Friday, February 05, 2016

Churches battle to keep asylum seekers

On Thursday, a national body representing Australian Christian churches unveiled its scheme to provide 267 asylum seekers – of which 90 were children – with refuge before they were returned to detention centres on Nauru or Manus Island.

There were 37 babies believed to be among the 267.

High-profile Christian figures from around Australia have backed the plan, which aimed to take advantage of an old English law for “sanctuary” rooted in the Bible’s Old Testament.

  • Churches offer hope to asylum seekers
  • Offshore detention is ‘government-sanctioned cruelty’
  • High Court throws out Nauru challenge

Senior figures from the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce (ACRT), which is backed by National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA), said they don’t want to see authorities entering churches to “drag people away”.

“We don’t want a big church versus state confrontation on the steps of a cathedral,” ACRT executive officer Misha Coleman told The New Daily.

She said that the government’s “high degree of surveillance” on the asylum seekers in Australia meant the churches wanted to keep their plans as secretive as possible.

“The biggest logistical issue is that families in community detention are under a really high degree of Border Force surveillance,” Ms Coleman said.

“A lot of churches haven’t made themselves public and the most successful scenario is that this will be done very quietly.

“We don’t want to disclose the arrangements of any of the churches involved.”

ACRT chair and Anglican Dean of Brisbane, Reverend Dr Peter Catt, advised authorities against entering his church.

“This is really a moral stand and it wouldn’t be a good look, I don’t think, for someone to enter a church and to drag people away,” Dr Catt said.

Nauru asylum seeker camp.
The centre on Nauru has been plagued by allegations of harm toward its inhabitants. Photo: ABC
In a statement on behalf of the Australian Catholic Bishop’s Conference, Bishop Vincent Long said the Catholic Church opposed detention.

“The Catholic Church is prepared to collaborate with other community organisations to provide support for asylum seekers,” Bishop Long said.

The legality of the sanctuary measure, referred to in the Bible’s Old Testament, has never been tested under Australian law.

The principle was created as a way for the church to offer God’s protection to people under civic oppression.

Given it exists in English Law, it could be argued that it applies in Australia. Ms Coleman said that ACRT had been conducting inquiries into the legality of the plan.

There were officially 10 Anglican, Uniting and Catholic churches willing to take asylum seekers in Australia, however Ms Coleman said ACRT had been inundated with offers from other churches.

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