By SUNNY LIU

Refugees and activists spoke out against Australia’s Border Force Act at a Melbourne forum last Thursday.

The Act – passed this year by the Abbott Government with support from Labor – bans doctors and other medical professionals working in offshore detention centres from talking about what they see. The penalty is up to two years in jail.

Refugee Action Collective member Emma Dook said the Border Force Act “gags” people who work with refugees.

“If the people that are supposed to help can’t speak out, I think it’s extremely bad for the refugee themselves," she said.

“I think the conditions of [the detention centres] speak for themselves – there are stories after stories of abuses coming out.”

Iranian refugee Reza Yarahmadi spoke passionately about his personal experience of seeking refugee status in Australia.

“The reason why I left all my loved ones back home is that I couldn’t live there any more … if I were not at risk, I would have been with my family," he said.

“If you don’t want to be a Muslim in Iran, you either leave the country or you are going to be killed by the government.”

Mr Yarahmadi said the detention centres were “no place for human beings” and people had to fight together to make them redundant.

“I would call [the detention centres] jail – people who commit crimes go to jail, but people in the detention centres are just innocent people," he said.

Mr Yarahmadi said the Australian Government needed to work at bringing all offshore detention centres to the mainland.

“A better life is just being somewhere safe without fear or stress, and this is a very basic human right,” he said.

Socialist Alternative speaker Liz Walsh said a radical political movement was needed to oppose the Act.

“How we are going to challenge the refugee policies, if not by becoming lawyers or charity workers? We actually need a lot of people to be radical activists if we are going to have an impact on this country,” she said.

The organisation Doctors Against the Border Force Act has been formed to help express doctors’ opposition to the policy.

Lawyers, medical professionals and refugees are organising further rallies to take place in Melbourne in the coming months.

The event was organised by the Left-wing group Melbourne Socialist Alternative.