Anglicans demand just immigration policy

#923 for broadcast on 2CH Sydney, 13 Jul 2014.

As the Australian government dices with the lives of 37 Sinhalese and 157 Tamil asylum seekers on the high seas, and as 53 legal scholars from 17 Australian universities condemn the government’s actions as a violation of international law, the General Synod of the Anglican Church has urged the government and opposition to stop calling asylum seekers illegal, not detain them for more than three months, and cease placing women and children in detention facilities.

The Reverend Peter Lin, an Anglican minister serving in the Sydney suburbs of Fairfield and Bossley Park, said the compassion of God for all people compelled Christian compassion for others.  He said:

Whatever we think about how they arrived … they are amongst us, either in some form of detention or on release, they are in our communities where they still need a lot of care because our experience is that their trauma, confusion, sadness, and pain remain.

I’m Rod Benson for the NSW Council of Churches.