dreamer_easy: (australia)
Rudd's first boat people are being detained on Christmas Island, albeit not in the $30m-a-year 800-person detention facility. Well, there are only 14 of them. Who they are, where they're from, and whether they're seeking asylum, the guvmint isn't saying. They're not processing asylum claims much faster than the previous regime, either.

Remember Shayan Badraie, the six year old Iranian refugee whose mental and physical health fell apart in mandatory detention? You may have seen him on Four Corners back in 2001, thanks to a smuggled video camera. Shayan and his family survived and are getting on with their lives. A new book describes their ordeal, and the Immigration Department's utter indifference to the destruction of a child.

Even the guards were traumatised at immigration detention centres.

To end on a more positive note: check out the Miss Africa Australia Pageant.
dreamer_easy: (yay)
Mandatory detention policy overturned

Immigration Minister Chris Evan's speech, giving the details of the new policy

Tampa recedes into a shameful past

Amnesty International Australia comments. (Although if you go there right now, you'll see the "censored" version, protesting China's Internet censorship.)

This will save lives, minds, and an absolute shedload of cash. The previous policy literally cost billions.

I'm still just staggered. Australia has been tormenting already traumatised human beings with this nonsense since 1992. It was a vote-winning mainstay of the previous guvmint.
dreamer_easy: (ZOMG)
HOLY FLAMING COW

Some asylum seekers no longer locked up

I'm just gonna quote the whole article. (Sorry, SMH.)
The Rudd government has announced a dramatic overhaul of immigration policy, significantly reducing the number of refugees who face mandatory detention.

"A person who poses no danger to the community will be able to remain in the community while their visa status is resolved," Immigration Minster Chris Evans said in a statement on Tuesday.

The controversial practice of mandatory detention will apply only to those asylum seekers arriving by boat or those considered a risk to national security or other people's health.

Those arriving by boat will be held in detention while undergoing health, identity and security checks.

Legal assistance will be offered to those arriving by boat and they will have access to an independent review of unfavourable decisions.

"The department will have to justify why a person should be detained," Senator Evans said.

"Once in detention a detainee's case will be reviewed every three months to ensure that the further detention of the individual is justified.

"Children will not be detained in an immigration detention centre."

Senator Evans warned the government would still retain its right to deport refugees.

"People who have no right to be here and those who are found not to be owed protection under Australia's international obligations will be removed."
I AM INARTICULATE WITH RELIEF AND GLEE
dreamer_easy: (random frogs)
Sex starts with the jaw, nose and eyes. "The study added that women who give off come-to-bed looks are considered the most attractive by both men and women." (So that's what the blank-faced ch1x0rs in ads are supposed to be conveying!)

Save haven promise for Iraqis who helped troops. "Up to 600 Iraqis will be allowed to resettle in Australia under a program to protect translators and interpreters who have helped Australian troops." (Bit more on this.)

Rudd vows to deliver indigenous check-up. "The Government plans to guarantee indigenous people will get health services equal to those of the rest of the population within 10 years."

Pressure for Rudd on legal aid. "...the Government had offered no extra funding in real terms in negotiations with the Aboriginal Legal Aid services, despite a Labor promise to do so. In NSW services such as a hotline for indigenous people in custody and family violence officer positions were to be cut by June unless funding was increased, said the administrators."

Refugee gets unaffordable loan. An understated headline given the Commonwealth Bank's ruthless exploitation of Sudanese refugee families.

Australia's pulling out of Iraq, though we'll be increasing aid.
dreamer_easy: (Default)
Gearing up for the work of convincing Australia's new government to end mandatory detention of asylum seekers. I've just rejoined Amnesty International Australia and I'm also going to join the Refugee Council of Australia. Australia should also drop the Temporary Protection Visa and instead provide proper, permanent safety for refugees. I'll be posting stuff about the issue here and in [livejournal.com profile] seeingred.
dreamer_easy: (bye johnny)
Right. Now we've all got some sleep, the real work starts!

The new government is the first chance for substantial change that Australia's had for more than a decade. Now there's a hope of being heard, we've got to let the new Labor leaders know what we want to be done differently.

For me, that starts with the incredible suffering this nation has inflicted on refugees and asylum seekers. It was the Labor party who invented mandatory detention; they should be the ones to dismantle it in favour of a system that's both safe and sane. Kevin Rudd says he'll drop the Pacific solution; we must hold him to that promise.

Why not email Kevin Rudd right now at Kevin.Rudd.MP@aph.gov.au? Congratulate him on his victory, and ask him to end mandatory detention, welcome the proven refugees still on Nauru into Australia, and to shut down the detention centre on Nauru as quickly as possible.
dreamer_easy: (medical)
Have a full strength beer with lunch because you're a bit nervous about having some blood taken. I've felt like complete rubbish for the entire rest of the day. Ran a bunch of errands regardless, but no writing, although I have solved the plot problem near the start of Earth Park. (I feel certain I came up with a much better name for that novella, or whatever it's going to be, but I have no idea now what it might have been.)

ETA: Oh, I get it. The ethanol and the metformin (one of my diabetes meds) are duking it out in my liver. I won't make that mistake again.

In unrelated news: I've posted some stuff at [livejournal.com profile] seeingred about the government's entirely baseless attack on Sudanese refugees. Pop over and have a look if you're interested.
dreamer_easy: (australia)
Pauline Hanson wants Muslim immigration stopped, and claims she's had calls from many Australians who are "very frightened their culture and way of life is being taken away from them".

My first impulse is an exasperated laugh. But my second one is to wonder if people really are frightened, and if so, why they feel they are losing their way of life, even though that fear isn't realistic: the English language and the Easter hols are quite intact. (In the US I've encountered people very upset about information being provided in Spanish as well as English.)

In not entirely unrelated news, Baxter Detention centre is closing.
dreamer_easy: (currentaffairs)
The guvmint have come up with a new and even more loony plan to prevent refugees touching Australian soil with their filthy persecuted feet: an exchange with the US for Cuban refugees held at Guantanamo Bay. I just heard 'em on the radio, deriding the Opposition for, uncharacteristically, opposing the plan, on the grounds that not going ahead with the swap will encourage people smugglers. Which only puts the cherry on the ice cream of the madness: what people smuggler wouldn't promise their victims a new home in the world's most prosperous country?

Refugees

Oct. 15th, 2006 07:59 am
dreamer_easy: (currentaffairs)
At considerable risk to themselves, researchers from the Edmund Rice Center have continued to trace the fates of asylum seekers sent home by Australia - often to the same danger they faced when they originally fled.

In the meantime, the government intends to make it more difficult for refugees to find sanctuary in Australia.

The question now is: will Labor stand up to Howard at long last? (Email words of encouragement to Kim Beazley, Kim.Beazley.MP@aph.gov.au - or better still, send him a letter).
dreamer_easy: (currentaffairs)
A ripping (and short) Parliamentary speech about "Australian values" from NSW Nationals MP Adrian Piccoli. It was heartening for me to see someone of an immigrant background stick up for more recent immigrants, including refugees; this doesn't always happen.

Torture has always been illegal in Australia - in fact, its abolition in British law predates colonisation by over a century. Modern law requires Australia not to condone torture and to suppress and discourage its use. (High Court Chief Justice Murray Gleeson's entire speech is available online yay.)
dreamer_easy: (currentaffairs)
They've sent those poor Burmese asylum seekers to Nauru. It'll cost a fortune in taxpayer's money: it cost $14.9 million to run the place empty for six months. Whatever you think about asylum seekers, that's just an unbelieveable waste. Nauru seems to be sick of the whole business: they're charging Australia $16,000 just for visas for the Burmese prisoners' first ninety days on the island.
dreamer_easy: (currentaffairs)
Rather than face an embarrassing defeat at the hands of his own part, Australia's PM has abandoned the new refugee laws. "I never did think it was a mistake to try and provide more protection to the Australian people," the SMH quotes him as saying. Exactly why we would need protection from small numbers of peaceful Papuan civilians, I have no idea.

ETA: I meant, of course, "his own party", but I like that typo so much think I'll keep it.
dreamer_easy: (currentaffairs)
MP Joe Hockey on the foiled plot: "We should not be surprised by this because all the governments keep saying this is a very real threat and sometimes we get into our daily lives and forget about it." God forbid.

MP John Forrest, who abstained from the vote to excise the Australian mainland from the "immigration zone", lost his position as chief whip for the Libs. Respect is due. (The SMH comments that now Howard will not be able to use refugees as an election issue.)
dreamer_easy: (currentaffairs)
I wish I could feel undiluted delight and relief at the apparent foiling of a plot to commit mass murder. I no longer trust the people who are supposed to be protecting us not to break the law, not to target innocents, and not to lie.

I hope this drama doesn't bury a good deed shining in a weary world: the rebellion of a number of Liberal backbenchers against the latest anti-refugee Bill, which would have sent all asylum seekers arriving without visas to the hellish camp on Nauru.
dreamer_easy: (currentaffairs)
Good press release from the Dems, pointing out the need for an independent system for reviewing refugee applications. Australia's current administration (up for re-election next year, and likely to win yet again in the face of flabby opposition) is hostile to asylum seekers, and none too scrupulous about their human rights. Again and again they've refused sanctuary to people who've turned out to be genuine refugees, fleeing tyranny and torture. Someone impartial needs to check the government's work.

Refugees

Jun. 18th, 2005 09:14 am
dreamer_easy: (currentaffairs)
The backbenchers' efforts have forced a compromise. The government will introduce legislation next week to liberalise its mandatory detention regime:

- Asylum seekers to be assessed within three months, and appeals handled within three months
- Families with children will be moved into "community detention".
- Others in detention for two years or more will be automatically reviewed by the Commonwealth Ombudsman, who will be able to recommend they are released and/or given permanent residency.
- The 10,500 refugees on Temporary Protection Visas will have a decision by 31 October this year, with most expected to gain permanent residency.

This is far from perfect, and a lot less than the private members' bills would have delivered; but it is a huge lurch in the direction of complying with international law, and not destroying adults' and children's minds and lives.

In other news, severely depressed detainee Peter Qasim has been released into psychiatric care. As he cannot be deported, he has been in detention for seven years.

Refugees

Jun. 17th, 2005 08:12 am
dreamer_easy: (currentaffairs)
Words go through a natural process of losing their intensity: we are no longer terrified by the terrible, nor awestruck by the awesome. The word "terrorist" has clearly reached the same point:

"There is an arrogance in the thinking by a few individuals who are at odds with the vast majority of the parliamentary Liberal Party and the vast majority of the Coalition party room to hold the Government to ransom on this. If you spit the dummy because the vast majority of people in your own party won't agree with you and you, in effect, behave as a political terrorist, well, I think you actually lose credibility." - Victorian Liberal MP Sophie Panopoulos

(Readers from countries where elected representatives are not expected to toe the party line on pain of punishment might find this particularly bizarre.)

On to the news: Rau inquiry says the "culture" of DIMIA has to change; the PM makes counter-offers to the rebel backbenchers.

ExpandRead all about it )

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