My following piece appears today in Crikey: I visited Villawood on Sunday”‰—”‰alongside a delegation of union leaders and Greens Senator-elect Lee Rhiannon”‰—”‰and met several asylum seekers subsequently involved in the protest that ended peacefully last night with the arrival of UNHCR officials. We spent hours conversing with men in their 20s and up from Iraq,…
Showing all posts tagged Sri Lanka
Talking on ABC TV News24 about refugees, Afghanistan and some common sense
Last night I again appeared on ABC TV’s News24 The Drum panel alongside the Australian Financial Review’s David Crowe and The Daily Grind’s Joe Stella (vision here for two weeks and here’s info about my August appearance). YouTube video here. The main topic up for discussion was the asylum seeker crisis at Sydney’s Villawood detention…
Asylum seekers all over the news but Serco’s role remains covered
From this morning’s ABC AM: TONY EASTLEY: A police investigation will continue today into the death of a Fijian man at the Villawood Immigration detention centre in Sydney. The 36-year-old, who jumped to his death yesterday morning, was due to be deported back to Fiji. Overnight, tensions remained high at the centre when a group…
Hello Canberra; most fleeing refugees are Tamil
This is what the Australian government is spending our money on (courtesy of Crikey): Sri Lanka into bat for boat people. Australian immigration officers are giving out free cricket bats in Sri Lanka emblazoned with messages to deter asylum seekers. The town of Negombo was provided with 700 of these cricket bats courtesy of the…
A day at the Villawood detention centre, Australia’s mental trauma ward
I spent today at Sydney’s Villawood detention centre for refugees and met men from Iraq, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. Stories of pain and trauma. All refugees can’t understand why the Australian government keeps them in limbo for months and years deciding on their fate. They fear being returned to Iraq, Afghanistan or Sri Lanka and…
Sri Lanka must be condemned, without ifs or buts
An important editorial in today’s Sydney Morning Herald that undermines its argument by continuing the Western corporate press obsession with the supposed dictatorship of Hugo Chavez. Human rights abuses obviously occur in Venezuela but the nation isn’t a police state and attempts to paint it otherwise, or compare it to the brutal regime in Colombo,…
What happened to Ban Ki-Moon in Sri Lanka? (hint; not much)
The failing of the UN towards the Tamils in Sri Lanka is both shameful and predictable. This is a conflict that continues to receive virtually no global media coverage despite up to 40,000 Tamils being massacred last year: During the Vietnam conflict, the US military developed some creative ways to increase the numbers of Viet…
Iceland and Wikileaks see a happy future together
There’s must be something in the water in Iceland. This is brave, important, likely to cause many states to scream loudly and bloody necessary in an age of After Iceland’s near-economic collapse laid bare deep-seated corruption, the country aims to become a safe haven for journalists and whistleblowers from around the globe by creating the…
Thank you Ubisoft for backing Colombo’s war crimes
When do computer game companies enjoy being co-opted by the state (especially police states) to earn profits? While the war in Sri Lanka is over fighting the LTTE is not, at least on a new video game to be launched this November by French gaming company Ubisoft. In the game to be titled Ghost Recon…
Australia’s desire to shame Tamils refugees
Two young journalists have produced a remarkable ABC radio documentary about the Australian government’s behaviour towards Tamil asylum seekers in the last 12 months: In October 2009 a boatload of asylum seekers were rescued by an Australian customs vessel the Oceanic Viking. The 78 were brought to Indonesia to be sent to Tanjung Pinang detention…