dreamer_easy: (Default)
(So many more to come, I hope, in this posting. Quite a backup in my bookmarks; some date back to the 2016 US election.)

'Australia's slave trade': The growing drive to uncover secret history of Australian South Sea Islanders (ABC, December 2017)

'They call us Australians': Vanuatu descendants of Indigenous Australians search for long lost family (ABC, May 2018)

Republicans less likely to be critical about Obamacare when thinking of their own medical needs (Medical Xpress, March 2017). What interests me here is not so much "Republicans selfish / stupid / bad" as the researchers' conclusions: "Government and officials assume that giving the public impartial information about public services can help people make accurate judgements about how they are performing. This research shows that this is not the case..."

When carers kill (ABC, June 2018) A troubling look at the narrative around the murder of disabled people.

Forgotten Korean Victims (WISE International, 1993). "Japan is the only officially recognized country to have been subject to bombings with nuclear weapons. However, the victims of those bombings were not just the Japanese. There were some Allied Forces who were prisoners of war in both cities at the time, along with many Chinese and Koreans from Japanese-occupied countries who were also victims. In fact, nearly 10 percent of the total victims were immigrant Koreans."

The Anger of the White Male Lie (Ijeoma Oluo, March 2018). I had also bookmarked This Political Theorist Predicted the Rise of Trumpism. His Name Was Hunter S. Thompson. (The Nation, December 2016), which comes from a completely different angle but arrives at many of the same points. (But were white working-class men as significant in 2016 as these items suggest? In 2020?)

States pushing abortion bans have higher infant mortality rates (NBC, May 2019). I suppose one way to interpret this is that those states are keeping their citizens poor and sick, and need a emotional issue to distract from that.



dreamer_easy: (*gender)
https://www.psypost.org/2020/10/trump-voters-were-significantly-less-likely-to-evacuate-before-hurricane-irma-devastated-florida-58144 (PsyPost, 3 October 2020) The psychology and sociology around this stuff is endlessly fascinating; it's like all the weirdnesses of the human mind writ large. Safety is belonging to a group, and showing that you belong, even when that puts you in danger -- especially when that puts you in danger, because how better to prove you belong?

If You're Happy President Trump Tested Positive for COVID-19, You're Just as Bad as He Is (The Root, 2 October 2020) Presented without comment.

Australian ministers increasingly bypassing parliament to create laws, study finds (Guardian, 28 September 2020).

Coronavirus Sweden: 200 doctors, scientists challenge Sweden’s official version of events (news.com.au, 17 September 2020)

New research shows how to make effective political arguments, Stanford sociologist says (2015 press release)

Carbon emissions of richest 1 percent more than double the emissions of the poorest half of humanity (Oxfam press release, 21 September 2020)

No, Animals Do Not Have Genders (Nautilus, 26 August 2020) A short but very clear piece on what and why gender is.

Not sure what can and can't be recycled? Here's how it works (SMH, 19 December 2019). At least as of that date, Sydney was actively recycling plastics rather than storing or burying them.

Study Warns Radicalized Right-Wingers Uniting Online—Many Inspired by Trump—Threaten Australian Democracy (Common Dreams, 9 October 2020)

Trump support is less important than ethnic antagonism in explaining anti-democratic views among Republicans (PsyPost, 10 October 2020) White supremacy is also at the root of Australia's crop of fascists.

Are Americans Just Stupid? (Psychology Today, 4 October 2020). Points out the difference between intelligence and critical thinking, and the importance of factors such as poor quality news media and intense financial stress. Interestingly also talks about "strong religious beliefs" which "reject well-established scientific facts that conflict with theological doctrine", which makes the unintentional point that religion and science need not be at loggerheads -- in fact, IMHO, that narrative was created by fundamentalists for political ends.

'We want our money. We deserve our money': Aboriginal elders sue for compensation for stolen wages (Guardian, 24 October 2020)

Why Hatred and 'Othering' of Political Foes Has Spiked to Extreme Levels (Scientific American, 29 October 2020). "The three key components: The first one is what we call “othering”—[labeling] these people as so different from us that they’re almost incomprehensible. The second part we call “aversion”—this idea that they’re not just different, but they’re dislikable. The third part is this “moralization,” where they’re morally bankrupt."

dreamer_easy: (Default)
This text is from the defunct Tracker magazine, and was written by Chris Munro. It's from an account of Wiradjuri men Yarri and Jacky Jacky's heroic rescue of nearly 70 people from the 1852 Gundagai flood, now commemorated by a statue. The Wiradjuri people had been warning the town that an environmental disaster was inevitable. Anyway:

"John Spencer, a relative of the town’s punt owner and also the Inn Keeper spent 36 hours in a tree until Yarri came for him. Spencer was near frozen and completely naked at the time, save for a cash box strapped around his neck."

dreamer_easy: (refugees)
Our government argues that it cannot be legally compelled to save children's lives by evacuating them from Nauru. This came up in the case of an eleven year old in danger of "imminent death". Look, is it going too far to say this is a deliberate attempt to kill her, and other children?

Urgent hearings over sick refugee children thrown into doubt (SMH, 24 October 2018)

Dutton's department challenges federal court's authority to order Nauru transfers (GA, 26 October 2018)

dreamer_easy: (refugees)
First, hopeful news: Scott Morrison raises prospect of asylum seeker transfer to New Zealand (GA, 16 October 2018). "But the PM says Labor must accept legislation banning any resettled people from ever entering Australia."

Labor moves to make medical transfers from Nauru easier
(GA, 16 October 2018). "Proposals would give more weight to medical opinion and make the minister, not department officials, responsible."

Now disastrous news: Nauru orders Médecins Sans Frontières to stop mental health work on island (GA, 6 October 2018). "The medical NGO has been providing psychological and psychiatric services to residents, asylum seekers and refugees on the island since late 2017... MSF staff were also training and supporting local authorities in an effort to increase Nauru’s capacity to provide psychological and psychiatric treatment." MSF, who were forced to abandon both Nauruan and refugee patients with severe illnesses, called for the evacuation of all asylum seekers and refugees. Nauru's government responded that MSF had been "conspiring" against it.

dreamer_easy: (refugees)
I've been very unwell for a couple of months. I'm so far behind on posting refugee updates that it's hard to imagine catching up completely. But let's see if I can't start with some of the more positive news.

Offshore detention case to be brought to UN against Australian Government as families hope for reunion (ABC, 216 October 2018) The Human Rights Law Centre argues that separating families is illegal under international law.

Manus Island refugees and asylum seekers petition PNG chief justice over 'unfair' delay (GA, 3 October 2018). "Crucial judgment could allow group to seek compensation and the chance to be resettled in other countries."

'The sky doesn't fall in': refugees integrate well in Australia, survey finds
(GA, 14 August 2018). "Contrary to recent comments from the multicultural affairs minister, Alan Tudge, that migrants who reside together “largely communicate in their mother tongue [and] are slower integrating”, the research found that refugees were welcomed by their new communities, found it “easy” to get along, and felt a strong sense of belonging to their new homes."

The project Pauline Hanson called a ‘disgrace’ just proved her wrong (GA, 3 August 2018). "Extremists claimed that Syrian refugees would increase crime and fear in Eltham. The opposite happened."

Meanwhile Up Over: Trump Administration Rejects Study Showing Positive Impact of Refugees (New York Times, 18 September 2018). "[A] study by the Department of Health and Human Services that found that refugees brought in $63 billion more in government revenues over the past decade than they cost."



dreamer_easy: (refugees)
Doctors4Refugees is looking for volunteers to help with admin work over the net.

The deliberate slander of Sudanese Australians by our leaders and media has had the predictable effect of increasing racial incidents against them. Is this related to the exclusion of South Sudanese, Somalian, and Iranian refugees from one strand of our humanitarian intake?

ETA: The feared other: Peter Dutton's and Australia's pathology around race (GA, 7 January 2018). "Dutton wants to persuade us that those who are most disempowered in our society are our greatest threat." This is an idea I encountered when researching my article on Talons of Weng-Chiang -- that the Victorians were afraid of (a) servants and (b) colonised peoples.

Stateless in Australia: new centre to shine light on those incarcerated without hope (GA, 27 March 2018). In 2017 Australia reported to the UNHCR that there were no stateless people here. This was false: there are 37, all held in immigration detention, some of them potentially indefinitely.

Scott Morrison's delay tactics tore refugee families apart, advocates say (GA, 30 January 2018). "The minister’s legal obligation was to make a decision on refugee applications within 90 days, but most decisions took between three and five years, and some people are still waiting for a final outcome."

Australian citizens wrongfully detained because of immigration failures, report finds (GA, 2 February 2018) | Domestic violence victims on temporary visas left with no escape due to legal loophole (ABC, 23 March 2018) | Ten-year-old boy refused visa for not having ‘employment’ (SBS, 19 July 2018). These aren't refugee stories, but each one is another example of the dangerous combination of bureaucracy and human lives. (The SBS headline is misleading - the young boy can't join his father and stepmother in Australia during his school holidays in case he tries to stay here, and they can't visit him in India because of visa requirements.)



dreamer_easy: (refugees)
It's been five years since offshore detention was revived. An opinion piece in the SMH lauds the resilience of asylum seekers in the face of everything. The Refugee Council of Australia has a snapshot of the current numbers.

Call for doctors to help looming asylum seeker mental health crisis (SMH, 22 July 2018). Up to 7000 asylum seekers living in Australia will lose income support in August. Many are too ill to work. The Cabrini Asylum Seeker and Refugee Health Hub assists people facing serious mental health issues, chronic pain, and homelessness, amongst other issues. Donations are tax-deductible.

The Asylum Seeker Resources Centre is helping asylum seekers denied access to Medicare get up to date on their vaccinations. Donations to the ASRC are tax-deductible too.

1600 asylum claims could be reopened due to poorly drafted regulation (GA, 21 July 2018). The Ashmore Reef was incorrectly excised from Australia's "migration zone" sixteen years ago. That means that asylum seekers who arrived there and were denied the right to apply for refugee status might now be able to do so, as well as suing the government for unlawful detention. Give 'em hell, folks.

In family separation news, a Tamil asylum seeker, Thileepan Gnaneswaran, has been deported back to Sri Lanka, leaving his wife and daughter in Australia. Bureaucratic rules make it unlikely they'll be able to see each other again. Thileepan was arrested on his arrival in Sri Lanka but was subsequently released on bailed. He was charged with illegally leaving the country.

Aussie expats join forces in Ads Up group to help refugees find their feet in the US (ABC, 19 July 2018). I'd like to think this is who we really are.



dreamer_easy: (refugees)
voteforfreekids.com has asked every Federal MP their stance on children in detention.

Ending the nation's shame – Wilkie tables Refugee Protection Bill (media release, 18 July 2018). "This Act enables the establishment of a network of centres, located in and run by Asia Pacific countries including Australia, where asylum seekers can go to be registered, have their immediate humanitarian needs met and lodge a preference for country of re-settlement.  If the asylum seeker selects Australia, and is within the specified quota, this Act establishes a process for assessing their claim in Australia with appropriate oversight, limited timeframes and judicial review. The Act does not allow mandatory detention and prioritises the applicant’s immediate needs and refugee and  international human rights law."

Manus Island and post-traumatic stress (The Saturday Paper, 2-8 June 2018). Former detainee Imran Mohammad, now in the US, describes the psychological impact of indefinite detention.

Family separation: 'I'm dying a slow death': Hazara refugees plead for release from Nauru (GA, 8 April 2018). "Narges and Daryoush, who are suffering ill health in detention, want to be reunited with their mother who they haven’t seen for four years after she was taken to Australia for treatment."

'I am old. I only wanted a small life. I have no hope left' (GA, 28 March 2018). "Despite decades working in humanitarian crises around the world, the suffering I witnessed on Nauru is an immense shock." | UN official visiting Nauru detention centre concerned about 'shocking' mental health situation (ABC, 27 March 2018).

dreamer_easy: (refugees)
Good news, sort of! Australia agrees to take seriously ill refugee girl from Nauru as case reaches court (GA, 5 July 2018) | Court orders Nauru refugee and son, both ill, to be flown to Australia (GA, 13 July 2017). The judge ordered they not be separated and not be returned to Nauru. As columnist Ben Doherty reminds us: Each time Australia delays bringing a sick child from Nauru, the stakes get higher (GA, 11 July 2018). Crikey argues that Australia has weaponised suicide and Peter Dutton just admitted it (25 June 2018).

Unsurprising news from the US: Detaining Immigrant Kids Is Now a Billion-Dollar Industry (Snopes.com / AP, 12 July 2018). As Down Under, so Up Over.

Definitely good news: Brisbane mum granted 12-month extension from deportation (SBS, 27 June 2018). "A ministerial intervention has stopped the deportation of a Brisbane-based Filipino mother who was facing separation from her eight year-old son." This isn't a refugee story, but in a world full of cruelty, every small kindness is to be celebrated.

Manus Island: I found a horrific 'living graveyard' (news.com.au, 9 July 2018). An extract from Asylum Seeker Resource Centre founder Kon Karapanagiotidis's book The Power of Hope.

'They are breaking him': the stateless refugee Australia may never release (GA, 4 July 2018). A Kurdish refugee from Iran arrived in 2013 at the age of 16 and is still in detention.

Asylum seeker detainees can keep mobile phones, federal court rules
(ABC, 22 July 2018)

'I didn’t know how to survive': the refugees and asylum seekers hit by Coalition cuts
(GA, 12 June 2018)



dreamer_easy: (refugees)
The US press have access to the children separated from their families by the government, and to the detention centres where they're held. If the Australian press had similar access, I'd like to think the outcry here would be similar. The New Yorker has some harrowing reporting on... what noun is correct? Can I call this an "atrocity", a form of "genocide"? Well. An E.R. Physician on What It’s Like to Treat Toddlers Who Have Been Separated from Their Parents at the Border (28 June 2018). Links to more at the end, if you can bear it.

Thai cave rescue: Why do we care so much about these trapped boys? (ABC, 9 July 2018). "Why does this tragedy capture the world's attention, when more long-term issues such as children in detention don't to the same extent? ... A key reason is simply that we can see the Thai soccer team. We're watching the rescue effort play out, and we can see the emotions of the boys and their families."

I wanted to mention some of the things I've learned while discussing refugee stuff on Reddit. Here's one:

Q: Why did so few refugees on Manus and Nauru choose to go to Cambodia?
A: They were terrified to go to an unknown, poor, and dangerous country, where they could not speak the language, and might not be allowed to settle permanently, or reunite with their families. (At least one refugee who did go to Cambodia warned others on Nauru not to follow suit.)

"I think Cambodia is not a safe place, it's a very poor country. I don't understand their language, there is lots of crime in Cambodia. I don't feel safe in Cambodia, I have no future in Cambodia." -- an Iranian refugee on Nauru
Outsourcing refugees: 'How will I survive' in Cambodia? (Al Jazeera, 5 April 2016)
The Cambodia agreement (factsheet from the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, 30 January 2017)

(Some good news I found: Mohammed Rashid, a Rohingya refugee who was one of the few to accept the Cambodia offer, is currently doing OK.)



dreamer_easy: (refugees)
That poor devil with terminal lung cancer on Nauru has been transferred to a Queensland hospital, where at least he can die in peace.

First thing we do, let's thank all the lawyers: another child held on Nauru has been brought from PNG to Australia, where she can receive vital medical treatment, thanks to another successful court battle against our government by law firm Maurice Blackburn. And the National Justice Project won a court case to have a suicidal woman brought to Australia for an abortion -- she had been genitally mutilated, and Taiwan could not have provided the care she needed.

Nauru asylum seekers flown to Taiwan for medical care complain of language barriers (GA, 23 June 2018). "Some say that despite the high healthcare standards, they are sometimes unable to give informed consent."

From earlier this year: "The court heard from the government’s own health contractor, International Health and Medical Services, that the Nauru hospital was unsafe for surgery and that patients had died during routine operations." (Hence the government's secret deal with Taiwan, a country which doesn't accept refugees, to provide medical services.)

In The Nauru Diaries (Meanjin, autumn 2018), a former IHMS doctor gives a detailed account of the hopelessness of medical treatment on the island, for refugees and islanders both. To pick one example, he describes the needless death of a local ten-year-old girl: "The number of things that were done incorrectly, ignored, just plain screwed up, due to incompetence and ignorance, wilful or otherwise, was astounding. It painted a picture of a hospital utterly ill-equipped to deal with what should have been a fairly straightforward emergency presentation."

In pain and in limbo: the Nauru refugee denied an interview for US resettlement (GA, 30 May 2018). This article quickly becomes a litany of  horrific medical problems, suffered by women refugees on Nauru and left untreated.

Fears for asylum seekers as Nauru moves to cut ties to Australia's high court (GA, 2 April 2018) | Justice in Nauru curtailed as Government abolishes appeal system (ABC, 2 April 2018).

Australia props up Nauru’s ‘out of control’ president (The Saturday Paper, 7 April 2018).

Nauru blocks ABC from Pacific forum over 'bias and false reporting' (GA, 2 July 2018)

dreamer_easy: (refugees)
Kurdish asylum seeker Fariborz Karami took his own life on Nauru last week. He was 26. A badly traumatised victim of torture, he had been appealing for mental health care for years. His wife, mother, and brother are still on Nauru. He is the third detainee on Nauru to die by suicide. Email your Labor senator to push for a Senate inquiry into offshore detention.

A terminally ill Hazara refugee on Nauru has been given the option of a fearful death there, without adequate medical care, or dying alone in Taiwan with no-one who can speak his language or perform appropriate funeral rites. More than 800 Australian doctors have signed a petition asking for him to be brought to Australia for palliative care.

Immigration detainees onshore are also subject to serious medical neglect, including being left untreated for Hepatitis C.

While Australia routinely separates refugees from their loved ones, the US is turning family separation into a conveyor belt process. A Facebook post by an immigration caseworker explains the situation asylum seekers find themselves in. This Tweet chain contains numerous practical ways to support refugee families crossing the Mexico-US border. Here's a powerful comment on the whole vicious business: The Language of the Trump Administration Is the Language of Domestic Violence (New Yorker, 11 June 2018)

dreamer_easy: (refugees)
Neither Australian Or PNG Gov’t Informed Family Of Man Who Died On Manus Island (Pedestrian, 23 May 2018). Good gods, they can't even bureaucrat properly.

Doctors beg Australian Border Force to move terminally ill refugee off Nauru (GA, 23 May 2018). I thought perhaps the problem was that the dying man has family in Afghanistan and could apply to bring them to Australia, but apparently they won't even send him to Taiwan, which doesn't accept refugees. (The former head of the ABF has admitted that it has a history of blocking medically necessary transfers.)

White South African farmers won't get special treatment, despite Peter Dutton's earlier claims (ABC, 22 May 2018). I wonder if this was ever a serious proposal, or just dog-whistling.



dreamer_easy: (refugees)
By now you've probably heard that a refugee took his own life on Manus Island yesterday. He was a Rohingya, had been found to be a genuine refugee, and had epilepsy, for which he had not received treatment for two years despite urgent requests from the medical community. In my view, the Australian government is not just responsible for this man's death; they are responsible for his murder.

In an odd coincidence, I had just finished reading the following article about the Rohingya when I logged on to share the link and read the news from Manus: Murderous Majorities (New York Review of Books, 18 January 2018). It positions the genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar in the context of majoritarian politics in South Asia. I think it contains a warning for the West: "Majoritarianism insists on different tiers of citizenship. Members of the majority faith and culture are viewed as the nation’s true citizens. The rest are courtesy citizens, guests of the majority, expected to behave well and deferentially." That idea, that some Australians are more equal than others, is strikingly familiar.

More on the Rohingya:

Understanding the Rohingya Refugee Crisis (MSF, 2 January 2018)

Explainer: Who are the Rohingya Muslims? (SBS, 24 October 2017)

The Genocide of Rohingyas in Myanmar from the Australian Migrant Prison on Manus Island
(Funambulist Nov/Dec 2017), reproduced by Manus refugee Imran Mohammad in his Facebook.

Faces of the Rohingya (SBS, n.d.). Interviews with Rohingya people living in Melbourne.

On an unrelated note, my ego swelled at the discovery that a letter of mine to the paper (almost certainly the Sydney Morning Herald) about the Tampa was reproduced in a 2007 thesis about Iranian immigrants and refugees. Letters to the editor - especially if they're concise and factual - are an excellent way to get pro-human rights viewpoints in front of readers.
dreamer_easy: (refugees)
Combined Refugee Action Group reports that there was a fire in the Hillside detention centre on Manus. No-one was hurt, but the men have been left without beds or food.

Asylum seekers 'face destitution' as income support and housing cut off (GA, 17 May 2018). "The federal government is taking away income support and housing from up to 100 refugees and asylum seekers from Manus Island and Nauru who are currently in Australia for medical treatment. The group... includes families, elderly people and pregnant women..." Vinnies characterises this cut as part of a general move by the government to divest itself of its legal responsibility to care for refugees, outsourcing that responsibility to charities and community groups. "Most of those targeted this week were families with young children, who were given six weeks to find new accommodation and a source of income."

Australia's cut to healthcare on Manus Island 'inexplicable', Amnesty says (GA, 18 May 2018). "Group criticises counselling services cut when Manus refugees have one of highest mental illness rates in world." Refugees with physical medical problems needing urgent attention have been left waiting for months or years. IMHO all this is entirely explicable: our government hopes the sick men will either die on Manus, or return to their home countries and die there, out of sight.

As others see us: There's No Escape From Australia's Refugee Gulag (Foreign Policy, 30 April 2018).

Following up on the lies about "African gangs": The truth about crime and ethnicity (The Age, 28 April 2018).


dreamer_easy: (refugees)
On 4 June, many asylum seekers living in the community will be thrown off the Status Resolution Support Service (SRSS), which provides a small living allowance, casework, and counselling for torture and trauma. Asylum seekers who lose access to the SRSS face poverty and homelessness. The Refugee Council of Australia is seeking donations to assist them.

Iranian refugee and son at risk of suicide returned to Nauru against medical advice
(GA, 14 May 2018)
"Psychiatric reports said Hamid’s mental illness was caused and exacerbated by his detention, and he should not be returned."

Iranian refugee on Nauru attempts suicide after US resettlement application rejected, advocate says
(ABC, 8 May 2018)
About half of the 150 applicants have been turned down, including all the Iranians and Somalis who applied.

Budget 2018-19 confirms reduction in support for people seeking asylum (Refugee Council of Australia, 9 May 2018)

dreamer_easy: (*gender)
The gay, transgender and bisexual men on Manus are forced into silence (GA, 16 May 2018). "No one knows how many gay, transgender or bisexual refugees live on Manus, but what is clear is that the suffering they experienced in their countries has been repeated on Manus in a disastrous way."

Children with gender dysphoria no longer have to seek court approval to undergo surgery (ABC, March 16 2018). "The Family Court has decided it will no longer intervene in cases where children with gender dysphoria have the permission of their parents and treating doctors to undergo surgery."

The hidden $100,000 price tag on being transgender (ABC, 2 March 2018). Transitioning ain't cheap.

On Liking Women (N+1 Magazine 30, winter 2018). Long, entertaining and insightful look at transphobia and feminism, often very funny. Includes a quote from Robin Morgan I've long puzzled over: "... thirty-two years of suffering in this androcentric society, and of surviving, have earned me the title 'woman'". I myself didn't have to do anything to earn the title; it was assigned to me by "this androcentric society". OTOH, there's this quote from transphobe Sheila Jeffreys - "Transgenderism on the part of men can be seen as a ruthless appropriation of women's experience and existence." Not this little black gender non-conforming duck.

The Politics of Your Piffling Little Planet (The Caretaker)

Ms Elizabeth Sandifer destroys Gareth Roberts.
dreamer_easy: (refugees)
Home from an overseas trip and weeks behind on the news.

The Human Rights Commission has had its budget slashed by half a million dollars, while the Administrative Appeals Tribunal has lost $3.7 million over the next five years.

The US has so far rejected all Iranian and Somali asylum seekers on Nauru, presumably as a result of the "Muslim ban". Last month another 50 refugees were accepted by the US as part of the deal.

The Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, continues to rule out New Zealand as a resettlement option, despite NZ's willingness to accept some refugees from Manus and Nauru. However, Australia has also asked NZ to keep their offer open.

Another suicidal child has been brought to Australia from Nauru; this time the government backed down in the face of a court case, rather than having to be ordered by a judge.

You may recall the case of the woman who refused to leave Nauru for heart surgery unless her son went with her. Both are now in Taiwan, where she is recovering from surgery. A psychiatrist says her son is severely depressed and suicidal as a result of his imprisonment on Nauru and should not be returned there.

A hopeful sign: For The First Time In Forever, Voters Actually Support Limiting Offshore Detention

More soon, when I'm less jetlagged.
dreamer_easy: (refugees)
Due to illness, I missed the refugee march today. Here is Manus detainee Mohammad Imran's letter to be read on Palm Sunday.(Here's an interview with Imran, about the Rohingy a, from earlier this year.)

Another suicidal child, this time a ten-year-old boy, has been removed from Nauru despite our government's best legal efforts to keep him there.

Peter Dutton is pressing ahead with humanitarian visas for white South African farmers, commenting: "I'm completely blind as to somebody's skin colour, it makes no difference to me" and borrowing a leaf from President Trump's playbook by declaring media criticism "fake news".

Papua New Guinea has demanded to know when Australia will remove the refugees who remain on Manus Island. So far, 84 of about 600 men have escaped to the United States thanks to the refugee swap deal.

'It’s freedom': Rohingya refugee reaches Florida after horror of Australian detention (GA, 23 February 2018)

Swapped from Manus to Missouri (SBS, 20 February 2018)

'Negative status' asylum seekers on Manus Island left hanging in legal limbo, unable to leave or stay (ABC, 7 March 2018)
Paging Mr. Kafka.

Australia to train Myanmar military despite ethnic cleansing accusations
(GA, 6 March 2018). "Defence department spend continues despite claims treatment of Rohingya bears 'hallmarks of a genocide'".

Scathing UN migration report mars Australia's first week on human rights council
(GA, 2 March 2018)
Australia's refugee policies are part of a worldwide problem, as the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer makes clear: "The primary cause for the massive abuse suffered by migrants in all regions of the world, including torture, rape, enslavement, trafficking and murder, is neither migration itself, nor organised crime, or the corruption of individual officials, but the growing tendency of states to base their official migration policies and practices on deterrence, criminalisation and discrimination, rather than protection, human rights and non-discrimination. States have initiated an escalating cycle of repression and deterrence designed to discourage new arrivals, and involving measures such as the criminalisation and detention of irregular migrants, the separation of family members, inadequate reception conditions and medical care, and the denial or excessive prolongation of status determination or habeas corpus proceedings, including expedited returns in the absence of such proceedings." (See also Why we all need to read ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’ (Medium.com, 13 February 2017)).

Refugee visas a 'lower priority' not 'slowed down', ASIO boss says
(ABC, 28 February 2018)
Paging Mr. Kafka again.


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