Churches Are Offering Sanctuary To The 267 Asylum Seekers Due To Be Sent Back To Nauru

Yesterday the High Court threw out a legal challenge that attempted to render Australia’s offshore detention policy unconstitutional, giving the government the green light to re-deport some 267 asylum seekers transferred from Nauru to Australia for medical treatment.

Despite expressing a desire to do so, the government has not yet begun the deportations. Expressing horror at the thought that men, women, children and infants suffering from the after-effects of severe abuse, assault and neglect could be sent back to the very places that so traumatised them, a bevy of advocacy groups, prominent individuals and media outlets have galvanised to convince, coerce, shame or otherwise pressure Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull into letting the 267 stay in Australia.

That movement is less than a day old, but it’s already received a substantial boost in moral authority thanks to an unprecedented move from some of the country’s largest churches. The Australian reports that at least ten churches, including Sydney’s Wayside Chapel, Adelaide’s Pilgrim Uniting Church and Australia’s principal Anglican cathedrals in Brisbane, Perth and Hobart have invoked the ancient religious right of sanctuary to protect any asylum seekers who wish to shelter from the authorities, in open defiance of the government.

“We offer this refuge because there is irrefutable evidence from health and legal experts that the circumstances asylum seekers, especially children, would face if sent back to Nauru are tantamount to state-sanctioned abuse,” said Anglican Dean of Brisbane Peter Catt in a statement to the media. This morning Catt told the ABC’s Radio National that “our church community is compelled to act, despite the possibility of indiv­idual penalty against us,”  and that he was “appealing for authorities not to enter the cathedral” to remove any asylum seekers looking for refuge.

Anglican Dean of Brisbane Peter Catt says his church will offer sanctuary to asylum seekers and is willing to be charged with obstruction.

— Alice Workman (@workmanalice) February 3, 2016

The religious right of sanctuary is an ancient and long-respected one; for more than a thousand years, English law recognised churches as sacred spaces where people fleeing from the law could go to avoid arrest. While the right to sanctuary hasn’t had legal standing for more than 400 years, it still persists in the collective imagination as something that conveys moral and traditional weight, presenting something of a conundrum for authorities seeking to break it.

Catt seems well aware of that last point, telling the Australian that police or security officers raiding a cathedral would present “an appalling spectacle” and saying he “would certainly ask them to leave their weapons outside as a mark of respect”.

The church leaders risking arrest by opening their church doors to asylum seekers aren’t the only community leaders willing to break the law to combat Australia’s offshore detention policies. On Tuesday night two paediatricians spoke to the ABC’s 7.30 of the immense damage done to children on Nauru, breaching a Border Force Act prohibition on discussing “protected information” about Australia’s detention centres that could see them jailed for up to two years.

Political leaders have not yet responded to the news, but yesterday deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek spoke out against Australia’s “toxic” asylum seeker policies, saying the debate had “lost rationality, compassion and respect” since 2001.

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Feature image via Love Makes a Way.