Tamil refugee activists’ protests have erupted across Australia during the month of August and have intensified since Tamil refugee Mano Yogalingam died by self-immolation in Melbourne on 28 August.

According to the Refugee Council of Australia 9,500 asylum seekers live in the community under visa conditions that deny them the right to work, or study, and ban them from accessing medical care under Medicare. Mano Yogalingam was one of those.

In Perth, Tamils living in the Tangney electorate camped on 31 August outside the office of their local member of parliament, ALP politician Sam Lim. Lim won the once-safe Liberal seat in the 2022 election with an over ten percent swing.

The Tangney encampment was part of a wave of protests staged outside MPs’ offices in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.

WA Liberal voters’ swing to Labor was essential to the Albanese victory and the ALP is at pains to maintain their “small target” strategy to keep them in the fold. That plan is under pressure in Tangney. A redistribution has reduced Sam Lim’s majority from 2.9 percent to 2.6 percent. And now the Tamil community, which is a considerable presence in Tangney is openly erupting against Labor.

The camp organiser, Sam Kugathas, told Red Ant that the community had door-knocked for Lim in the last election but are disappointed in his response to their protest.

As SBS News reports, Lim visited the camp on September 2. In speaking of Yogalingam’s death, Lim said: “If you can live for the last 12 years or 13 years in such a suffering state, why [do] you want to take your life? If you can sustain and live, you should have a strong energy to carry on…and you are under a good government.”.

Earlier, at a press conference Lim responded to an SBS News reporter’s question: “I migrated to Australia through the proper way and I am very proud [of that]. I contributed a lot to Australia as a police officer and now a member of parliament … But I’ve got a lot of sympathy [for] all these refugees. When I was a police officer, I handled a lot of their issues unnecessarily. And this is all caused by the previous government.”

On September 14, hundreds of Tamil community members and their supporters gathered for a community BBQ at the Tangney encampment.

Below is the speech presented by long-term, Perth refugee rights activist, Michelle Bui.

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I want to acknowledge that we gather here today on the land of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation and pay our respects to Elders past and present. Sovereignty was never ceded and this always was and will be Noongar Boodjar. From so-called Perth to Palestine to Sri Lanka we stand here on land that knows the violence of genocide, calling for justice for survivors of a genocide while another genocide unfolds in real time.

Before I begin, I also just wanted to flag that what I will share today contains references to suicide and state violence and I invite you to reach out for support if this causes any distress.

I first joined the Refugee Rights Action Network around the same time that many of the people protesting here and around the country first arrived in Australia seeking asylum.

For over more than a decade now we have borne witness to the corrosive impacts of policies that enforce indefinite insecurity on people who have already survived significant trauma before seeking protection.

The walls and fences of “immigration detention centres” deprive people of freedom and their basic human rights. While temporary visas offer the illusion of freedom, enabling people to live in the community, they operate much in the same way.

Temporary visas are, in simple terms, prisons without walls that cause significant psychological and emotional harm. As people with lived experience of Australia’s violent and unjust refugee assessment processes have been saying for years, it is impossible to rebuild your life and make plans for your future without the security of a permanent home.

Families have been torn apart, children have grown into young people made to feel that they do not belong in the only place they’ve ever known, and successive governments have forced people into circumstances that can only be described as unliveable.

In 2015, it felt like as a community we were in perpetual mourning, grieving the deaths of multiple young men who could no longer survive these conditions. In October that year Khodayar Amini self-immolated. The last words he shared with me were, “I don’t have any option…I can’t stay in detention centre. I can’t stay in another country. I come here in the water and now kill my life. The water is give me a chance. The Australian government does not give me chance.”

He said: “They tortured me for 37 months and during all these times, they treated me in the most cruel and inhumane way, they violated my basic human right and took away my human dignity…I ask you to stand up for the rights of refugees and stop people being killed just because they have become refugees.”

Nine years later, a community is mourning Mano Yogalingam, who died in the same horrific way. Mano was a young man, who arrived in Australia as a child with his family. He tried to establish roots and connections here and could have continued to grow if given the chance, instead he was cut down and worn out by a system designed to persecute people for seeking safety.

When the Labor government was in opposition they were critical of the so-called ‘fast track’ process introduced by then immigration Minister Scott Morrison.

They committed to abolishing this process which subjected thousands of people to an unfair refugee determination process with no government funded access to legal support. There has been a failure, however to recognise and resolve the circumstances of those whose claims were denied under this flawed system.

After more than a decade here with no security, the least this government could do would be to grant them permanent visas so they can finally breathe, reunite with their families and begin to heal from the trauma they have been subjected to both in their countries of origin and here.

I also want to acknowledge the people who were previously detained on Manus and Nauru who similarly go from one bridging visa to another. They also need justice. Leaving people in limbo in the community without options for a future should never have been an option.

As a mental health worker, it is deeply concerning that thousands of people remain in limbo with no end in sight. There is an abundance of research and evidence attesting to how harmful these policies are – a fair and humane response is beyond overdue.

Enough is enough. I hope the courage and leadership of the Tamil community here and other communities across the country, elevates the voices of those who governments have tried to silence and render invisible to the broader community for years now.

Until justice and freedom is granted for all we will continue to mourn, resist and stand with you.