Thousands protest against Australia's offshore detention policy
Sydney - Around 5,000 people gathered in Sydney on Saturday to protest against Australia's policy of keeping refugees and asylum-seekers in detention offshore.
Approximately 1,600 people are currently being kept in Australian-run offshore processing centres in Nauru and on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island since the Australian government determined in 2013 it would no longer process them in Australia.
Protestors in Sydney, carrying banners and photos of refugees,chanted slogans demanding the government close the centres and bring the asylum-seekers to Australia.
They marched through the central business district to CircularQuay, located near the Sydney Opera House.
"We are very happy with the turnout," said Barri Phatarfod, a protest organizer from the group Doctors for Refugees "It shows that people from all spectrums of life are very worried and appalled about the situation in the offshore detention centers.”
"We want them to close. They have been an abject failure. We are planning to continue the pressure on the government to change its policy on refugees and asylum-seekers," Phatarfod added.
Evan Davis, who worked in Nauru as a teacher for two years, said that what he saw in Nauru quickly turned him into an activist.
"It's the government's policy on how children are treated there that makes us speak. It's our obligation to speak out against the mental torture, the physical harm, the violence, fear, imprisonment, loss of hope, denial of education, and theft of their childhood," Davis told DPA.
Last week, the Australian government said it was seeking to ban all asylum-seekers, even genuine refugees, currently held in offshore detention centres from ever entering the country.