May Day clashes in Sydney
May Day protesters in Sydney seeking rights for asylum seekers today clashed with riot police resulting in dozens of arrests.
Police on horseback charged a line of demonstrators, after 500 people had blockaded the Sydney offices of Australasian Correctional Management (ACM), the company that operates five asylum seeker detention centres across Australia.
One person was arrested and dozens more detained for questioning.
One policewoman was thrown from her horse, which fell when protesters scattered marbles and set off fireworks, police said.
The protests were organised by M1, a loose alliance of left-wing groups, environmentalists and labour organizations. M1 is short for May 1.
While May day protests in Australia usually target big business and stock markets, activists this year turned their attention to the plight of thousands of asylum seekers, mostly from the Middle East and central Asia, who are detained in camps.
They can languish in the camps for up to three years while their applications for refugee status are processed.
Over the past two years the camps have been wracked by riots, arson, breakouts and self-mutilation by detainees.
‘‘We’re here to say that there are people out there who care for them (refugees),’’ said refugee advocate Kim Bullimore. ‘‘There are people out there who don’t think they’re terrorists.’’
About 250 protesters also converged on immigration department offices in Melbourne to demonstrate against Prime Minister John Howard’s government policy of incarcerating all asylum seekers.
Activists used chicken wire to construct a symbolic ‘‘detention centre’’ around the entrance of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, and burned an effigy of immigration minister Philip Ruddock.
There were no arrests.
