The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, July 24th, 2002. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795.
CPA Central Committee: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "The Guardian": <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au> Subscription rates on request. ****************************** Government sanctioned child abuse The Howard Government's campaign to demonise asylum seekers is coming unstuck as condemnation of their inhumane policies of mandatory sentencing of refugee applicants grows. The locking up of children in detention centres - essentially government-sanctioned child abuse - again made headlines internationally last week when two brothers who had escaped from the Woomera detention centre applied for asylum in the British consulate in Melbourne. by Marcus Browning The brothers, Alamdar Baktiayari, 13 and his brother Montazar, 11, escaped from the Woomera razor wire in South Australia a month ago in a mass breakout. Britain, whose Blair Government has modelled its own refugee policies along the line of the Howard Government's atrocious example, has rejected the boys' asylum applications. Refugee rights attorney Eric Vadarlis said the Federal Police took them from the British consulate later the same day. "The British Government is endorsing the Australian Government's view that children can be locked up by refusing to deal with their applications. That in my view is inhumane and barbaric." The British Foreign Office said the decision to reject the boys' application was taken on the basis of the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, which stipulates that the country in which asylum seekers are present deals with their applications. "We never accept applications for asylum in a third country." In other words, Australia and Britain adhere to UN conventions when it suits them, having violated other UN agreements they are signatories to, such as the UN Convention on Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, countless times. Mr Vadarlis had requested an extension on the boys' asylum application, but this was rejected. He told of how the boys had pleaded with the British High Commissioner. "They tried to say they didn't want to go back to jail, that they considered Woomera a jail, that there was no future for them at Woomera, and that they were very, very disturbed." The brothers have been returned to Woomera, where they have already been imprisoned for 18 months and where they have each attempted suicide. Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock has dismissed the refugee claims of the boys and their family, saying they are not Afghanis but Pakistanis, even though their father Ali Baktiyari - who has now had his temporary visa revoked - has passed a language test that proves he is Afghani. The Refugee Embassy, set up by refugee support groups near Woomera, pointed out the trail of half-truths, cover-ups and outright lies about the treatment of asylum seekers and put the onus on the mass media to report them. "The Minister needs to be made accountable. When he says that parents are throwing babies into the ocean, the media needs to demand evidence. When he says parents are forcibly sewing the lips of their children shut, the media needs to demand evidence. When he says it is illegal for any one to come to our shores by boat and ask for asylum, the media needs to demand evidence. "And when he says that a man, to whom his own department has given a temporary visa, is not a genuine refugee, the obvious questions need to be asked. There is no reason to believe that Ali Baktiayari is not exactly what he says he is: an Hazara sheepherder from an area of Afghanistan near the Pakistan border." The entire family, including mother and three sisters who are also locked up at Woomera, now faces deportation. Excision Anti-refugee legislation introduced by the Government is far-reaching. It includes the excision of islands off the Australian coast from Australia's migration zone, preventing people who arrive at an "excised offshore place" from making a valid visa application and allowing for their possible detention. Asylum seekers can be relocated, their visas downgraded to temporary status, their access to legal appeal and Medicare and the welfare system blocked. The Australian Greens have further highlighted the hypocrisy of the Government's lock-them-up approach. "Alamdar and Montaza Baktiayari would be walking free in Australia if they were rich", said a statement by Greens leader Senator Bob Brown. "Each year the Australian Government accepts thousands of business migrants simply because they have enough cash to enter via what is called the business migration program. "Such people effectively buy their way into Australia while the Government locks up poor children and adults in effective concentration camps like that at Woomera. "There is a deep inhumanity in our immigration system when a family like the Baktiayaris, which is desperate to join the Australian community, is split up, locked up and vilified by Minister Ruddock and Prime Minister Howard. Meanwhile up to 12,000 people eased their way into Australia because they have $250,000 in their pocket." *********************************************************************** -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
