Me again! Amongst refugee advocates, it's common to liken immigration detention centres to concentration camps - though someone pointed out last week that this is the Kitchener rather than the Hitler model.
However, I've been reminded in recent years of something my father used to tell me, namely that when he was growing up in England in the 1930s, his father was forever warning people of Hitler, and no-one seemed to be listening. [That my father's paternal grandmother had been German and Jewish no doubt fed into my grandfather's concern.] From 1999 a very small minority of Australians were concerned about what was happening in Ambon, Maluku, and Central Sulawesi. But it took the Bali Bombing to alert Australians generally to what had been happening on our doorstep. Now I feel the same way about what's going on in Iran - and elsewhere with the sponsorship of Iran. The issues of concern are: - Iran's meddling in Iraq and in the Middle East in general. - its development of nuclear weapons, and relatioship with North Korea. - its worsening human rights record, see http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2004&m=06&d=15&a=9 'The HRW report covers mostly the so-called Khatami era (after President Mohammad Khatami). The report shows quite flawlessly that the two-term presidency of Khatami only worsened the human rights situation in Iran. Iran's record of human rights during the '80s and the '90s is well-known and documented, but especially since Khatami's second term, beginning in 2001, the degrading situation shows much more than mere rights abuses. This was supposed to be a period of "openness," one of "reform." Now with such a rights record, and with the recent parliamentary elections -- with virtually all candidates not belonging to the opposite faction, namely the Supreme leader Ali Khamenei's faction, put out of the game -- one can easily deduce that no reform will ever be in sight with the current regime in place. ' The connection between this third point and the refugee issue is the fact that the majority of 'failed asylum seekers' on the mainland have been Iranian. That things have improved a little for them recently probably owes more to the looming elections than anything else. The other gripe I have is that there is so little in our print media about Iran. Which brings me back to my grandfather... I agree with Tim Ferguson that we're an apathetic lot! Sue Sue Bolton Sydney, Australia ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
