A campaign led by a Marist priest will see asylum seekers in Sydney given travel concession cards which will help them access services and support. Fr Jim Carty led a campaign by the Sydney Alliance to get the concession for newly arrived refugees and asylum seekers living in the community. For almost six months, members Read more
Some 14.4 million people around the world were forced from their homes in 2014, the highest number of newly displaced people in 20 years. The main countries refugees were fleeing from and to shifted greatly last year, according to a new report by the United Nations. The crisis in Syria hugely affected the refugee population’s flow Read more
Let us suppose that along the coast of Normandy up to one million non-EU migrants are waiting to be packed like sardines in small unseaworthy vessels and to cross the English Channel. Let us suppose that first the Royal Navy, then the navies of a dozen other EU countries, start to search for all such Read more
The Human Rights Commission says New Zealand can help its own citizens and also provide refuge to people escaping violence and war. “We can help our own people and we can also save some of the world’s most vulnerable people. It doesn’t have to be one or the other,” said Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Read more
The day of prayer for refugees and migrants is 21 June 2015 in New Zealand. Dear Brothers and Sisters, Jesus is “the evangelizer par excellence and the Gospel in person” (Evangelii Gaudium, 209). His solicitude, particularly for the most vulnerable and marginalized, invites all of us to care for the frailest and to recognize his suffering countenance, Read more
Dubbed by some “the Guantanamo of the Pacific”, Manus Island is home to one of Australia’s off-shore detention centres, where around a thousand asylum seekers are locked up. Australia does not allow journalists to visit the centres but the BBC’s Jon Donnison travelled undercover to Papua New Guinea to reach the camp on Manus island. Read more
Last week 65 boat people from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were intercepted by the Australian navy off eastern Indonesia. They were heading For New Zealand. In reply to their request for asylum in New Zealand, they have been advised to contact United Nations officials in Australia. Since at least 2010 the Prime Minister John Key Read more
Have we got room to double our annual intake of refugees? Of course we have. Would we be able to resettle them well? Of course we could. We’ve done it before, 35 years ago when the ‘bogey’ of the refugee hordes was just as much paraded as it is being today. John Key was a Read more
“If such a thing as hell exists, it would be very similar to Nauru,” a 23-year-old Tamil asylum-seeker told ABC Television last week, after slashing her body in a failed suicide attempt. Written submissions to the Australian Senate Committee inquiry told of rape and sexual assault, of children self-harming, of guards trading hot water and drugs for Read more
The images and words are so very similar. Back then, the German chancellor said she was “deeply upset” — today she is “appalled.” Back then, the president of the European Commission said he would never forget the dead, and that something had to change — today he claims: “The status quo is not an option.” Read more