The demonstrators belong to a group that calls itself Jews for Refugees. It was established by education consultant David Zyngier, 51, whose parents came to Australia in 1949 without documents, seeking asylum from war-torn Europe.

Zyngier's mother survived the Majdanek and Auschwitz concentration camps. His father joined the partisans to fight the Germans.

Australia incarcerates asylum seekers in closed detention centers that are heavily guarded and surrounded by barbed-wire fences.

The asylum seekers, mostly from the Middle East and Afghanistan, make their way to Australia via Indonesia, where they pay as much as $8,000 to smugglers to transport them in old, rickety boats. Some of the boats have sunk, claiming many lives. Many asylum seekers have no papers.

They are detained for up to three years in Australia.