Madness and immigration
May. 16th, 2005 07:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamer_easyAnother great letter from a recent SMH:
What excellent value the ABC represents at 8 cents a day. The ABC's Lateline program succeeded in finding Vivian Alvarez in one week, something the Immigration Department had failed to do in two years. How much does the department cost the Australian taxpayer each day?
Susie Waters Willoughby
The scandal over the wrongful imprisonment and deportation of mentally ill Australian citizens has led to the mass fingerprinting of detainees. That's already led to one man being released, but DIMIA refuses to say whether the fingerprints will be shared with oppressive regimes overseas. DIMIA says no-one has been forced to give prints, but the NSW Civil Liberties Council points out that "We're talking about people who in some cases are in desperate need of mental health care, people who may be in a position where they feel there's no choice but to co-operate."
There badly needs to be an open inquiry into this - but will there be? The current government is partly in power because of its illegal treatment of asylum seekers, and they may not want skeletons - some of them literal - falling out of the cupboard.
Immigration isn't the only place where the mentally ill are being mistreated: in maximum security jails in NSW, they're being kept in punitive solitary confinement, despite repeated raps on the knuckles for the jailers.
What excellent value the ABC represents at 8 cents a day. The ABC's Lateline program succeeded in finding Vivian Alvarez in one week, something the Immigration Department had failed to do in two years. How much does the department cost the Australian taxpayer each day?
Susie Waters Willoughby
The scandal over the wrongful imprisonment and deportation of mentally ill Australian citizens has led to the mass fingerprinting of detainees. That's already led to one man being released, but DIMIA refuses to say whether the fingerprints will be shared with oppressive regimes overseas. DIMIA says no-one has been forced to give prints, but the NSW Civil Liberties Council points out that "We're talking about people who in some cases are in desperate need of mental health care, people who may be in a position where they feel there's no choice but to co-operate."
There badly needs to be an open inquiry into this - but will there be? The current government is partly in power because of its illegal treatment of asylum seekers, and they may not want skeletons - some of them literal - falling out of the cupboard.
Immigration isn't the only place where the mentally ill are being mistreated: in maximum security jails in NSW, they're being kept in punitive solitary confinement, despite repeated raps on the knuckles for the jailers.
