NSW: Activists want displaced Chinese residents granted visas

AAP General News (Australia)
04-23-2006
NSW: Activists want displaced Chinese residents granted visas

SYDNEY, April 23 AAP - The federal government should grant temporary protection visas
to the Chinese residents displaced by the violence in the Solomon Islands, activists say.

The majority of the 1,000-strong Chinese community in the capital Honiara feared for
their lives after mobs destroyed buildings in Chinatown last week.

Some protesters claim the newly elected Solomons Prime Minister Snyder Rini was in
the pocket of Chinese businessmen.

The Ethnic Communities Council of NSW (ECC) today praised the federal government for
sending troops to the Solomons, but wants help for those who have lost their livelihood.

"We call for the government to ... consider granting temporary refugee status to all
those ethnic Chinese residents while the situation remains volatile," council chair Jack
Passaris and vice chair Justin Li said in a statement.

"These people, many of whom have lived in the Solomon Islands all of their lives, have
literally lost everything when their homes and businesses were torched by the violent
mobs.

"They have nothing to return to in the Solomon Islands or in their homeland in China."

AAP dmc/pj/cjh/nf

KEYWORD: SOLOMONS VISAS

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