Members of the local Eritrean community are calling on Highpoint Shopping Centre to remove the country’s consular office as a tenant, arguing it represents a brutal dictatorship and causes distress and anxiety to those who’ve fled to Australia.
On Saturday 1 November, more than 100 members of the Eritrean-Australian community protested outside the shopping centre where the consulate occupies a suite on level four.
Protesters carrying flags and placards marched from a nearby park to the shopping centre entrance where speakers railed against the presence of the consulate and the regime of Eritrean dictator Isaias Afwerki it represents.
“It jails young people, it encourages rape and killing and destruction and genocide, yet that dictator resides inside this shopping centre,” a speaker at the rally said in a video posted to social media.
The protest coincided with a letter members of the Melbourne Eritrean-Australian community sent to shopping centre management outlining their concerns at the consulate being a tenant.
“For many within our community — particularly children of political prisoners and survivors of state persecution — visiting Highpoint has become a source of distress and anxiety,” read the letter.
“Seeing the consulate’s sign reminds them of the trauma, arrests, disappearances, and torture suffered by their loved ones under the Eritrean regime.”
A small country situated on the Red Sea in north east Africa, Eritrea is considered one of the world’s most repressive dictatorships, with president Afwerki ruling unopposed since the country’s independence in 1993.
Many Eritreans fleeing the regime have settled in Australia, including a large number in Melbourne’s west.
In the letter, community members demand Highpoint reconsider the consulate’s tenancy, relocate it to a neutral, government-supervised location and acknowledge the emotional harm the situation causes to many Eritrean migrants living near the centre in Maribyrnong.
In a statement to Star Weekly, a spokesperson for Highpoint said the centre was working on a response.
“We are aware of community concerns about the consulate’s location at the centre and are currently in discussions to address the matter,” the spokesperson said.
