Showing all posts tagged human rights
Another moment in Australia’s dysfunctional refugee system
A refugee activist from Western Australia writes to me: An Iraqi asylum seeker I visit at a detention centre just got a rejection letter from DIAC [Department of Immigration and Citizenship]. His brother is an Aussie citizen whom I have met while he has been visiting the Iraqi. After waiting 14 months, the government says…
We were for Gaddafi just before we were against him
Thank you, Wikileaks: Following a meeting in Tripoli between Libyan leader Colonel Qaddafi, his son Muatassim and a United States Congressional delegation led by Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman on 14 August 2009, the American embassy classified diplomatic cable to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton highlighted the close working relationship both nations enjoy to…
Will Serco be continually rewarded for failure?
The ongoing chaos at Christmas Island – with refugees, guards and citizens all being led astray by the Australian government and Serco – is a blight on our conscience. We treat asylum seekers like animals, lock them up indefinitely, and wonder why their resist? As they should. Last night Immigration Minister Chris Bowen appeared on…
Making serious money from “security” is way of the future
Private security firms are now global entities, turning up in the strangest of places. G4S recently announced it was allegedly pulling out of Palestine due to pressure from pro-Palestinian activists. Its record with refugees in Britain is highly troubling. Next stop for G4S? More government contracts, of course: Organisers of the 2012 Olympic games have…
Australian media finally starts to examine Serco
Well, it’s only taken a few years to seriously wonder how a British multinational, paid hundreds of millions annually, is so incompetently mismanaging immigration detention centres around Australia and Canberra is now paying them to build more facilities in remote locations. The glories of privatisation. Can we now have a discussion about placing these semi-prisons…
Media finally waking to Serco’s daily failures
Australia’s Christmas Island detention centre is in turmoil and controller of the place Serco is woefully incapable of running it. Might we finally see some questions about the privatisation of asylum seekers? Interesting information from yesterday’s Crikey: I’m currently on Christmas Island. I have just been speaking with a photojournalist who has been staking out…
The “we must do something in Libya” brigade too keen to launch war
They’re everywhere at the moment. Hawks and so-called doves eager to show that butcher Gaddafi a lesson. How dare you massacre your own people (er, with Western-supplied weapons, but let’s not focus on such details)? Tonight’s ABC TV Q & A program featured five guests who all backed war against Libya. They all spoke in…
Tourism is not an ethics-free zone
The corporate press have little memory, so suggesting “hot” places to travel usually ignores human rights abuses in a country. Take Sri Lanka. The New York Times has written before, post the end of the civil war in May 2009, to visit this glorious nation. No comment is made about a nation run by war…