Refugee Protestors Interrupt Australian Parliament, Superglue Their Hands to Gallery Railings

This article originally appeared on VICE Australia.

A group of pro-refugee activists from the Melbourne-based collective Whistleblowers, Activists and Citizens Alliance (WACA) interrupted Question Time in the House of Representatives in Canberra on Wednesday afternoon. Several members of the collective superglued their hands to a balustrade, while others chanted and held up signs that called for MPs to close offshore detention camps at Nauru and Manus Island.

Most Liberal MPs walked out of the chamber in face of the protests, and Question Time was ultimately suspended for around 40 minutes. Both sides of politics were critical of the protesters, with Bill Shorten telling the ABC that "this is the exact opposite of democracy" and Christopher Pyne dismissing them as "miscreants."

VICE spoke with WACA member Sumarlinah Winoto, who did not superglue their hands but led a vocal demonstration at the scene. Winoto explained the group chose to convey their pro-refugee message during the last sitting week of Parliament, in an attempt to highlight a perceived lack of action on humanitarian issues over the past year.

"We thought this was a critical moment to be interrupting Question Time, to highlight that these critical issues are being addressed in redundant ways or not at all, that this is a state of emergency, a humanitarian crisis and they need to address it as such," they said.

"All of the politicians are complicit, there's bipartisan support for the detention centres and the way people coming to Australia to seek safety and help are being treated. And so we essentially were letting all the politicians know that they all have blood on their hands, and we were going to hold them accountable for the action that has already been taken and the damage that's already been done….so we were mainly speaking in support and solidarity with all the people who seek asylum, and particularly those held offshore."

The Australian Federal Police were quickly called to the scene of the protest, and Winoto expressed concern about some of her fellow activists who had been confronted by armed police. While some of the superglued protesters were able to quickly free themselves with nail polish remover, Winoto says at least one person was forcibly ripped off the balustrade by officers.

"I haven't actually checked in with him since but I'm pretty sure she's okay. They obviously wanted to get us out of there as quickly as possible," they said. "There were two AFP officers with sub machine guns by the end of it, so they weren't exactly civil towards us."

The members of WACA are confident that the protest had its intended effect. "Most of the politicians walked out, pretty much all of the Liberal side walked out halfway through," Winoto said. "But I think they heard a lot of our message, which is good to see. Some of the other politicians stayed but didn't communicate anything to us."

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