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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Michael Safi

Let Them Stay: renewed protests around Australia over planned removal of asylum seekers – live

A Let Them Stay rally held in front of the State Library in Melbourne last Thursday in response to a number of children who are to be sent from Australia to Nauru and Manus Island detention centres.
A Let Them Stay rally held in front of the State Library in Melbourne last Thursday in response to 267 asylum seekers who are awaiting removal to Nauru. Photograph: David Crosling/AAP

Summary

We’ve neglected Brisbane, which also turned out a decent crowd this evening, as you can see below.

Most of the 6pm demonstrations have now wrapped up, leaving just one more big effort in Perth at 7pm local time, which is about two hours’ away.

With that, we’re closing off our coverage of the evening’s demonstrations. Estimates of the crowds in Melbourne and Sydney alone exceeded 10,000, with more protests planned later this week. If and when they eventuate, you’ll read about them here.

In Newcastle, another healthy turnout asking the federal government to reconsider plans to ship the 267 asylum seekers back to Nauru.

Rallies in Melbourne and Sydney around finishing up now, but continue elsewhere. Lots of readers have sent us pictures from protests last Thursday in our GuardianWitness assignment here:

We’d love to see more from tonight’s events, do send some through!

Updated

As we hear crowds in Melbourne are (roughly) estimated to have reached around 6,000, plans for further protests this week are under way.

Updated

Krysia Heron and Kelsey Minto are concerned about violence women might face in detention. They were among a crowd of more than 5,000 gathered outside the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne to protest against the potential removal of 267 asylum seekers currently living in Australia, including 37 babies that were born here.

“I oppose the unnecessarily harm and trauma that these children and their parents will suffer,” Heron said. “I believe that Australia has the systems in place to look after these children.”

The protest is even larger than the one that blocked Melbourne streets on Thursday, a day after the high court decision. It’s also more organised – there’s a PA and an Auslan interpreter.

Daniel Webb from the Human Rights Law Centre, who led the high court challenge, told the crowd his clients knew of the support they had in the community. A later mention of premier Daniel Andrews’s offer to let the 267 asylum seekers stay in Victoria got a rousing applause.

Heron told Guardian Australia she was impressed by Andrews’s statement but didn’t know what it meant.

“I thought it was really fantastic, I liked what he wrote in the letter, but I am unsure of how influential it will be and what weight will be put to it,” she said.

Toni Simioni agreed. I think if there’s the option of letting them stay in Victoria, I think a lot of people would support that,” she said. “Whether it will work I don’t know, but I think pressure has to come from all angles.”

None of these three women attended last week’s rally, but all have protested on behalf of asylum seekers before. “These children, and I think all asylum seekers, should stay in Australia,” Simioni said.

Updated

One resounding demand ringing out in Melbourne, and at protest sites across the country.

Some of the signs on display in Sydney:

In Canberra, too, a crowd has gathered to send Australia’s nearby political leaders a message.

Here’s a scene from the protest in Wollongong.

Updated

Calla reports that mention of Daniel Andrews’s offer to settle the 267 asylum seekers in Nauru got a big cheer.

Updated

Uncle Ken Canning has just spoken in Sydney. He told the crowd:

What chance do refugees have if there is a bipartisan consensus to keep them out of the country? To treat people like this is to kill those people. It’s a long slow death. It’s an act of shame and of gross cowardice.

Strong words also from the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, who said: “Our politicians have failed to deliver policies that address the global refugee crisis. They are lily-livered and gutless: more concerned with winning votes than saving lives.”

Updated

Protests are also well underway in Melbourne. We’re awaiting estimates of the crowd but photos posted to Twitter show a healthy size.

Via GetUp!, here’s the partial list of demonstrations planned this evening — the full, very extensive list is here.

Updated

My colleague Paul Karp is in Town Hall Square in Sydney, where he reports that hundreds have already gathered.

Among them are Islay Clark and her husband Howard. Islay says, “I am against the scaremongering. People seeking asylum is a difficult issue and they are being used as a scapegoat.”

And Howard: “I vehemently disagree with the government and opposition policies to return this latest group of refugees to Nauru. Returning vulnerable people compounds the immorality and wrong acts they are fleeing.”

Good evening, around Australia tonight thousands are rallying in cities and regional centres as part of the budding #letthemstay movement, aimed at preventing the removal of 267 asylum seekers, including 37 babies, from the Australian mainland to detention in Nauru.

Protests were held across Australia on Thursday, and in past days artists, writers, state and territory leaders and ordinary citizens have voiced their support for the asylum seekers, most of who were detained in Nauru and have been flown to Australia for medical treatment.

On the ground in Sydney is my colleague Paul Karp and in Melbourne, Calla Wahlquist. Demonstrations are also planned in Noosa Heads, Wollongong, Darwin, Canberra, and right around the country.

If you’re attending one of this evening’s protests please do get in touch, either in the comments below, via our Facebook page, or on Twitter, and send us your pictures, videos and thoughts.

Updated

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