11 June 08

Social Justice Network celebrates the World Refugee Day:
Special occasion to value the contributions of refugees in our society

This year’s World Refugees Day coincides with the 60th Anniversary of occupying Palestine and creating the worst and longest refugees crisis in contemporary history. The Social Justice Network will dedicate its annual celebration to remember the Palestinians who are still living as refugees in camps in their own country or elsewhere in other countries around the world.

“In this year’s celebration of the World Refugees Day, the Social Justice Network will celebrate with the Australian community the resilience of the victims of the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians and other Arabic neighbouring countries” said Jamal Daoud, the spokesperson for the network.

“We note here that the Palestinians are the largest refugee ethnic group. There are estimated more than 5 million Palestinians refuges after the creation of Israel 60 years ago and one in every three Palestinian lives as a refugee”

On the night, speakers will include Julia Irwin, federal member for Fowler and strong supporter of the Palestinian Refugees rights. She will address the audience with her experience when she toured the Palestinian camps inside historical Palestine

The other guest speaker will be DR Zev Osdowski, former Australian Human Rights Commissioner who commissioned many reports about the former Australian government harsh treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.

There will be many refugees and asylum seekers present at the night as special guests on the night” Said Mr Daoud. “There will be also entertainment by refugees from different cultural background”

We will celebrate the courage of refugees around the world, their success and there resilience to the harsh circumstances they’ve encountered on their journey and we’ll also celebrate their success and achievements in Australia.

On the night we will remember the suffering of thousands of refugees during the era of the previous federal government. Although the network acknowledges that the new Labor government had taken few steps in the right direction, it notices that the new federal government is moving very slowly to change the harsh anti-refugees policies inherited from the Liberal government. The network praises the Labor government for ending the pacific solution and for scraping the TPV system. But it calls on the Labor government to do more to restore humanity in our system by abolishing mandatory detention policy and restore all settlement services which were available to them before.

The celebration will be on Friday, 20 June 2008 at 8 for 8:30 pm at the Grand Westella reception centre, 12 Bridge Street, Lidcombe.

For media interviews, you can call Jamal Daoud on 0424 163 667