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Freedom From Nauru - Electronic Sit-In

bruce | 05.01.2004 20:45 | Anti-racism | Migration | Repression

At 9am Monday morning (Australian East Coast time), Cyber activists from
across the world started their solidarity sit-in on the websites for Australian
Department of Imigration and Multi-cultural Affiars (DIMIA) and the Liberal Party.
They vow to keeping jamming these websites whilst people are starving to death on
Nauru at the hands of Liberal party policy.

Nauru Hunger Striker Solidarity Hunger Strike Press Release 3
by Freedom From Nauru Monday January 05, 2004 at 02:23 PM


At 9am Monday morning (Australian East Coast time), Cyber activists from
across the world started their solidarity sit-in on the websites for Australian
Department of Imigration and Multi-cultural Affiars (DIMIA) and the Liberal Party.
They vow to keeping jamming these websites whilst people are starving to death on
Nauru at the hands of Liberal party policy.

Shortly after 9am the original website promoting the electronic civil
disobedience was taken offline, but it wasn't very long before a number of
mirror sites sprung up over the internet. One of the great advantages of the
internet are decentralised information flows. If one node is attacked or
threatened, other nodes can instantly become active. As it is with this
cyber sit-in in which all participants are acting completely autonomously.

Some of the websites now hosting the cyber sit-in include:

 http://refugee.autonomous.org/nauru/frameset.html

 http://www34.brinkster.com/freedomordeath/

 http://freetherefugeeswith.satanicwebsites.com/

 http://freedom-from-nauru.chaosmagic.com/

Many cyber activists are also encouraging people to create their own web
pages and host the sit-in themselves.

Will the government pay attention? How many people will have to die at the
hands of the Australian government's policies before Australians demand
accountability? Will government officials meet with the asylum seekers or
will they die slowly and painfully? All Australians are urged to phone DIMIA
urging freedom for the hunger striking asylum seekers.

It is now taking close to 30 seconds to load a DIMIA web page and this time
period will increase dramatically in the coming days.

Freedom From Nauru

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Note: If the online sit-in page has been taken offline you should all create a HTML page that contains the following code. save it to a file called frameset.html then open that file in a browser... that's all you have to do to participate in the sit-in.















bruce

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Australia will review some of their cases!

08.01.2004 12:07


Nauru asylum protest suspended


Stitches from the protesters' lips are being removed
Asylum-seekers on the Pacific island of Nauru have reportedly suspended a nearly month-long hunger strike.
The 33 protesters broke their fast after they were told Australia would review some of their cases, according to refugee advocates.

The asylum seekers started the strike on 10 December after Australia refused to give them refugee status.

Nauru had earlier accused Australia of neglecting the protesters, who are predominantly from Afghanistan.


Howard Glenn of refugee rights group A Just Australia said the protesters had suspended their protest while they await the outcome of the government review.



"The language the hunger strikers are using is that they have suspended it for a limited number of weeks to allow the government to make good on its commitments to reprocess based on new country information," he said.

The refugees were also encouraged by the promise of an Australian medical team, said another refugee advocate, Geoff Smith.

"Various refugee advocates were assuring them that things are looking brighter and I think the fact that the medical team is going in has tipped the balance," Mr Smith said.

Mouths sewn up

Some of the refugees were reported to be seriously ill.

"Right now our doctors are removing the stitches from those who had their mouths sewn up," an official from the International Organisation for Migration Dennis Nihill said.

"The cooks have got a soup on the boil and they should be eating soup within the hour."

Nearly 300 people, mostly from Afghanistan, are being held on Nauru while their claims for asylum are processed under a plan to keep unwanted boat people out of mainland Australia.

Nauru had agreed to have them there in return for Australian aid.

Doctors at the island's only hospital have said the hunger strikers were stretching resources, although Australia had disputed this.

The would-be refugees say they fear they will be persecuted or killed if they return to Afghanistan.

There are also Iraqis, Iranians, Palestinians and Pakistanis among the asylum seekers.


 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3378107.stm


BBC