Two women have climbed the spire of Melbourne’s Arts Centre to protest the offshore detention of asylum seekers, leading emergency services to cordon off the area below the spire this morning.
As the ABC reports, the two women, who the Whistleblowers Activist Citizens Alliance (WACA) has named as Hannah Patchett, 22, and Katherine Woskett, 25, climbed up the 162-metre spire around 3:30 am today before police arrived on the scene.
After reaching their desired spot on the Arts Centre spire, Ms Patchett and Ms Woskett unfurled a ‘Let Them Stay’ banner, in support of doctors at Brisbane’s Lady Cilento Hospital who have refused to release a one-year-old daughter of asylum seekers because they believe she will be returned to the offshore processing centre on Nauru.
The one-year-old, named Asha, is part of a group of 267 people (including 37 babies) who could be returned to Nauru after the High Court threw out a challenge to the Government’s offshore detention processes earlier this month.
Ms Patchett and Ms Woskett are still on the Arts Centre spire at the time of writing, and Police say they aren’t going to climb the spire, for safety reasons.
WACA’s Helen War has told 774 ABC Melbourne that Ms Patchett and Ms Woskett are professional climbers who have provisions and supplies to last them throughout the rest of the day.
“These women both have deeply help passions in the social justice movement and in the environment movement; it’s part of the reason that they’re so experienced … and why they’re able to climb up the spire today in the most professional way and unfurl the banner,” she said.
“At this stage, these women have decided to stay up there, with the message let them stay, until that message has been heard properly by the Government, who are still staying silent on this issue.”
Ms Patchett and Ms Woskett’s protest comes after the pair also unfurled a banner on Melbourne’s Eastern Freeway last week. Catch video and images of today’s protest, below.
Banner now unfurled. pic.twitter.com/GKeuZ2inPY
— Lauren Wood (@LaurenA_Wood) February 18, 2016
#LetThemStay– Ms Patchett: The Govt can expect mounting protest until they listen to the people & #CloseTheCamps pic.twitter.com/A6k28zd40E
— WACA (@akaWACA) February 18, 2016
This is Kat, one of the women climbers on the Arts spire. #LetThemStay #CloseTheCamps pic.twitter.com/xpZKQ4TXbh
— WACA (@akaWACA) February 18, 2016
Women taking #LetThemStay message to the world. @TurnbullMalcolm, @PeterDutton_MP, #CloseTheCamps pic.twitter.com/AoDMtDq97P
— WACA (@akaWACA) February 18, 2016
A drone now circling the protesters upon the Arts Centre spire, possibly police. @7NewsMelbourne pic.twitter.com/8urJyBblJ6
— Chris Martin (@thechrismartin7) February 18, 2016
Cheers to the inspirational Kat and Hannah #LetThemStay #CloseTheCamps pic.twitter.com/TxhKluLTaL
— WACA (@akaWACA) February 18, 2016
