Feb. 23rd, 2014

dreamer_easy: (snow kate)
Finally made time to watch the Japanese movie "Battle Royale" (2000). You might assume a movie about frightened teens spurting blood would be cheap nonsense, but in fact it's based on a thought-provoking novel which I'd read earlier in the year. IMHO the film gets across the chaos and panic of the battlefield even more effectively than the book. There's a huge dose of black humour (omg, the training film!), and the use of classical music was particularly effective. If you don't mind a few axes in heads I'd definitely give this a watch. (It does have to cram in an awful lot of action, to the detriment of developing the future it's set in - for that, and more character background, check out Koushun Takami's novel.)

At the opposite end of the action movie spectrum: the Korean film "Volcano High" (2001). Where the participants in the Battle Royale mostly flail and fumble like the ordinary teenagers they are, the students sent to Volcano High engage in outrageous martial arts battles. Of all things, it reminded me of "St Trinian's II: The Legend of Fitton's Gold" because of its strong, slick style and general air of engaging silliness.
dreamer_easy: (refugees)
Bit of an update before moving on to other subjects.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has issued a media release stating that the young Iranian killed in Monday night's violence, Reza Berati, did not receive his injuries outside the detention centre, and that most of the "unrest" took place inside the centre. In other words, the mass attack did not occur in response to a breakout.

A detention centre employee states that, in addition to Berati's head injury, his neck had been cut. (A security guard working at the local hospital on Monday night states that Barati had only a small cut to his neck, which could have been the result of an emergency tracheotomy.) The detention centre employee also stated that another detainee's neck had also been cut, another's face was "swollen beyond recognition", and that more than one detainee had been shot. According to the employee's account, the asylum seekers told him that they were under attack by locals employed by G4S and police, and that attackers who dragged detainees from hiding told them: "You want freedom? We'll give you freedom tonight."

(Given that the security contract for the island is about to change hands, I wonder if the attacks were a last hurrah for frustrated guards and police, who felt - for reasons I think are obvious - that they could do anything they pleased to the detainees.)

Mental health expert Professor Louise Newman has spoken to staff at the centre, who stated that security forces entered the centre, armed with machetes in some cases, and that there was sustained gunfire.

Columnist Waleed Aly argues that "This is what it looks like when the policy works."

AHRC head Gillian Triggs argues that, to avoid a repeat of events in the short term, asylum seekers on Manus Island must be given adeuqate living conditions, those conditions must be monitored, and processing of their applications for refugee status must begin. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights raised similar concerns.

Finally, Malcolm Fraser writes: "It is time for Australia to accept in full its place as a global nation with global responsibilities. Displaced people are a global phenomenon and the Refugee Convention is the world's agreement to protect people fleeing harm. We made this agreement after the atrocities of World War II, recognising the need to protect people escaping persecution. Sadly, there are now many more people fleeing similarly violent harm. This is the global situation and Australia cannot resile from it."

(Addendum. By the end of May, accommodation for detention centre staff will have cost $13.3 million.)
dreamer_easy: (snow kate)
Australia has asked Cambodia to take some of our boat people. Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in Asia, so should be easy to bribe with additional aid, but as it also has one of the worst human rights records on the continent, who knows, we might end seeing some of the the same refugees boomeranging back to us.

Australia's repeated incursions into Indonesian waters while turning back boats has been blamed on sailors' mistakes in navigation. Indonesia has accepted this diplomatic porkie, but continues to ask that the turn-back policy be scrapped. ETA: A technical explanation from a retired admiral makes the "oops!" explanation seem more credible.

The names and addresses of 10,000 asylum seekers were inadvertently published on the Department of Immigration Web site, putting lives at risk, as well as revealing other details potentially useful to people smugglers. (Perhaps, to get the information being withheld about Manus Island, we should just poke around in the site for a bit.) ETA: The details were available for eight and a half days. Asylum seekers may not be told their information was published.

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