Thousands of people hit the streets on Palm Sunday to express their outrage at the government’s asylum seeker policies.

More than 10,000 marched in Melbourne, more than 1,000 in pouring rain in Sydney, 2,000 in Canberra, 1,000 in Perth, and 800 and 400 respectively in Adelaide and Brisbane.

The rallies followed the tragic self-immolation of a Tamil asylum seeker in Sydney. After receiving a letter from the immigration department rejecting his refugee claim, Janarthan poured a can of petrol over himself, swallowed some of it, and set himself alight. He has burns to 98 percent of his body and may not survive.

“That is the level of desperation that we’re driving these people to”, said Trevor Grant, convener of the Tamil Refugee Council, speaking to Red Flag during the Melbourne rally.

“There are hundreds in the community right now who know they are going to be put in the position of Janarthan. The constant refrain is, ‘We may as well die here; we don’t want to die in a torture chamber in Sri Lanka’.”

In Melbourne, the massive crowd crammed the steps of the State Library. Among the speakers was a young Kurdish woman, a refugee and activist from Iran. She asked the crowd, “Do know you what being on bridging visa means?” There was silence. “It means, let me show you ... How many refugees do we have here? Please, raise your hands. Don’t be ashamed, please raise your hands”, a few hands shot up above the crowd and thousands cheered.

In Sydney, Phil Glendenning from the Refugee Council of Australia said of the government’s policy, “It’s not preventing deaths at sea. It’s about saying ‘Die somewhere else’.” Glendenning said that an Australian prime minister would one day be forced to offer an apology to refugees kept in detention.

In Perth, church groups, unionists and activists came out for what Refugee Rights Action Network activist Victoria Martin described as the “largest and most diverse refugee rights rally ever held in Perth”.

Paul Coats – teacher, refugee activist and Socialist Alternative member – gave a tribute to Janarthan on behalf of the Adelaide Refugee Action Group. “Today we pay tribute to Janarthan, and the thousands of other refugees – Tamils, and people from many other war-torn or fear-inflicted places – people who continue to live in a state of permanent uncertainty about their future at the hand of this cruel government.

“We commit to maintaining struggle for freedom alongside their heroic struggles.”

Two thousand people attended the largest rally for refugee rights in Canberra for many years, which included a vocal march around the city centre.

John Minns, leading member of the Canberra Refugee Action Committee, said: “We must protest; we must fight ... We may be a minority, but we are a stubborn minority that for decades now has resisted the arguments of the major parties and the press and we are still here. We are a passionate minority that is more than capable of building this into a powerful mass movement and that is now our task.”

Kim Sattler, Secretary of Unions ACT, also addressed the rally. She told Red Flag that unions are involved in the campaign for refugee rights on a daily basis.

“Many refugees are becoming our members”, she said. Asked how we can resist the Abbott government’s attacks on refugees, unions and other groups in society, Sattler said, “The only way we are going to win is if we unite around all of these issues ... Just because [the union movement] is under attack ... doesn’t mean that we only focus on ourselves.

“We’ve got to focus on the other people who are under attack and the things we have in common ... This government’s only in power to roll out a big business agenda and doing a fantastic job of it at the moment, so it’s in all our interests to fight that.” 

[Follow Kim on Twitter @kim_doyle1]