Human Rights Watch slams the Australian government over its latest refugee stance in a letter to Immigration Minister Chris Evans: Dear Mr. Evans, We write to you to express our deep concerns that changes to Australia’s asylum processing system announced on April 8, 2010 violate Australia’s obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967…
Showing all posts tagged Australia
Does the Rudd government care what happens to refugees when sent home?
A helpful reminder how the Australian government is failing legally, morally and politically by refusing to listen to legitimate claims for refugee status by Sri Lankans and Afghans: Immigration Minister Chris Evans has rationalised this suspension of due legal process on the unsustainable grounds that in three months the situation in both Sri Lanka and…
Send aslyum seekers back to Sri Lanka and have blood on your hands
Unsurprisingly, Australia’s latest refugee policy is thankfully slammed as a meaningless sham in an election year, with little care for the lives likely to be shattered: To the roomful of Sri Lankan refugees, little has changed for those left behind since they made their perilous voyage in a wooden boat to Christmas Island last year.…
Sri Lanka and Afghanistan are not safe, better remind the Australian government
This is truly shameful and obvious political pandering. If the Australian government seriously believes that both Sri Lanka and Afghanistan are relatively safe for its citizens, perhaps some ministers should visit the war-torn nations and enjoy the local hospitality for a while. Without a security detail: Australia’s decision to stop processing all new immigration claims…
What Australia owes each and every asylum seeker
One of Australia’s leading human rights lawyers, Julian Burnside, skewers anybody who willfully misrepresents the flow of refugees into the country: Hazaras from Afghanistan are fleeing because the Taliban are increasing their control in Afghanistan. Tamils from Sri Lanka are fleeing because they face genocide in Sri Lanka, after the collapse of their long-running attempt…
Britain welcomes war criminals with open arms
Back in February I wrote about the long list of war criminals who have found a home in Australia. Shamefully, it’s little different in Britain: Record numbers of alleged mass murderers and torturers have found safe haven in the UK, making this country one of the war criminal capitals of the world, it is claimed…
Who writes the rules about “mature” discussion over Israel/Palestine in Australia?
One-time Independent Australian Jewish Voices blogger Michael Brull examines in Overland magazine the role of Zionism in Australia, the boundaries of so-called acceptable debate and the gate-keepers who want to tell us what to think about the Middle East.
Being Tamil in Australia isn’t a crime (pass it along)
Some timely reading on the ways in which Australia deals with the Tamil question. First, a reminder of what’s at stake (in Murdoch’s Herald Sun, no less): Thousands of desperate Tamil refugees in Sri Lanka have a stark choice: stay and be persecuted or risk the long, dangerous voyage to Australia. A senior diplomat, experienced…
What we are doing to the Aboriginal population, out of sight and out of mind
An Australian photo-journalist, of Sinhalese background, visits Australia’s Northern Territory and finds apartheid against the indigenous population. Welcome to my country.