The amazing Manjula Sri-Pathma has provided us with this artwork that Ranjini provided for the ‘Life In Limbo’ exhibition.

Ranjini’s piece was called ‘A Life Full Of Grief’ and details a story so tragic, it makes one wonder how our country can be so cruel.

(click to enlarge)

Manjula has also launched a petition in support of Ranjini – Click here to sign it!

Dear Ranijini,

I hope and believe that one day soon you and your children will be free, and enjoying all the good things about Australia. This insanity must end, because the people don’t support it. One day soon you will be driving your kids to school, having tea with other mum’s at a beachside cafe, cheering at school swimming carnivals, having kids over for parties.

You will all be free, and then the people can embrace your family. Stand strong Ranijini, and we will hold you in our hearts until you are all free.

Karen

Wow – We’ve had letters for Ranjini, cards for Ranjini, photos for Ranjini, candlelit vigils for Ranjini and heaps of events and rallies for Ranjini – but this is a first!

Click here to listen to Babylon Burning’s tune – ‘Break The Chains’ – the first song for Ranjini

“How insecure are we?
Taking away people in the name of security
Since when is a family a real threat
Tell me now do you regret
As you took them away could you look them
Could you look them in the face?”

Thank you to Babylon Burning for this incredible piece of art! We will be sending a copy to Ranjini and the family – and hopefully we can get you to play at her welcome home party! (whenever that is)

Lyrics:

If I had the words to say
How ashamed of this country I got to be
Locking up a woman and her son now
When their only crime was to run away
From the oppression they faced
In their home country today

Chorus:
How can you tell this is the land of the free
When it’s clear for all to see
You’ve been locking away people
Whose only crime was just to run away now

How insecure are we?
Taking away people in the name of security
Since when is a family a real threat
Tell me now do you regret
As you took them away could you look them
Could you look them in the face?

CHORUS
How can you tell this is the land of the free
When it’s clear for all to see
You’ve been locking away people
Whose only crime was just to run away now

Think it’s time we broke the chains
That be holding so many people, today
Risking their lives on the high seas
Only to find when they get here
We lock em up on an island
So they can see who their dealing with

CHORUS
How can you tell this is the land of the free
When it’s clear for all to see
You’ve been locking away people
Whose only crime was just to run away now

Hi Ranjini,

Firstly I want to let you know that not only myself, but thousands of Australian people are absolutely disgusted with the way our Government is treating you, and we fight for your rights in many ways every day. We will keep fighting, please stay strong.

You are about to welcome a child into the world again and unfortunately in a situation of detention, but this little child is very special in a way because he or she will be an Australian citizen by birth, and I am sure that your lawyers can do something with that. That is what my heart is praying for everyday for you.

I hope that you will soon be able to lead a normal and safe life in Australia with your husband and children.

Stay strong and please never give up hope.

Anna

Dear Ranjini and your precious children,

My heart is crying for you all. I am ashamed at this moment to have become an Australian Citizen many many years ago. This is so unjust and cruel to all of your little family. And sad to say, to all the other people in similar circumstances.

Please know that this is not the way that all Australians think and that loving thoughts are being sent to you.

Annie

This is Tomi, an eleven year old superstar from country Victoria. 

Tomi has sent us the amazing letter below, and we were blown away! Read for yourselves….

I should also mention that Tomi refused to let her mother edit it, and I haven’t touched it either – this is exactly what Tomi sent us – and it’s incredible.

“To the citizens of Australia:

In the past couple of weeks heaps of people have wished me “A Merry Christmas” or “Happy New Year” which I suppose is the polite thing to do, but it made me cranky.

Because each time someone said it, or we pulled another card out of the letterbox, I had to think about the many people that are locked up, for no reason at all, in one of our horrible detention centres.

I knew that in many of the detention centres, Christmas parties were being organised by regular visitors, to make sure asylum seekers and refugees didn’t feel left out. But it made me wonder if this didn’t actually make them feel worse. Christmas IS THE TIME when families around the world get together to celebrate, share gifts and food.

The detainees didn’t get a chance to do that! The families of the refugees and asylum seekers didn’t get a chance to celebrate together. Even if in their culture they don’t celebrate Christmas, everyone around them doing so would have reminded them even more just how much they miss their loved ones.

I didn’t want to celebrate Christmas or New Year, because I just didn’t feel right about it.

How can we be happy, while so many other people around us are so very lonely and unhappy? How can we be happy, while so many people are locked up in these horrible places for absolutely no reason?

Mum, dad and I didn’t celebrate, we didn’t give each other gifts, and we didn’t prepare heaps of unnecessary food. We decided to spend the days thinking and talking about all the refugees and asylum seekers that are locked up in Australia’s refugee prisons.

We talked about Raja, Abdul, John, Muhammad and all the others at Broadmeadows. We talked about Ayatullah, Ravi, Mahdi and all the others in Nauru. We talked about Germany’s refugees in the old ‘illegally occupied’ houses, trying to stay out of the snow and freezing cold. We talked about the young asylum seeker boys in Greece, locked up in cramped and dirty prison cells. We talked about the children living in shipping containers on Manus Island…and we talked about Ranjini and her two little boys in Villawood.

I first heard about Ranjini from Safdar Ahmed who is the Co-founder of The Refugee Art Project. He spoke of her and her two boys when Mum and I went to the ‘Life in Limbo’ exhibition in Melbourne last year. He told us how the police had come to her home in Melbourne one day, where she was living with her new husband, picked her and the two boys up and took them to the Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney. Ranjini and her boys have been in indefinite detention since May last year. She was taken away from her home and husband, the boys from their father, school and friends, yet no-one seems to know why. Someone said that Ranjini’s former husband was a driver for some Tamil Tiger guy. SO WHAT! Her former husband is dead, and she left the troubles of her country behind, to bring some peace to her live and that of her children. Who cares what her former husband did, if he did anything at all?

Does that mean we now also jail the children and wives of Australian criminals? If not, why not? Shouldn’t we at least be fair about it?

Ranjini is going to give birth to a baby on Sunday. She and the boys should be at home in Melbourne, having their family and friends over to celebrate the birth of their newborn baby, as my neighbours and their two little boys did when their baby girl arrived a few months ago.

Citizens of Australia – what we are doing to refugees and asylum seekers is WRONG! It is CRUEL! It is INHUMANE! It makes me feel ashamed about being Australian.

My wish for Year 2013 is that ALL OF THIS NASTY STUFF WILL STOP, because I want to be proud of my people and I want to be proud of my country.

Tomi”

Dear Ranjini I am writing to wish you well with the birth of your third child. I hope you and your new baby will be healthy and that there will be some positive changes in your circumstances very soon. Your freedom is our freedom.

Shelley

Here are some of the many brilliant photos of our events in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide on the weekend. Thank you so much to everyone who attended! (click the images to enlarge). There are heaps more photos on .

 

Melbourne

Adelaide

Sydney

An amazing painting for Ranjini, thanks Katherine for sending this in

Thanks to Jo, Kelly, Adam and family for this

(click to enlarge)