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dreamer_easy7 October: Rickety boat carrying 17 found off WA coast. The SMH described this terrifying horde as "a boatload of suspected Middle Eastern refugees", though it wasn't clear on whether they were suspected of being refugees, or suspected of being Middle Eastern.
23 October: Man brings house to a standstill: ten years in Australia, refused admission, but unable to be deported. Yeesh, just give the bloke and his eldery parents humanitarian visas already.
1 November: Beheaded after trying for asylum in Australia. Instead of saving this Afghan poet from the Taliban, we stuck him on Nauru and eventually sent him home, where they threw him down a well and threw a hand grenade in after him. (In June, a rejected Chinese asylum seeker was tortured by police and committed suicide.) Cases like these are not a tragic-but-unavoidable outcome of an imperfect system: they are the direct result of bad policies.
3 November: Falun Gong followers caught in dangerous immigration Catch-22: "The Immigration Department is endangering failed Falun Gong asylum seekers by forcing them to apply for travel documents from the Chinese consulate in Sydney, exposing their status to authorities and putting them in danger of persecution."
6 November: Fast action on boat people: Refugees' lawyers surprised and pleased by the new government's helpfulness. Said one, "I have to say it took a bit of adjustment."
Finally, today's news: Asylum seekers' fingerprints to go on criminal database. "If you haven't done anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about," say police, apparently with a straight face.
23 October: Man brings house to a standstill: ten years in Australia, refused admission, but unable to be deported. Yeesh, just give the bloke and his eldery parents humanitarian visas already.
1 November: Beheaded after trying for asylum in Australia. Instead of saving this Afghan poet from the Taliban, we stuck him on Nauru and eventually sent him home, where they threw him down a well and threw a hand grenade in after him. (In June, a rejected Chinese asylum seeker was tortured by police and committed suicide.) Cases like these are not a tragic-but-unavoidable outcome of an imperfect system: they are the direct result of bad policies.
3 November: Falun Gong followers caught in dangerous immigration Catch-22: "The Immigration Department is endangering failed Falun Gong asylum seekers by forcing them to apply for travel documents from the Chinese consulate in Sydney, exposing their status to authorities and putting them in danger of persecution."
6 November: Fast action on boat people: Refugees' lawyers surprised and pleased by the new government's helpfulness. Said one, "I have to say it took a bit of adjustment."
Finally, today's news: Asylum seekers' fingerprints to go on criminal database. "If you haven't done anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about," say police, apparently with a straight face.
