Kite Line #33: Escaping From an Immigrant Detention Center, Part Three

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This week concludes our series on the mass escape from the Woomera immigrant detention center in 2002. Aren Aizura, who helped organize the solidarity camp outside the prison over Easter weekend of that year, tells us more about the aftermath: follow-up organizing with captive refugees, and the Australian government’s push to move the prisons to remote, unreachable islands. Despite these new barriers, Aren describes how both refugees and outside supporters continue to build links of communication and solidarity, and shares useful strategies for putting pressure on the companies maintaining these prisons.

In the news section, we pay particular attention to the hunger strike launched last month by Siddique Hasan and Jason Robb, two of the Lucasville 5 who appear in the new Netflix documentary about the revolt and who are now being punished for speaking out.