. And I think that gives it strength, that bipartisanship.”

You can read that full story here.

While the Melbourne crowd protesting deportation of asylum seekers is in the thousands, the turn-out in Canberra has fairly quickly swelled to 300, according to my colleague Shalailah Medhora – about the same size as that which marched in Sydney after noon.

I am handing over the live blog to my colleague in Melbourne, Calla Wahlquist, who tweets at @callapilla, if you’d like to share with her your experiences of the protests this evening.

Thanks for following along during the day. We’ll have more coverage of the high court’s ruling and the reaction to it on Guardian Australia in the coming days – and, doubtless, weeks.

Andrew Baker holds a picture of daughter instead of a protest sign.

“She is six. I don’t think any children should be in detention,” he said.

“The past three years she has helped wrap presents for children in detention. It just makes me so sad that there are children just like her in detention.”

Brittany Attard is at the protest by accident - she arrived at the State Library in Melbourne for a quiet afternoon reading her book, saw the gathering crowd, and got swept up.

“Someone handed me a sign and I am holding it proudly,” she said.

Margot Williams, Kristy Anderson and Trish Phillips are old hands at campaigning for the humane treatment of Australian refugees. All three work with the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Melbourne, and described Turnbull’s response to the issue as “shameful”.

“Malcolm Turnbull says that we have to keep our borders safe from 37 little babies - it’s just a disgrace.”

Brenna Thompson’s son Joel is friends with children who face being returned to Nauru following Wednesday’s high court decision. The pair visit families at the Broadmeadows detention centre in Melbourne’s outer suburbs. Joel is only 19 months old, but Thompson says he knows what’s going on.

“Just after we leave often he turns to me and tells me the names of the children and even the adult, and he says ‘sad’. He picks up on what’s going on there,” she said.

“It’s absolutely devastating. I have sat with these parents and discussed those normal parenting issues - not being able to get babies to sleep, feeding issues. You speak to them and they are human, they are not a political issue, they are not invaders, they are well-educated, beautiful people.

“We leave them and we look at them through the little glass panel on the door and the kids smile and wave and the parents stand there and cry. You just want to bring them with you.

“It’s not a political issue, they are our friends. It’s heartbreaking to think that they could be sent back.

Thompson’s husband, James, summarised it thus: “It’s fucked.”

“One of the babies that might be sent back, I have fed him,” he said. “I have given him his bottle. It’s just fucked.”

Updated

My colleague Calla Wahlquist at the protest in Melbourne. She estimates that there’s at least 3000 people there – a significant increase on the number that made it out in Sydney, though to be fair that was in the middle of the day and worse weather – so many that she can’t see the speakers.

There’s also a fairly significant police presence, with more than 20 officers on foot plus eight mounted.

She’s spoken to some protesters about what’s brought them out this afternoon.

Purple-clad Berris Falla, Christine Moffat and Dorothy Page were at the epicentre of a gaggle of similarly dressed grandparents representing Grandmothers Against The Detention of Refugee Children. All joined the organisation about 12 months ago in response to reports from Nauru.

“The average temperature on Nauru is 46 degrees - no children should be forced to live there,” Page said.

“It was a legal decision by the High Court, but Malcolm Turnbull has a moral decision not a legal decision to make.”

Moffatt appealed to the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to think of his own grandchild Jack when deciding whether to return 37 babies born in Australia to offshore detention camps.

“Previously, Malcolm Turnbull has said one child in detention was one child too many. If he is true to his word he has to let them out,” she said. “He was happy to have his grandchild in the paper on the day he was elected. How would he feel to see his grandchild in detention?”

Updated

More than 50 agencies and individuals from the child and family welfare sector in Victoria have released an open letter calling on the government “to end the indefinite detention of babies, children and their families who are seeking asylum in our country – and, as a matter of urgency, halt the transfer of families to Nauru”:

“The sector stands united against this policy, which causes untold harm to children and young people and is a clear breach of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Australia is a signatory.

“We urge Prime Minister Turnbull to show compassion by releasing children and their families into the Australian community, where they can live freely and safely, while their claim for protection is considered.”

What does the high court’s ruling mean? My colleague Ben Doherty published this analysis yesterday:

High court decisions are not football matches: it’s not always clear who has won and by how much.

The full bench’s decision in M68 does uphold the government’s right to send asylum seekers to foreign countries to be detained. The court found the action is lawful under the constitution and empowered by the extraordinary breadth of a newly inserted provision in the Migration Act.

But the court’s decision is no blank cheque. All seven judges explicitly ruled that the commonwealth can’t simply detain people offshore for as long as it likes.

Nor can it ask a foreign government to incarcerate people indefinitely on its behalf.

Read more here.

Protests get underway in Melbourne, Newcastle, Canberra, Adelaide, Bendigo

The next wave of Let Them Stay protests is underway after Sydney led the charge earlier this afternoon. There’s a big crowd of as many as 2000 people already assembled in Melbourne.

My colleague Shalailah Medhora in Canberra reports that “around 80 people with more trickling in” are at the rally there.

Sarah Hanson-Young, the Greens Senator for South Australia, has tweeted about her visit to Nauru.

But the government of Nauru has hit back at Hanson-Young and others’ “dishonest” and “outrageous” claims asylum seeker children are being abused on the island.

AAP reports that justice minister David Adeang said refugee families were safe and treated with great respect and claims otherwise were an insult to every Nauruan citizen.

“For Senator Hanson-Young and the Anglican Dean of Brisbane to refer to refugee children living in Nauru as child-abuse is dishonest, unconscionable and outrageous,” he said in a statement on Thursday.

Free the Children Nauru

Refugee and asylum seeker children on Nauru have released a video via their Facebook page showcasing what they believe are ‘the better parts of the Nauru camp’ where they live in Australian-run offshore detention.

Father Chris Bedding, the Rector of Darlington-Bellevue, a parish in the hills east of Perth (and “also an actor, comedian and activist”), has posted this image to social media showing his support of sanctuary.

“Churches have an ancient tradition of offering ‪#‎Sanctuary‬ to those in desperate need. If vulnerable people are to be sent to Nauru, where they will be denied medical care, exposed to abuse and deprived of any hope, we stand ready to protect them,” he wrote on Facebook.

Earlier, he had described the high court decision as a “bitter disappointment” on his page.

“So many of us were hoping for a decision that began the end of offshore detention centres. Instead, the the legality of the practice has been endorsed by the court, and plans are now being made to send 267 people, including 37 babies, to Nauru. They are being sent back to the place where they have experienced physical, mental and sexual abuse. The place where they have been denied medical care and education. The place which holds no hope for a safe future.

“I have committed to get in the way to ‪#‎LetThemStay‬. Along with the ‪#‎LoveMakesAWay‬ movement, I am willing to take action to protect these people from harm’s way.”

Albury priest Father Peter MacLeod-Miller is another offering asylum seekers sanctuary in his church, the Border Mail has reported.

“It means if a refugee or if people were going to be removed by the government they could be hidden in churches and we would secure their welfare,” Father MacLeod-Miller said.

“They would be places of welcome when the government decides they are unwelcome. It’s a bit like the sort of thing that people did in Germany with the Jews when the Nazis were around..

“In practice it works to welcome people who are vulnerable from the government and prejudice.”

But a Queensland lawyer has poured scepticism on churches’ offer, telling AAP that it is a noble stand but it won’t work.

Bill Potts, the president of the Queensland Law Society, says there is no modern power of sanctuary in Australian law and having one law for all, including religious leaders, is a fundamental part of democracy.

“If the churches could overrule the decision of the courts by granting sanctuary, then pretty soon all of our churches would be more overcrowded than our jails,” Potts said.

He said the high court had spoken on the issue of offshore processing and the powers of the state would always trump the powers of the church.
“Our religious leaders are making a noble stand. However, they are misguided if they believe it will work,” he said.

His sentiments were largely echoed by Australian Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs, who praised the “symbolic gesture” but agreed it lacked practical enforceability.

She said it was unlikely desperate asylum seekers could get to churches offering sanctuary given many were behind “14-foot razor wire” in detention.

She said those in the community on bridging visas were probably not vulnerable to being returned – unless they committed a criminal offence.

But Triggs conceded the emblematic value of the sanctuary concept could pay off in the long run. “It does give publicity to the issue and it crystallises in a very dramatic way the general community’s concern,” she said. “I think it’s a rather inspiring idea.”

Protests in Newcastle, Canberra, Melbourne, Bendigo and Adelaide will get underway in the next hour.

There’s also a vigil outside the prime minister’s office scheduled from 5.30pm – “RAIN OR SHINE!” according to the invite:

We invite you all to come, stay, and keep coming until our demand is met. Come with your placards and banners. Bring food, water, wet-weather gear, tents, and sleeping bags. Be prepared to stick around.

My colleagues around the country will be heading along to many of the events, but if you’re there, share your experiences and pictures with me on Twitter at @mlle_elle.

Australia’s international aid community has released a joint statement in support of Anglican churches’ offer of sanctuary to asylum seekers at risk of being deported to Nauru.

ACOSS, Australian Council for International Development, Anglicare Australia, Catholic Social Services, Mission Australia, Oxfam Australia, St Vincent de Paul Society, Save the Children and World Vision – all the big names – have come together to urge the government to allow the 267 people to remain in Australia.

Marc Purcell, chief executive, ACFID

“The high court may have ruled against the challenge to the legality of our offshore detention centres, but what’s at stake here is the safety and wellbeing of traumatised and vulnerable people, including 37 babies and 54 children. This goes beyond technical legalities, it’s about our humanity, our morals and values, our human rights obligations and what’s the right humanitarian thing to do”

Cassandra Goldie, chief executive, ACOSS

“We are a wealthy nation made up of people who have been welcomed from all around the world. It is certainly within our capacity and our moral duty to provide these people sanctuary.
“We remain opposed to offshore processing, and urge the federal government to immediately move to process the outstanding applications of asylum seekers and provide safe haven here in Australia. Our services are offered to provide assistance to the families and their children to enable them stay in Australia, out of harm’s way.

“Australia’s churches, community sector and broader civil society are ready and able to welcome and ensure the proper care and protection of this small group of people and children. We have housing, community, employment and faith networks that will ensure people seeking asylum in Australia are safe and integrate successfully into the Australian community. We call on the government to work with us to ensure Australia fulfils its humanitarian obligations.”

The UN refugee agency has already warned Australia to consider the best interests of children following yesterday’s high court ruling.

“This decision by the high court greatly concerns us as these children and their families face a great risk in being sent to a place that cannot be considered safe nor adequate,” said a UN spokesman, Benyam Mezmur.

Byron Shire has today adopted the No Business In Abuse pledge, a joint campaign with GetUp that means that it will now refuse to do business with companies such as Broadspectrum (formerly Transfield) and Wilson Security that profit from offshore detention centres.

Organiser Brynn O’Brien spoke at a meeting of the Byron Shire Council earlier today in support of the pledge.

“I am standing here as a lawyer, having worked on these issues for more than a decade, and I am telling you: the law of this country is not just. It brutalises rather than protects the vulnerable. ...

“The companies doing offshore detention work are not mere foot-soldiers ‘implementing government policy’ – they are mercenaries profiting from it. And that justifies the community turning to them and saying, if you profit from abuse, you don’t profit from us.

“This motion is not merely symbolic, it is not grandstanding. This motion is a piece of a large puzzle of principled and sophisticated resistance.”

The pledge was adopted by the City of Sydney in December last year with 330 signatures in favour. The Byron Shire Council did so with more than 800.

“So many people are crying it is as if it were a funeral” – an asylum seeker responds to news of the high court’s ruling:

An asylum seeker brought to Australia after an alleged rape on Nauru says she collapsed in tears, and her son threatened suicide, when they were told of the high court’s decision affirming the government’s right to send them back to the Pacific island.

Speaking via an interpreter from an Australian mainland detention centre, Durga* said she and her son were terrified at the prospect of being returned to the island where they had spent five months in detention.

A high court judgment on Wednesday affirmed the power of the Australian government to establish, fund and control detention centres in foreign countries.

The decision most directly impacts 267 asylum seekers – including 37 babies born in Australia to asylum seeker mothers – who were party to the court case and can now be removed to Nauru on 72 hours’ notice. Durga and her son are two of those.

“An immigration officer took me into an office to tell me about the high court decision,” Durga said. “Straight away, I am very fearful, very scared. I started crying and asking what they will do to me.”

News of the court’s ruling spread quickly through the detention centre.

“Everywhere here is chaos. I saw one woman fainting when she was told the news. So many people are crying it is as if it were a funeral. We feel like Nauru is the end of our life.”

Read more.

Photos from the Let Them Stay protest in Sydney earlier this afternoon.

Hundreds of protesters hold a rally outside the Department of Immigration offices in Sydney, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016. The protesters are calling on the Federal Government not to send children of asylum seekers back to the Nauru detention centre following yesterdays High Court decision. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins) NO ARCHIVING
Hundreds of protesters hold a rally outside the Department of Immigration offices in Sydney, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016. The protesters are calling on the Federal Government not to send children of asylum seekers back to the Nauru detention centre following yesterdays High Court decision. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins) NO ARCHIVING
Hundreds of protesters hold a rally outside the Department of Immigration offices in Sydney, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016. The protesters are calling on the Federal Government not to send children of asylum seekers back to the Nauru detention centre following yesterdays High Court decision. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins) NO ARCHIVING

My colleague Ben Doherty has written up some of the findings of the latest Australian Human Rights Commission report into the impact of detention on children’s wellbeing – and it makes for grim reading:

A seven-year-old girl attempted suicide by cutting her face and chest with razor blades, children have jumped from buildings in attempts to kill themselves, and a two-year-old boy on Nauru played with cockroaches because “he has no other toys”, a report from the Australian Human Rights Commission says.

A series of interviews conducted by paediatricians with asylum seekers inside Wickham Point and Christmas Island detention centres paints a bleak picture of mental trauma suffered by children in detention, and an overwhelming fear of being returned to Nauru.

She has no friends. She cries all the time and says I want to go from here. She has cut herself with a razor on her chin, face, chest. She eats poorly, has daily headache and tummy pain and poor weight gain. Every night she wakes up and screams that someone is coming to take her back to Nauru. (Mother of girl, aged 7)

Two of her friends jumped off the building and got broken hips and legs. They were sent to the community. She is talking about doing the same thing. She has been seen (by a counsellor in Darwin) and mental health here but says ‘talking to them doesn’t change anything for me.’ She has no medication, no psychiatrist. (Mother of girl, aged 15)

When interviewed independently the girl reported: “I am at the end of the line. I’m really negative. I’m at the end. I feel maybe I should kill myself to end it all.” (Girl, aged 15)

My child was playing with cockroaches – he had no other toys. (Father of boy, aged 2)

Read more here.

• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here

Drawings by some of the children in Australia’s immigration detention centres include tearful self-portraits and depict longing for absent parents and pleas for help.

Dr Karen Zwi, a paediatrician who has spoken out on the children’s behalf despite running the risk of jail time, says: “These kids feel to me like they’ve been through a mincing machine – they’ve had one traumatic event after another. I sometimes feel they are broken into little bits and it’s really hard to put the pieces back together again.”

Vision: ABC 7.30

Turnbull side-steps question of deportation in question time

Greens MP Adam Bandt has asked Malcolm Turnbull in question time to confirm that none of the 267 asylum seekers currently awaiting deportation will be sent back to Nauru.
The prime minister side-stepped the question, instead accusing the Greens of painting themselves as having the monopoly on empathy and morality.
“One child in detention is one child too many,” Turnbull said. “Every single one of us is anguished by the prospect, by the reality, of children in detention.”

Latest summary

  • About 267 asylum seekers, including more than 30 babies, are still at risk of being deported to Nauru from Australia after the high court ruled on Wednesday that offshore detention processing was legal
  • The judgement affirmed the power of the Australian government to establish, fund, and control detention centres in foreign countries
  • Up to 400 protesters marched around the Lee St square to the Department of Immigration offices in Sydney, where they were met by a police line; the demonstration remained peaceful
  • Among those to address the crowd were NSW Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi, former detainee Mohsen Soltani, Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul, Julie Macken of Women Supporting Women on Nauru, Ken Canning of the Indigenous Social Justice Association, Margaret Mayman of the Pitt St Uniting Church, and Gaby Judd of Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children
  • About 100 people took part in a demonstration outside the Leura Mall in the Blue Mountains that coincided with the Sydney protest
  • The next protests will be held later today in Newcastle, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth, Bendingo and Adelaide
  • Demonstrations will take place in Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart and Launceston tomorrow afternoon
  • There will also be protests in Darwin and on the Central Coast on Monday
  • Immigration minister Peter Dutton has warned the Anglican churches and cathedrals offering asylum seekers sanctuary that they are expected to comply with the law
  • Dutton later clarified to Sky News that it was not his intention to drag any asylum seekers out of churches
  • Professor Gillian Triggs of the Australian Human Rights Commission earlier today released a new report on the impacts of detention on children, and recommended that no child detained on the mainland be sent to Nauru

My colleague Paul Karp spoke to registered nurse Ingrid Potgieter and Labor for Refugees member Jenny Haines at the Sydney protest.

Ingrid: It’s important to stand up for what’s right. People think they can’t do anything but there is strength in numbers. My family came from South Africa to New Zealand so I have an affinity for less fortunate people fleeing difficult things.

Jenny: I came because the high court has made a legal decision but there is a moral decision still to be made to close the camps. We can’t keep persecuting people like this, sending back vulnerable children to detention.

We need to keep the pressure on Turnbull. He has expressed sympathy in the past. I know he’s hidebound to the right faction but he should tell them to go jump.

Ingrid: The opposition are also complicit.

Jenny: Yes, the ALP federal caucus majority need to separate themselves from the Liberals and return to a Labor policy of fairness for all.

More than 100 people took part in the rally in the Blue Mountains this afternoon, a Twitter correspondent tells me, despite it being a “cold and rainy day”. The protest began at 12.30pm outside Leura Mall.

Peter Dutton: we won't drag people from churches

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton insists the federal government won’t be dragging asylum seekers out of churches to cart them back to Nauru, AAP reports.

Up to 10 Anglican churches around Australia are offering sanctuary to the people at risk of being returned to the Pacific island nation in the wake of a failed High Court challenge.

The offer is being led by the Anglican Dean of Brisbane Peter Catt, who has declared St John’s Anglican Cathedral a sanctuary for those who’ve suffered trauma and risk abuse if returned to Nauru.

Asked about the prospect of people being dragged out of churches Dutton told Sky News: “No we’re not doing that.”

Instead their cases will be individually considered on medical advice.

Dutton said the bulk of the group were people who were accompanying ill family members.

Once medical assistance was completed the government would be looking to send people back to Nauru or to their country of origin with financial assistance.

Dutton reiterated his intention not to put any child in harm’s way.

“We have to be compassionate on one hand but we have to be realistic about the threat from people smugglers.

“We’re acting in the best interests not only for these children but children that would follow them.”

Sanctuary is a religious concept similar to asylum and dates back to the Old Testament.

Churches have traditionally been considered places of refuge for people seeking protection.

The legality of sanctuary has never been tested under Australian law.

Australian Anglican churches offering sanctuary to asylum seekers

  • St John’s Anglican Cathedral, Brisbane
  • St Cuthbert’s Anglican Church, Darlington, WA
  • Perth Wesley Uniting Church
  • Gosford Anglican Church, Sydney
  • Pilgrim Uniting Church, Adelaide
  • St John’s Uniting Church Essendon
  • Paddington Anglican Church, Sydney
  • Pitt Street Uniting Church, Sydney
  • Wayside Chapel, Sydney

The crowd in Sydney is starting to disperse, though there are apparently plans for a vigil on Monday.

From the Refugee Rights Action Network of Western Australia, here’s that list of protests across Australia planned for the coming days – if you know of anymore, feel free to let me know on Twitter at @mlle_elle.

Duc Tong is the Christian Church minister of a Vietnamese congregation in Chester Hill. My colleague Paul Karp spoke to him at the protest outside the Department of Immigration offices.

I am a refugee. I arrived in 1978. Australia was very generous under Malcolm Fraser, he opened the door very wide to accept Vietnamese and South-East Asian refugees. We believed Australia was very generous, compassionate and kind because it took so many people after WWII.

Now the policy has changed and it is very sad to see things go that way. Labor and Liberal follow the policy of closing the borders and stopping boat people. They started to treat refugees like criminals and put them in places like concentration camps.

Much of the discussion of the 267 asylum seekers who risk being sent back to Nauru has focused on the children among them: 37 babies, many of whom were born in Australia, and one five-year-old.

The advocacy group GetUp has shared some of their stories in the introduction to their “let them stay” petition (names have been changed).

Arman, Nousha, and baby Jasmine

“My wife painted beautiful artworks, our home in Iran was covered in them. She also loved to play the sitar, but we had to leave this all behind in Iran. It feels like our family is melting away.

“We have a little baby daughter. I’m so proud of her, but I’m constantly worrying about what the future holds for her. My wife is sad and crying all the time, and I think my baby feels her sadness.

“I just want a good life for my family. I want to be able to take care of my wife and make her feel better.”

Navid, Parvaneh, and baby Darien

“It was love at first sight for my wife and I, she’s always been there to support me. Life was good in Iran, but this changed when I converted to Christianity. I was arrested and imprisoned for seven days because of my faith.

“It took us five days to reach Australia by boat from Indonesia. I was terrified, but it was better than the certain death that awaits me in Iran. Now my wife is so depressed, I just want her and my son to be free. I could bear being in detention if I knew they were free.”

Matthew, Naomi, and baby Samuel

“Thirteen years ago I met the love of my life, he was a bodybuilder at the time and I was studying. We started out as friends, but then friendship grew into love, and seven years later we were engaged. We had a huge wedding with 700 of our friends and family.

Life was good, we had a home that was full of love and laughter. One day my husband brought home a sick puppy he found. The puppy cried all night, so I slept next to it. My husband ended up taking the puppy to the vet, but sadly it died. He didn’t have the heart to tell me at first. Now I want a dog so my son will have someone to play with and protect him, dogs are good like that.”

The below from Tom Clarke, director of communications at the Human Rights Law Centre:

Mohsen Soltani, an Iranian refugee and former Villawood detainee, spent four years in detention. “I have witnessed how the kids are going to be affected. They desperately need hope. But the bloody parties use them for their own propaganda. It’s a tragedy for Australia, it’s totally shameful. ...

“The important thing is we’re not going to give up,” he says.

The crowd has marched around the square at Lee Street to the Department of Immigration’s offices – the entrance barred off by a police line. The MC has told the hundreds of gathered protesters that when the media, unions, churches and members of the community say to let asylum seekers stay in Australia, “Malcolm Turnbull has to hear”.

Ken Canning of the Indigenous Social Justice Association has told protesters gathered in Sydney that it’s “cowardice to pick on the most vulnerable”.

And now it’s the turn of Julie Mackin from Women Supporting Women in Detention (see the helpful clarification from Paul in his picture caption). “I don’t believe people would send refugees back to their rapists if they knew they had been raped and bashed,” she says – the movement for refugees’ rights is large and won’t be silenced.

Updated

Now Gaby Judd of Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children is addressing the Sydney crowd.

Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children was founded in Melbourne in late 2014, after a group of friends met to share their concerns about asylum seeker children being held in offshore detention centres.

Most of the group’s members have been educators in early childhood development in Victorian universities. All are grandmothers, and describe themselves as “deeply distressed” by reports – such as the one Professor Gillian Triggs at the Australian Human Rights Commission released today – that show the effects of being held in detention on children’s emotional, social and physical development.

Grandmothers ADRC are planning a trip to Canberra in March to lobby the federal government in person to “free the children and their families from detention”.

Updated

My colleague Paul Karp has spoken to Denise Wilton, former mayor of Mosman, at the Sydney demonstration. She’s pictured here with fellow protestors Marty Morrison and Terry Cutcliffe.

“I’m here because I am appalled that people escaping persecution are being incarcerated in places like Nauru and Manus that are ill equipped to deal w them. I feel a deep shame at the treatment of refugees.”

GetUp’s campaigns director Sally Rugg, at the protest on Lee St, tweeted that she called the Prime Minister’s office so that Malcolm Turnbull “could hear the chants of ‘let them stay’ from the rally down the phone”.

NSW Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi is shown speaking in the shot above. The Refugee Action Coalition reports that she says Turnbull must rule out sending asylum seekers back to “offshore jails”.

More scenes from the Sydney protest.

First protests kick off in Sydney

My colleague Paul Karp is outside the Department of Immigration on Lee St in central Sydney, where “a few hundred” protesters have gathered already. Their numbers are growing quite quickly, he tells me, and chants of “Let the children stay” and “let them stay” have begun.

Paul’s spoken to a couple of protestors about what’s brought them out into the drizzly afternoon.

I don’t believe children and families should be in detention, nor should there be any offshore detention. The conditions at Nauru and Manus are not at all transparent. We need a whole change in how we treat asylum seekers, like Germany where people are flown in. Instead we have closed doors.

I decided to come after yesterday’s high court decision. I’ve been involved in passive protest such as sharing on social media, but felt that was preaching to people who already had the same stance, so came down to have my voice heard and be seen.

The audacity of the government and high court to declare offshore detention legal, despite breaches of international human rights law, is despicable. I don’t think the majority of people believe it is right.

Updated

Thanks for all of your photos and comments, you can continue to tweet them to my colleague Elle Hunt, who is about to take over this blog again from Sydney where the first of the demonstrations are about to kick off.

I’ll leave you with a story from the Armidale Express, about a snap protest being planned for the regional NSW town.

Melissa Davey signing off for now.

At 12.30pm the first of the demonstrations, in Sydney and the Blue Mountains, will begin.

Updated

According to the Refugee Rights Action Network, among the families detained in Perth directly affected by the High Court decision are a Syrian family with a young baby, and several married couples;

All were brought to Australia from detention on Nauru in order to receive medical treatment and are currently being held in detention centres here in Perth.

Supporters of these people’s right to remain in Australia will be holding a vigil outside one of the facilities where they remain detained awaiting direct news of their fate.

Refugee supporters are in contact with these families and can confirm they are distressed and frightened over the fate that awaits them but grateful for the show of public support evident from the response to the government announcement of its intentions.

We are calling upon the Turnbull government and Mr Dutton to recognise the vulnerability of these families and refrain from returning them to the damaging conditions on Nauru. We further call upon the government to release them into the community and process their refugee claims here in Australia.

Refugee Rights Action Network representatives and supporters will gather outside Perth Immigration Residential Housing from 6:30 pm.

People are using the hashtag #LetThemStay on Twitter to share their reaction to the High Court decision, and it has been trending for the past few hours.

As well as the various protests occurring around the country, people have begun gathering at churches with placards. As we mentioned earlier, churches and cathedrals in Australia are offering sanctuary to asylum seekers who have suffered trauma and abuse to prevent their return to Nauru. Story by Paul Farrell here.

Meanwhile, here’s some more detail on the Newcastle protest courtesy of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre. The Centre is tweeting details of all the protests around the country, so follow them for updates about action that might be happening near you.

Updated

The deputy leader of the Nationals, Barnaby Joyce, has been asked for his views about churches offering sanctuary to asylum seekers.

He acknowledges the goodwill of the leaders who have taken the stand, but defends the “moral point” of the government’s policy to deter boat arrivals;

Well, you know, they’re following their heart and following their views but they’ve also got to follow the laws of the land and I hear what they say, can I suggest that if we are to go back to the former policy then the fruits of their endeavours will be ashes in their mouth because we will go back to people drowning and I don’t think anybody wants that.

Nobody really wants to revel in being tough, no-one wants to make it their badge of honour that they have to be hard on this policy issue, but no-one should delude themselves that the alternative to the policy, which I think now is adopted by the Labor party as well, is that people will swindle other people, vulnerable people, out of money, they will put them on boats they really don’t care about and an indeterminate number of people will drown. Mums, kids, other people.

What is the moral point of that? What is the moral point of us putting someone in a position where the consequences of our lax policy are the death of we don’t know, possibly thousands, on our watch? We had to stop that. We did stop that.

The minister for immigration and border protection, Peter Dutton, issued a media release an hour or so ago. The gist of it is that the government believes tough border protection measures stop people smuggling and “ensure the sovereignty of Australia’s borders remain in full force”. Here are some direct quotes from the minister;

Australia has removed more than 20 boats from our waters over the past two years and our policy to turn back people smuggling boats to their country of departure will continue.

The Government also remains committed to regional processing which, beyond our comprehensive on-water measures, provides a further deterrent to people who might otherwise attempt to travel illegally by boat to Australia.

My message is that there are only two outcomes for people who travel illegally by boat to Australia: they will be intercepted and turned back from Australian waters or they will be sent to another country for processing.

Processing and resettlement in Australia will never be an option and there are no exceptions; these rules apply to everyone.

People who seek to use a people smuggler to get to Australia risk losing everything, including their lives and the lives of family members.

Some further points from the Australian Human Rights Commission;

The human rights commission has written to the government highlighting 50 ‘cases of concern’ of children in detention. These are the most seriously traumatised children in the detention system. The government, the AHRC says, has committed to responding individually to these cases.

The immigration minister Peter Dutton has said in several interviews each case for removal to Nauru would be assessed individually, and committed “we will not be sending people back to harm”.

Professor Gillian Triggs said she welcomed the commitment individual assessment, rather than a “blanket approach”.

“You would have thought, on any rational analysis, and in light of the medical evidence, that you would have to conclude that the best interests of every one of those children is to remain in Australia.”

Melissa Davey with you from Melbourne - if you are attending one of the protests today you can tweet your photos and comments to me @MelissaLDavey.

In the meantime, here’s Guardian Australia’s immigration reporter, Ben Doherty, with some more from Professor Elizabeth Elliott and Dr Hasantha Gunasekera;

Paediatricians, Drs Elliot and Gunasekera, said the mental health of children was further damaged by being cared for by traumatised parents.

“It’s effectively neglect when you have a very depressed mother who can’t engage and bond with her baby. That baby may well suffer developmentally, fail to develop speech, fail to develop physically, and, in fact, fail to thrive, despite an adequate diet, because of that emotional deprivation,” Dr Elliot said.

On Christmas Island, there were 15 women with babies under a year old who had attempted suicide and were on 24-hour suicide watch.

“Many of them just couldn’t engage with their babies.”

Dr Gunasekera said babies born in detention - who knew no life other than detention - were being traumatised by their parents’ depression and ill-health.

“Many of them have lived their entire lives behind these fences, in some cases electrified fences which is just horrific.”

Updated

Rod Bower, Anglican priest and Archdeacon of the Central Coast’s Gosford Anglican Church, has likened the federal government’s treatment of asylum seekers to Nazi Germany.

The Gosford Anglican Church is one of the several across Australia offering sanctuary to asylum seekers at risk of deportation, despite warnings from Immigration Minister Peter Dutton.

With the first of the nationwide protests starting in an hour’s time, I’m handing over coverage to my colleague in Melbourne, Melissa Davey.

Immigration minister Peter Dutton has warned the churches and cathedrals offering sanctuary to the asylum seekers at risk of being deported to Nauru that the government expects them to obey the law.

The Australian has reported Dutton’s interview on Sydney’s 2GB radio:

“Churches provide a lot of assistance to refugees and they feel very strongly about these issues, I understand that. In the end people have to abide by Australian law, no matter who you are.

“We’ll deal with issues compassionately and sensibly, but there were 1200 people who drowned at sea trying to get to Australia including women and children, and there were 8000 children in detention when Labor was in power, and I’ve reduced that number down to 80.

“I want to be the minister that gets kids out of detention and keeps boats stopped at the same time.”

The Anglican Dean of Brisbane, Peter Catt, told the Australian said the church and cathedrals’ offer to shield asylum-seekers under the ancient Christian tradition is “an extraordinary step ... that will attract the ­attention of church communities around the world”.

Shen Narayanasamy, human rights director of the advocacy organisation GetUp, has publicly praised the religious groups’ move.

“Today we welcome the strong leadership of the churches in what is now a massive campaign of civil disobedience.

“The least these people deserve is our protection, where the government will not provide that, the churches have stepped in.

“The Prime Minister will need to push past church leaders and tear down the doors of the church to get to asylum seekers. What does he plan to do now?

“The churches’ stand shows Australians will not stand back and let this abuse continue.”

GetUp’s petition calling on Dutton to let the 267 asylum seekers stay has had more than 50,000 signatures in fewer than 48 hours.

Professor Gillian Triggs, the president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, is this morning presenting a new report that reveals the impacts of detention on children, informed by interviews and medical testing of children at the Wickham Point detention facility. Many of the children had spent time in Nauru.

Introducing the report at a media briefing in Sydney earlier this morning, Triggs spoke of the “disturbing” findings of the earlier Forgotten Children report:

This Report examined the impact of prolonged mandatory, indefinite immigration detention on the mental and physical heath of children. The findings were disturbing. In short, detention, whether on Christmas Island, Nauru or centres on the Australian mainland, is dangerous and unsafe for children. 34% of the hundreds of children we visited had severe to moderate mental illness, compared to 2% of children in the Australian community. Their health and wellbeing, and that of their parents, was at risk from cramped conditions in tents and remodelled containers, inadequate health care, even sexual and other assaults.

Two consultant paediatricians involved in the production of this new report, Professor Elizabeth Elliott and Dr Hasantha Gunasekera, are also speaking at the briefing.

My colleague, Guardian Australia’s immigration correspondent Ben Doherty, will be filing more shortly. In the meantime, the Human Rights Commission and some of those present are live-tweeting.

Updated

Cartoonist Judy Horacek has tweeted her cartoon from today’s Age.

The first of today’s demonstrations will be held in Sydney, with protesters gathering outside the Department of Immigration and, in the Blue Mountains, the Leura Mall at 12.30pm AEDT.

Among those scheduled to speak at the central Sydney demonstration are the NSW Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi and Gaby Judd of Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children.

Protests will begin in Newcastle, Melbourne and Canberra at 5.30pm, and in Perth at 6.30pm AWST.

A snap protest has been called for this afternoon in Bendigo, Victoria – there’s more details on Facebook.

There are two planned in Adelaide – this afternoon at 5.30pm ACDT and tomorrow at 4pm.

Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart and Launceston will follow tomorrow afternoon, with demonstrations in Darwin and Central Coast scheduled on Monday evening. Let me know in the comments or on Twitter if you hear of any others organised.

Many of the demonstrations have been organised by the Refugee Action Coalition as part of “national mobilisations” to call on the government to let the 267 asylum seekers and refugees stay in Australia.

Spokesman Ian Rintoul said the government could not hide its responsibility for offshore processing behind the high court’s ruling on Wednesday.

“In the higher court of public opinion, everyone knows that Australia is responsible. ... The government has always had the power not to send asylum seekers back to offshore detention.”

Updated

Good morning.

Protests will be held across Australia today against the potential return of asylum seekers who have suffered trauma and abuse to Nauru.

On Wednesday the high court ruled Australia’s offshore detention regime on Nauru had been lawfully established, meaning that up to 267 asylum seekers on the mainland – including a five-year-old child, and more than 30 babies – could be sent back to the island nation.

Anglican and Uniting churches around the country have offered them sanctuary at the risk of being charged with offences such as obstruction or even “concealing and harbouring non-citizens”.

The Anglican Dean of Brisbane, the Very Reverend Dr Peter Catt, said on ABC Radio National this morning the decision to offer refuge was because of “irrefutable evidence” that the circumstances faced by asylum seekers on Nauru is “tantamount to state-sanctioned abuse”.

The Refugee Action Coalition has organised protests to be held across the country in the coming days to call on the government to let the asylum seekers and refugees remain in Australia.

We’ll be reporting from the protests today, as well as on other reaction to the high court ruling. If you’re planning to attend a demonstration, please do tweet me from the scene – I’m on Twitter at @mlle_elle.

Updated

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