Below is an edited version of the Edmund Rice Centre's interim report into the aftermath of Philip Ruddock's deportations of asylum seekers. It is shocking material, and should be followed up by the media and the Opposition parties. If you would like the complete text, go to the Sydney Morning Herald site at the bottom of this report, or write to me personally requesting it. Dave McKay
Ruddock's 'people smugglers' By Margo Kingston October 7, 2003 - 9:28PM A project of the Edmund Rice Centre for Justice & Community Education in cooperation with the School of Education, Australian Catholic University. Research Team: Mr Phil Glendenning, Director, Edmund Rice Centre for Justice & Community Education; Sister Carmel Leavey OAM Ph.d, Mrs Margaret Hetherton MA, Dr Tony Morris Ph.d, Australian Catholic University. School of Education 7 October 2003 Disquiet about the fate of boat people Reports of death, disappearance, imprisonment and torture, of fear-filled lives spent in hiding, privation and despair have filtered back to Australia about some people Australia has removed after disallowing their claims for protection on refugee or humanitarian grounds. Disquiet about this situation was expressed to the 2000 Senate Committee [1] by bodies such as HREOC (the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission), Amnesty International, the Refugee Council and various legal aid and trauma treatment organisations. In 2002 a coalition of religious groups, COPAS, including leaders from the major Christian denominations, Jewish, Moslem and Buddhist groups, petitioned the Federal Government to heed the reports of terrible things happening to some deportees [2] and cease sending people to countries where protection of their safety and rights is very problematic. The study reported here was designed to clarify the situation behind this widespread disquiet. Government policy The Government asserts that deportation is a sovereign right and essential to border protection. Removal is seen as the essential sanction for people who come or stay here unlawfully. What happens to people when they are 'removed' from Australia is apparently not a concern of Government. 1. Is the Australian Government sending refugees or attempting to send them to places which are not safe? Our answer to this question has to be Yes. We cannot say how frequently it happens but among the 20 people we interviewed overseas, many were in serious danger as a result of our deportation arrangements. For some, this occurred immediately on arrival at their destination or at an intermediate port. For some, the danger arose as they tried to live in the country to which Australia had sent them. C5 On arrival in Nigeria, C5 was immediately taken aside for interrogation because of his membership in the Biafra independence movement and connection with Christians opposed to the imposition of Sharia law - the reasons for his asylum claim in the first place. He was told he faced severe interrogation, detention and indefinite imprisonment without trial but was given an escape chance by one officer who seemed sympathetic to the Biafran Liberation cause. This officer offered him the chance to make a run for it while handcuffed on the drive from the airport to headquarters; the officer said he would pretend that the escape had happened while he was dealing with a flat tyre. All his belongings (suitcases and $1600 US) had to be abandoned in the process (by accident or as a bribe). C5 escaped further dangers by making contact with friends, who warned him that he was on the most wanted list and got him out of Nigeria and eventually into a First World country to begin a new appeal for asylum. T1 On arrival in Damascus, T1 was taken from the airport to the Political Security Prison where he was beaten. Relatives paid a bribe for him to be released after a month. T1 believes Australian Correctional Management (ACM) had supplied negative information about him to the Syrian authorities because he had been a leader in the detention centre and had made contact with Australian journalists. We clearly could not verify this allegation although the interviewer noted physical scars and wounds consistent with T1's story of beatings after arrival in Syria. P5 In late 2000 in Abu Dhabi on the deportation journey to Syria, an Iraqi deportee P5, was arrested traveling on a false passport (obtained, he alleged, on ACM advice). His passport was recognized as a forgery. In custody he was made to strip naked and was interrogated. He was threatened with being sent to the Iraqi Embassy in Abu Dhabi. P5 threatened to jump out the window, stating that as a member of the anti-Saddam groups he would be hung if he were to go back to Iraq. This saved him and he was deported back to Australia only to have the Australian authorities again risk his security by deporting him 3 months later on the same forged passport and again via Abu Dhabi where he was held on the plane during transit. The researchers have the passport with the double set of stamps as supportive evidence of this account. C6 In August 2002, after nearly 3 years of detention, the Australian authorities sent C6 to Kenya. C6 is an 18-year-old Hutu, orphaned eight years earlier in the murderous Hutu/Tutsi conflict. He was escorted under guard to Johannesburg and on to a Kenya airlines plane to Nairobi. He had emergency travel documents from the Australian authorities but these were taken from him at the airport in Nairobi, an action witnessed by the Christian Brother and lawyer who came to meet him. Once again he became stateless and without documents with the predictable consequence of further imprisonment. [7] C7 [8] C7, who has now been granted refugee status in a first world country according to Amnesty International, agreed to 'voluntary' deportation after suffering multiple beatings and rape in Silverwater prison in Sydney where he was held following charges of 'behavioral misconduct ' in detention. He was deported to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) because DIMIA refused to accept that he was citizen of Angola. P&I, a private South African 'people mover' company was employed to secure travel documents that showed falsely that C7 was a DRC citizen. In transit through South Africa, C7 successfully demanded to speak with officials from the Angolan Embassy who ascertained that he was indeed a citizen of Angola. By this chance success C7 avoided landing stateless in the DRC without residence, money or indeed the necessary language, French. C2 C2 is a young Zimbabwean whose asylum case rested on his involvement in the Movement for Democratic Change, (MDC) and the dangers he experienced through his witnessing and later seeking redress for the political assassination of his father and cousin. He was refused asylum in Australia and told that within a fortnight he was to be deported back to Zimbabwe. Such a deportation he believed would bring certain death in the light of his previous experience, harassment, near death 'accidents' and finally of torture in prison graphically described in his affidavit: I was kept...for about five days. I had all sorts of things done to me I had electrical cables attached to my feet (toes) and they switched on the power from a low current up to a point when the current was too much for me and I would pass out. On one particular incident / occasion I was kicked in the face while 1 was lying down. This broke my nose, jaw and broke off two front teeth. I thought l would never get out of there alive. I could not eat any solids and just drank water. During those days they kept on driving the point across to me that I should have listened to advice and kept my mouth shut and should not have pursued my father's murder and kept out of MDC affairs They told me I was going to 'join' my father. This torture continued for days but I was later released. The pressure from our family lawyer, my wife and mother, facilitated this. We filed a report to the Police but nothing came out of it. C2's deportation to this situation was narrowly avoided with the help of Australian friends who bought tickets for him and his family so that he could go to another first world country where there is some possibility of having his claims for asylum seeker status granted. B. Dangers After Arrival Australian authorities seem to have a sanguine view of the prospects of Iraqi, Palestinian and Kuwaiti Bedoon deportees in Syria. Australian officials seem to have been oblivious of the risk to Iraqis of refoulement by Syrian authorities or of abduction by agents of Saddam Hussein before the fall of his regime. Nor do they seem to have understood the dangers and discrimination faced by people dumped with short-term visas in Syria, in particular Palestinians or stateless Bedoon from Kuwait. Some accounts from our interviews illustrate these perils. P5's case for asylum was based on his public opposition to Saddam in the period 1969-1974 and the documented hanging of his associates. He told the interviewer: The Australian Government said that it was true that Iraq is too dangerous for you but your wife has made it out of Iraq to Syria and you too have lived in Syria. So they said, you can go to Syria. After the 1998 border was opened between Iraq and Syria, Syria was no longer safe for people like me who were enemies of Saddam. The situation has changed radically since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime but until that point Iraqi people we interviewed had lived in fear of being refouled by Syria or assassinated by Saddam's agents who could easily cross the border. Some like P1 and P2 say they still cannot rid themselves of fear. Once their short-term visas expire in 1-6 months, life for the stateless Bedoon, in Syria is characterized by continual fear, insecurity, loss of basic civil rights, discrimination and poverty. In their common view Bedoon claims before a Melbourne Court were all accepted and those before a Sydney judge all rejected. The depression is palpable in P4's typical account. Along with all Bedoons in the Kuwait army, he was ejected and discriminated against, on suspicion of being under Iraqi influence after the Gulf war: I am very tired. I have no future. I am dizzy from the situation. I cannot go to Kuwait. Also the money my wife's family sends, $200.00, is not enough to live on. I am dizzy. I do not know what to do. What can I do? Where shall I go? Where shall I stay? I don't know what to do. In tourists season, I dress like a Kuwaiti man but the rest of the year is a real problem when you can easily be asked about ID. Persecution is a big problem - we are in danger because our accent is different. Some people are informing the police because we have no passport... That is the reason for persecution. Children cannot go to school because they need a passport to go to school. I take them to the Mosque each day, where there is a school for studying Islam... They can listen but if someone wants to study then they must have ID. We have no ID so my children have to do unofficial study. Other Bedoon deportees presented a similar picture. Thus P2 said: I live like a street person. I have no country. No identity. No money. I carry nothing in my hands. I have an unknown destiny. T2 says he very concerned about safety issues: No-one has picked me up yet, but I have to avoid trouble all the time; I need to turn the other cheek if I am in a fight as I do not want to be seen by police. T2 has changed accommodation 7 or 8 times as he is concerned that Security may be looking at him. T5 did not report to Syrian authorities after arrival as required as he was highly anxious about what would happen to him. He believed he would be deported. T5 is currently very anxious about his legal status in Syria and is constantly looking over his shoulder for the Security police. He keeps a very low profile, often not leaving his house for days. Security police have stopped him once and requested papers. He was forced to give a bribe of 500 Syrian pounds to the police to 'ensure' his safety. A Palestinian is similarly living in a security limbo. He is constantly concerned about the Security Police, stating: I get a scared feeling when I see security or a policeman. I feel scared - it is a real problem. The researchers have concluded that, at the very least, Australian authorities appear to have acted without care of the dangers they have risked for detainees in the deportation process. The defence that many of these 'returnees' were so called 'voluntary' returnees is unacceptable. Some agreed to be returned as a possible lesser of two evils - the dangers of removal against indefinite, life wasting detention in Australia, isolated from family contact. The UNHCR has three times held that Australia's policy of mandatory detention of asylum seekers is in breach of international human rights law. [9] It is hard to understand why the perceived imperative to remove asylum seekers from Australia outweighed the danger of secondary refoulement to countries where they had been oppressed; and in a number of cases the Australian authorities recognized this oppression. In other cases, such as that of the stateless Bedoons, people were deported with short term papers. This was done with the apparent knowledge of Australian authorities that such people would face a semi-underground life, excluded from normal employment, in terror of discovery and with active discrimination against themselves and their children in perpetuity. living outside the law in another state. * 2. Has the Australian Government encouraged refugees to obtain false papers and is there evidence of bribery and corruption? This question was not an original focus of this research. It arose as a pattern emerged suggesting that agents of the Australian Government might themselves have been involved in practices used by 'people smugglers'. Of the ten recorded interviews with Australian deportees in Syria, six told us that they were encouraged to get false passports. Some declined to do this. We note that DIMIA spokespersons have publicly said: There were safeguards to ensure that deportees did not travel on false passports. If there was any doubt about travel documents people have obtained themselves, the department referred them to the 'relevant authorities ' for comment on their authenticity. [10] This denial has to be put against the fact that six people interviewed separately in Syria told us the same story and gave names of officials who had encouraged them to buy passports from 'people smugglers'. One such official allegedly told the deportee that if he disclosed this as a complaint, he would be in detention for 10 years. In addition, one interviewee, P5, gave us his now not needed false passport stamped with two deportation journeys out of Australia. As described above, the second journey was needed precisely because the falsity of the passport was discovered in Abu Dhabi and P5 was returned to Australia. It is not possible to believe that these facts were not known by the Australian officials who organised the second journey on the same passport and made special arrangements to take P5 through several stopover check points with the help of Australian Consular officials. Further material evidence of the duplicity among some Australian officials comes from a ticket purchased by Australian officials in Canberra for an interviewee to return via Syria to Kuwait. No entry documents were available for Kuwait and the person alleges he was told to enter Syria on the short visitor's visa and then continue to live there illegally. He was given a ticket purchased by DIMIA for travel from Sydney to Kuwait and included a seven day 'stopover' in Damascus. If questioned at Damascus airport he was told to show the Syrian officials the ticket as evidence of the fact he was only staying for seven days. The ticket and plan were only revealed to the deportee on the day of departure from Australia. The researchers have accepted this story as true. The ticket coupon provides evidence; the person is trapped without documents in Syria, and the policy of providing travel documents only at the point of departure is the norm. Another repeated theme in the stories is the practice of being given currency to put in travel documents to secure acceptance by immigration officers in different countries on the journey. Specific amounts were mentioned that needed to be placed inside travel documents and handed to immigration officials upon arrival. Again, the researchers tend to accept this allegation because it is so is widely told by interviewees in independent interviews. Footnotes [1] Senate Legal and Constitutional Reference Committee, <http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/legcon_ctte/refugees/report/contents.htm>A Sanctuary Under review: An Examination of Australia's Refugee and humanitarian Determination processes [2] 'Some' is the operative word. Disquiet has been aroused by particular cases and people returning to particular risk situations. It may well be true, as the Refugee Council of Australia told the Senate Committee, that generally speaking people are able to return to their countries without difficulty. [7] One month later, PAUL left Mombassa in search of a more friendly African country, running the risk of detention, or worse, as he crossed more borders without papers. Some Australian friends discovered that in PAUL's attempt to enter South Africa, he was detained in Lindela prison. [8] Again this case does not come from our interviews but from Amnesty International sources [9] Australian Human Rights News 18/09/03 [10] Sydney Morning Herald, September 30, 2003 p2. This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/07/1065292593136.html -- "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed it's the only thing that ever does." Margaret Mead The best part of being a pacifist is that success does not depend on 'winning'; it depends only on our willingness to take a stand for what is right. --Dave McKay -- -- 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 Sub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
