[BOAZ_David]

Thanx Webster, that was good and helpful, and takes the discussion to a deeper and better level. Glad u responded with more by way of facts than just opinion.

1/ Leaving Family, 'harboring' It is a common reality that if they want 'you' but can't find you, they will get ur family. Do I need to say more on that ?

2/ "To be granted asylum under the 1951 UN Refugees Convention it is necessary to demonstrate a well founded fear of persecution because of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. "

Ok.. agreed, they are asylum seekers until they actually have it. Then, they are refugees. Looking at a map of the world, and countries which have signed up to the UN convention, they Include many which are very CLOSE to places like Iraq etc. The catchy little ploy 'they need to declare their status to the 'RIGHT' person is another way of saying they should be able to go wherever they like in the world, but I'm sorry, our law is our law. So, what I said still stands. Christian or Muslim or whoever. As u said.. the 'whole story' of a LOT of this asylum seeker industry has not been told. How many of the people on the Tampa have relatives already in Australia ? So, for them, it would be an attempt to bypass our family re-union immigration laws and due process.

3/ I dont listen to Alan Jones at all. I'm victorian and most of those I listen to I disagree with. by the way.. regarding the full story about the Tampa ? I concluded from the available evidence that they resorted to what amounts to piracy. Your welcome to correct me on that, but not without evidence to the contrary.

ROB ! well done thanx for that. As u can see, I'm in pre alzheimers mode, of having a poor memory during times of high passion. It was the UN convention on Refugees of 1951.. I KNEW there was a 51 in their somewhere. (redish face)
I quoted the relevant bit above.

As for 'it doesn't take very long to process people'. SURE.. that is a big thorn in my side in the whole question. Whyyy does it take so long here ? It wouldn't be anything to do with coaching by smugglers to dispose of identity or papers prior to arrival would it ? or.. it wouldnt be due to lawyers who continually appeal and appeal etc.. nah..couldnt be any of that ... right ?

keep it up..and ur manner is appreciated.
BOAZ

[afroz]

So, Boaz, can I ask a two simple questions.

1. Are there refugees in Australia?

2. Are there detainees being actively mistreated, including bias and prejudice by the authority detaining them?

Simple answers will do please, no play of words, Boaz. These are serious matters, and if one is to defend matters on the basis of patriotism/nationalism/religosity rather than justice, i have not much time for that.

Was Salaam, Peace
Afroz

[Rob]

BOAZ_David, on Jan 30 2005, 03:27 PM, said:

As for 'it doesn't take very long to process people'. SURE.. that is a big thorn in my side in the whole question. Whyyy does it take so long here ? It wouldn't be anything to do with coaching by smugglers to dispose of identity or papers prior to arrival would it ?   or.. it wouldnt be due to lawyers who continually appeal and appeal etc.. nah..couldnt be any of that ... right ?
BOAZ

I understand your point, and it's one shared by others all over the globe and therefore deserves strong consideration. However, that other countries - many of them European - are able to do the exact same work in far less time (years less in fact), when dealing with the exact same smugglers also deserves strong consideration.

[BOAZ_David]

Rob, on Jan 30 2005, 04:13 PM, said:

I understand your point, and it's one shared by others all over the globe and therefore deserves strong consideration. However, that other countries - many of them European - are able to do the exact same work in far less time (years less in fact), when dealing with the exact same smugglers also deserves strong consideration.

Rob.. exactly.. I dont believe out government gets any joy or satisfaction about lengthy stays for anyone in detention centres, and I just hang my head in disbelief each time I see yet ANOTHER appeal by (censored.. censored.. VERY censored) lawyers who keep fuelling this industry.

If u have any light on that..... lemme know.

B

[BOAZ_David]

afroz, on Jan 30 2005, 03:33 PM, said:

So, Boaz, can I ask a two simple questions.

1. Are there refugees in Australia?

2. Are there detainees being actively mistreated, including bias and prejudice by the authority detaining them?

Simple answers will do please, no play of words, Boaz. These are serious matters, and if one is to defend matters on the basis of patriotism/nationalism/religosity rather than justice, i have not much time for that.

Was Salaam, Peace
Afroz

AfROZ.. I'll try but asking me to be specific would entail me researching individual cases in order to be accurate. I believe the media is always being used by all sides on these issues.

I can't comment on mistreatment, because a lot of the behavior is a result of frustration due to 'time' inside. which in turn is due to inability to process, due to lack of documents, or due to appeals after a 'no' etc.. there is no simple blanket answer.

Hope that helps
Peace
BOAZ

[afroz]

Then, I hate to say you are not qualified to make presumptuous comments, including "inside time", on this matter.

There are enough reports, confirmed by government audit themselves, as well as conference paperswhich confirm that maltreatment is not an isolated matter in detention centres. My wife, for example headed such aconference where some of the top officials presented their papers. My wife, yet again, counsels refugees on temporary visas, on a weekly basis.

You say you would have to research...do not know.... etc, yet you have jumped to strong assertions against the refugees. This is grossly unfair to say the least.

Boaz, you are intelligent enough. Yet you still tried to mince words and twist and turn. Facts are out there, yet you prefer to avoid it as well as prevaricate here. I have now lost a lot of hope or credibility in much of what you say.

Was Salaam, peace
Afroz

[BOAZ_David]

SHEIK
there are a few issues with those stories. The first is the Lockwood account of his visit to Canberra.. he only emphasized how 'harsh it was on families'.. did he SCREAM and YELL and JUMP up and down about the 15 criminals who were causing all the problem ? I'd like to know 'what he said' about that, and details of the response. Why are those facts hidden in all this ?

Then, the "I've been here 6 yrs" syndrome... WHY ? why would they be here that long ? could it be that their application was rejected and the lawyers got on the job and filed appeal after appeal after appeal and legal ploy after ploy ? and is it not possible that these people are actually prisoners of the LAWYERS ????

Given that criminals could be dealt with thru a decent reporting system and good communications between detainers and detainees, that kind of problem should have been easily resolved.

If they are then dealth with, what the heck is wrong with the SAFETY of the conditions at the centres ??? were they FED ? were they SECURE ? I refuse to allow my emotional strings to be played like a fiddle when there is so much bias in all sides of the reporting.
BOAZ

[BOAZ_David]

AFROZ...
I disagree mate.. my credibility would be shattered if I made sweeping assertions about specific cases which I dont have much information on. I'm more concerned about the principles involved rather than the specifics.
I cannot deny that u may see some genuine refugees being ill treated, but one needs to know MUCH more about chains of events.. to analyse such 'end results' properly. We both know that there are many vested interests in the refugee/assylum seeker industry.. people who will just use it to raise their own political profile. the Socialist Alliance would be one such disgusting group.
If they were sincere, they would NOT have their sign saying who they are on all the protest signs.
I remain unwilling to make simple answers on specific cases.
Peace
BOAZ (hope ur back is better)

[afroz]

Boaz, I was not speaking of "vested interests". I was speaking of government employees, psychologists who gain nothing from their report writing.

So, in other words, you suggest that there are no refugees in Australia, and that no maltreatment has occurred. Superbly ignorant, mate. That is all I can say. You are sounding more like a fishing politician.

Was Salaam
Afroz

[Webster]

BOAZ_David, on Jan 30 2005, 02:27 PM, said:

1/ Leaving Family, 'harboring'  It is a common reality that if they want 'you' but can't find you, they will get ur family.  Do I need to say more on that ?

2/ "To be granted asylum under the 1951 UN Refugees Convention it is necessary to demonstrate a well founded fear of persecution because of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. "

How many of the people on the Tampa have relatives already in Australia ?  So, for them, it would be an attempt to bypass our family re-union immigration laws and due process.

3/ I dont listen to Alan Jones at all. I'm victorian and most of those I listen to I disagree with. by the way.. regarding the full story about the Tampa ? I concluded from the available evidence that they resorted to what amounts to piracy.  Your welcome to correct me on that, but not without evidence to the contrary.

1/ Is it commonly held that if they want you, and can not get you, they will get your family? Not from my knowledge of talks i have had with many Asylum Seekers or Refugees. But there have been cases of such incidents that i have read. To the point, what difference does this make in a persons flight to freedom? How does this support your conservative viewpoint?

2/ Probably about 5% of the non -afghans that were aboard the Tampa. Does this change the case, No. To attempt to contact a foreign Official would be akin to treason in their country, meriting prison and torture, followed by a bill for the bullet used to kill the family member.

3/ It is important to recognise that the smugglers are the ones we need to target, not the smuggled. The Howard govt realised this and have taken effective steps to punish by example people caught smuggling Asylum Seekers.

Boaz, your thoughts on Asylum Seekers are unbalanced. I see that you have a deep understanding of the issue from a conservative viewpoint. You seem to me to have a lack of deep understanding from a liberal viewpoint. To accurately discuss a topic requires this deep undetrstanding.
I apologise for ass-u-m(e)ing that you listen to Alan Jones.
As for the Piracy, we delve into a deeper story which requires much understanding of their situation at the time.

back to the tennis.... Go Lleyton!

This post has been edited by Webster: 30 January 2005 - 07:52 PM

[BOAZ_David]

afroz, on Jan 30 2005, 08:13 PM, said:

Boaz, I was not speaking of "vested interests". I was speaking of government employees, psychologists who gain nothing from their report writing.

So, in other words, you suggest that there are no refugees in Australia, and that no maltreatment has occurred. Superbly ignorant, mate. That is all I can say. You are sounding more like a fishing politician. 

Was Salaam
Afroz

AFROZ... if it makes you happy .. here

There are refugees in Australia.
There has been ill treatment of refugees in Austrlia .. happy ?

But where does that get us ? I've followed the news close enuf to see the connection between the activities of the 'thugs' referred to elsewhere, and then suddenly there is a 'Psychologists report' or some other group of 'indpendant observers' yeah right.... no gain ? umm political ? The orchestration of protests and stunts and 'timing' was not missed by that astute observer.

but.. having said all that I'm moving to a view of not locking them up. I'm heading in the direction of letting their communities here look after them with a HUGE financial bond held in trust to ensure they dont 'vaporise' sound any better ? . On compassion grounds, I think its better for the people as long as they can be kept track of, that is the ultimate goal, but if I noticed a sudden INCREASE in the arrivals of them, I'd want to see policy adjustments accordingly.

.. but personally the only political involvement is my own, not with any party, though my leanings are toward FF.
I'm probably too radical even for them.


PEACE
BOAZ

[afroz]

And thank you.

Was Salaam
Afroz

[BOAZ_David]

afroz, on Jan 30 2005, 10:12 PM, said:

And thank you.

Was Salaam
Afroz

YOUR MOST WELCOME

BOAZ

[Webster]

BOAZ_David, on Jan 30 2005, 09:35 PM, said:

YOUR MOST WELCOME

BOAZ

Boaz please read this speech by I'm sure someone you highly respect. It may give you some of that much needed balance I talked about, in order to carry an effective discussion accross.
When you're ready to become Muslim, just PM me .

[Mowlana Vector]

The Flawed System That Failed 'Anna'
By: Michelle Grattan

Australia's detention regime is endless in its ability to shock. And the same goes for federal immigration ministers.

Amanda Vanstone's response to the revelation that a seriously mentally ill woman, Cornelia Rau, had been incarcerated in Baxter and elsewhere for months, on suspicion that she was an illegal immigrant, is extraordinary. Vanstone knows the Government is on the back foot. But she is defiant.

Let us consider what the minister says about the case of "Anna" as she called herself, before her identity was established (no thanks to the Government).

Anticipating attacks, Vanstone condemns in advance as "opportunistic" criticism of those who "have worked to care for the woman and determine her identity".

Presumably she means that critics will use the case to back up earlier reflections on the detention system or to make a political point. That's irrelevant - strong criticism of the handling of this case is called for. The failure to identify the woman quickly, or to properly diagnose her condition, is an appalling indictment of the system.

Refugee advocate Pamela Curr, alerted by Baxter detainees that the woman was behaving in a highly disturbed way, contacted Vanstone's office in December. She was given the answer she has become used to - "we don't discuss individual cases". In January she made another call, talking to Paul Giles, one of Vanstone's advisers, to get the same response.

It was only after the story was reported by The Age's Andra Jackson last week that the identity of the woman was established - by her own family realising that this was probably the relative for whom they had been searching for months.

Jackson's story reported the woman appeared to be mentally ill and quoted Curr saying "she exhibits psychotic symptoms, screaming and talking to herself at times, and screams in terror often for long periods especially when locked in the cell". A spokeswoman for acting immigration minister Peter McGauran said - you've guessed it - that he could not comment on individual cases.

Vanstone has a duty of care over everyone who is in detention. Her office had also been alerted, in a way that should have led to immediate intensive investigation and identification of the woman. It has been a monumental failure.

Vanstone urges us "to consider the difficulties facing authorities in establishing the identity of someone who provides false information, provides no documentation and is either unwilling or unable to assist in confirming identity".

Really? What, one might ask, are police facing all the time, when confronted by criminals who won't tell them what they've done or, sometimes, who they are? Police and Immigration Department officials are supposed to have investigative skills.

The Queensland police interviewed this woman soon after she escaped from hospital last March. Local Aborigines who found her in North Queensland were concerned by her strange behaviour, and took her to the police. The police referred her to Immigration in early April after, Vanstone says, she told them she was a German citizen here on a temporary visa. Her story was that she had arrived in Melbourne around mid-March. She gave false names and history.

Vanstone says Immigration talked with Commonwealth and state agencies, had consular representatives visit her, and made "contact with the governments of several countries". Australian representatives overseas made "checks".

Why then, did Immigration miss picking her up from the missing persons list? Rau was reported missing around August and the NSW police appealed for help late last year.

We read all sorts of great stories about how missing people are traced. Here is someone who was on a list (obviously under a different name but there were photos and a mental health history filed with the police), and detained by the Commonwealth. Yet in all the checking that Vanstone claims was done, the listing and the detainee were never connected, until the family contacted police last week and police contacted Immigration at Baxter.

Then we have the issue of the medical assessment of Rau and her treatment while in the care of the Immigration Department.

Vanstone declares: "From the moment she came into Immigration detention she was provided with medical care, including psychiatric care which ultimately led to her admission to a psychiatric facility in Brisbane for assessment. This found that, while having some behavioural problems, she did not meet the criteria for a mental illness."

A group of Aborigines who had limited contact with the woman recognised she had problems that were serious enough to hand her over to the police. The detainees in Baxter knew she was in a bad way.

Yet the doctor or doctors who saw her under the aegis of the Immigration Department diagnosed her as just having "some behavioural problems". Maybe Immigration needs new doctors. It is alarming that serious mental illness can't be distinguished from "behavioural problems" - perhaps those looking at these things are too conditioned to people in detention being driven to strange behaviour.

Vanstone says Cornelia Rau's "is a tragic case, but one that has been resolved, giving comfort to the woman's family".

It doesn't give much comfort to her family however, to know that Cornelia has suffered months of anguish that should have been avoided. Nor can it give comfort to the community to know that someone can be "lost", Kafka-like, in the system, or that when a minister's office is alerted to a problem, nothing much seems to happen.

In her statement Vanstone notably makes no reference to the contacts made with her office, and this is the first of many questions that she should answer, before or when parliament resumes this week.

Just for starters: Was the minister personally alerted after Curr rang in December and January? Did she get regular updates on the case - if so, when and from whom? Why wasn't Cornelia identified from the missing persons list? How many doctors examined her in Brisbane and Baxter and what is their explanation for apparently misdiagnosing her mental state? Has the minister called for a report on alleged mistreatment of Cornelia while she was held in the Brisbane women's prison, which Immigration uses because it has no facility in that city? The claims, made by a group which advocates for women in prison, are that she was restrained in body belts and handcuffs, and put in a rubber room.

One of the most frightening aspects of this affair is that, according to Curr, everything the Immigration Department did was lawful. The system has failed totally, but lawfully. The law requires a person to prove that he or she is a citizen or resident: Cornelia did not do so, presumably because of fear of being taken back to the psychiatric hospital from which she had escaped or because she was not in fit mind.

One of the difficulties for refugee advocates in this case was that a lawyer could not become involved until Cornelia signed a form allowing that, which she did only recently. Things are loaded against someone who is helpless, for one reason or another.

The Rau case brings back under scrutiny a detention system in which many injustices have been done.

A most obvious current one is the treatment of failed asylum-seeker Peter Qasim, a Kashmiri from Indian-occupied territory who has been detained for more than six years. He has suffered depression and has spent some time in psychiatric care. He has said he is willing to be repatriated but he doesn't have papers and the Indian Government will not accept him. Vanstone's spokesman says there are "still identity issues" with Qasim and efforts continue to be made to secure his "genuine" co-operation on these. The Government is within its legal rights in keeping him incarcerated. But on any grounds of morality or decency this man should be let out and allowed to stay in Australia. He has no security or character issues that can be raised against this. The case is a scandal. As Adele Horin, writing recently in The Sydney Morning Herald says, "Qasim should be a household name in Australia".

There has been a lot of talk recently about how, now that the Government has control of the Senate, it will be the back bench that puts pressure on Howard over a variety of issues. There is already a ginger group on tax. It is time that some of those who have been deeply troubled over the years by the Government's policy on asylum seekers, children in detention, temporary protection visas and the like took up the Qasim case. In the past, the pressure of MPs such as Petro Georgiou, John Forrest and others has led to some limited wins. They should familiarise themselves with the Qasim case, raise the issue in the party room, and press for his release. If the dreadful experience of Cornelia Rau refocuses attention on what else is happening at Baxter, it will have achieved something positive.

Source
============================

SEE ALSO
Vanstone Defends Cornelia's Handling

She's Australian & Mentally Ill - Yet Immigration Locked Her Up

Anna's Story

[Mowlana Vector]

Subclass 26A


Simon Ellis (left) and Rodney Afif
in the emotively powerful Subclass 26A.

Devised and directed by Bagryana Popov
45downstairs until February 27

Bagryana Popov can hardly have known how timely this production of Subclass 26A was going to be, opening just as the shock-waves from the Cornelia Rau case are still reverberating.

The mistreatment of a mentally ill Australian citizen incarcerated in a detention facility seems a palpably obvious injustice, but Popov asks whether the purely political classification of individuals as "illegal" can justify precisely the same the treatment suffered by Rau.

This movement, dance and spoken-performance piece, accompanied by Elissa Goodrich on a variety of percussion instruments, shows us what is encountered on arrival, in detention and in the interviews undergone by asylum seekers. Performed in a stark white space with an economy of gesture and words, it is chilling and discomforting.

Most of the words are not invented, but read or spoken from official documents, such as the letter that accompanies the refusal of visa applications.

Like the bewildered asylum seekers, we must struggle to understand the reasons behind the cruelties of "rules" that are designed to disguise the real agendas. What emerges is a world that is as much a bureaucratic nightmare as anything in the writings of Franz Kafka.

What becomes clear is the shocking fact that crimes against humanity are being enacted in our name, less bloody and dramatically life-threatening than the terror these victims have fled, but terrifying to imagine being inflicted on ourselves.

And nothing justifies this treatment except the "otherness" of Iraqis, Afghans, Chinese or simply Muslims.

Each part of the process dehumanises, from the initial "sorting" on arrival at the detention centre, the petty rules and refusal to provide explanations once there, walls everywhere, the desperation of existing outside a known time-frame, to the deliberate confusion engendered in the interviews and their questions that seem to make no sense.

Truth struggles to be heard and madness becomes as inevitable a reaction as impotent rage.

The power of the piece is its creation of the sense of being trapped in this space with the performers. Simon Ellis, Natalie Cursio and Nadja Kostich, as camp officials and guards, reveal degrees of disaffection and damage to their own humanity. Majid Shokor, Rodney Afif and Ru Atma are their victims, treated guilty until proven innocent.

Let's hope some of those Australians who find no reason to criticise the treatment of asylum seekers see this powerful and moving piece.

Source
==================================

SEE ALSO

Habib, Rau Cases Prompt Rights Bill Calls

Detention: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Odyssey of a Lost Soul

Exposed: The Darkest Corners of Our Lives

[Mowlana Vector]

Vanstone Brings Different Approach To Immigration

Human rights advocate and immigration agent Marion Le says Amanda Vanstone has brought a more pragmatic approach to the Immigration Department.

BARRIE CASSIDY: What is going on within the system? Human rights advocate and immigration agent Marion Le is standing by in Canberra. Good morning.

MARION LE: Good morning, Barry.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Could you give us a sense, given your experience with both political contacts and within the department, what's changed since Amanda Vanstone took over from Phillip Ruddock?

MARION LE: I think since Amanda took over there's been a - sorry, I'm getting feedback here.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Are you? We'll try and work on that. We'll try and fix it. Let us know if you have got a problem and we'll come back to you. How is it now?

MARION LE: I think that's okay now. That's fine.

BARRIE CASSIDY: All right. The question was: what's changed now that the ministers have changed?

MARION LE: Since Amanda Vanstone has taken over there's been a much more pragmatic approach, I think, to solving some of the problems. Now, whether that came about because of the election on the horizon, but certainly there was an attempt to solve the Nauru situation. There's been a number of attempts to release a lot more people out of the other detention centres. Baxter is now down to the lowest numbers I think that we've had in detention since the early 1980s. Yes, I think basically this minister has been much more pragmatic and probably in some ways a lot more dogmatic. But she's been willing to learn, to admit that the department has made mistakes and to in the face of new evidence go back and have her department look at the situation of people who have been held long term in detention.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Why is it, though, that we seem to be reading of more individual cases since Amanda Vanstone took over? That didn't seem to be the case when Philip Ruddock was there.

MARION LE: Phillip Ruddock was very proud of his record that he had the greatest number of ministerial interventions of any minister. That means that, by the time people went through a process, if it was flawed then their cases go to the minister and he would intervene. That was very good. Phillip Ruddock, to my mind, was the best informed of any immigration minister we have ever had, and I have been involved for about 30 years. He could do that because he understood the system. He had been a person who had been negotiating the changes in the regulations. He had been in opposition as the opposition spokesman for many years. So he knew the Migration Act intimately. At that point, though, I did say to him once, "Look, Minister, if you have to intervene that many times, there is something drastically wrong with the system."

What we've got now is the system that is still clumsy, not working, people drop through the cracks. We've got a new minister who perhaps is not as well informed. We've got ministerial advisers who are on a very fast learning curve. People are being rejected through no fault of their own and the migration agents, the advocates out there are trying to get through to the minister, finding that it is impossible and more and more is coming out in the media.

MATT PRICE: How are the detainees reacting to reading in the last week or so all these headlines about the need for skilled and unskilled labour and the push for more skilled migrants to come across? I suspect many of them would be ideally placed to fill some of the gaps.

MARION LE: I'm sure they would. There are some very highly skilled people in our detention centres. But I think we've got to look at the situation under which people come. The people who are mainly in the detention centres, not all of them, are people who have come here and claimed asylum. Now, I'm strongly with the government, strongly with the minister, that if you are coming here seeking a migration outcome and pretending that you are a refugee, obviously that's not something that we want to happen. So we've got, you know, this problem that when people come seeking asylum are found not to be refugees, then do we allow them to, in the terms that Minister Ruddock made famous, jump the queue and then apply for migration? I don't really think that's what we want to be doing.

But the people we have in our detention centres are largely people now who are stateless and so they're just sitting there, as Peter Qasim, for example, who's been there for over seven years. What's the point of that? We're wasting people's talents, We're wasting young people's lives, and certainly we could be letting them out and into the community. The South Australian government has been very strong on that for a number of years.

MISHA SCHUBERT: Just wondering in light of the last week's coverage of Liberal Party backbenchers taking up this issue again of mandatory detention, long-term mandatory detention and Family First trying to use their muscle to agitate with the Prime Minister, what are the prospects, in your mind, for some real reform around that issue?

MARION LE: Hopefully at the moment with that pressure coming on the government from the backbench I hope we will have reform. There is no sense, in my opinion, it's totally unconscionable, to be locking up people for long periods of time. As I say, that's a total waste of human lives and it's definitely in breach of all the international conventions to which we're signatories and some of those to which we're not. So I would hope that the backbenchers keep pushing the government and saying that this is just not on. We cannot keep people in detention for no reason other than that they've come here seeking asylum and for some reason they can't go back.

Most of the people now there long term are people who are stateless and are there because of mistakes made very early on by the department, not because of their own problems. They're being sorted out bit by bit. But it is appalling that it has taken over four years, for example, to sort out some of the Afghani cases and say, "Look, we've made a mistake. You're not Pakistani after all. We now admit that you're Afghani." They've been locked up there for four years. It's just shocking.

ANDREW BOLT: The UN High Commission for Refugees last week noted a big fall in the number of refugees around the world and attributed it largely to many fewer refugees coming from Afghanistan and Iraq, both countries of which have been liberated. Do you think the more extreme refugee advocate should now acknowledge that the liberation of those two countries, with Australia's help, has in fact done more for more refugees than any other action of any other government?

MARION LE: Well, I think there is a double question there. I think the people who fled from Afghanistan at the height of the Taliban, we've got numbers of those people, as I say, still locked up here in our detention centres which is appalling. But certainly the UN is now attempting to have people go back, and that's one of the primary roles of the United Nations, is to find durable solutions, and where possible most people want to return to their own countries when the situation stabilises.

ANDREW BOLT: Isn't that the point? Without the liberation of Afghanistan, say, 2,000,000 Afghanis would not have been able to return to their country as they have done. I'm just saying: hasn't the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq done more good for more refugees than any other action of any other government?

MARION LE: Well, I don't see that that follows, actually, because both of those countries are still highly unstable. We still have people who are political refugees fleeing both countries. Afghanistan, for example, the United Nations and the Afghan government, including our local ambassador, have said very strongly that no-one should be returned there against their will. Anyone who has fled this point in time cannot necessarily be offered security. Unless they judge themselves to be safe, then they shouldn't be sent back because, outside of Kabul, there is still no security in Afghanistan. So we may be talking about the liberation of a country, but it is perfectly lawless. I was there, you know, about 18 months ago and the situation on the ground is still bad.

ANDREW BOLT: Misha has just come back from there and that's not the picture she wants, but anyway.

BARRIE CASSIDY: We will have to leave it there, but thank you very much for your contribution this morning. Appreciate it.

MARION LE: Thank you.

Source
=====================================

SEE ALSO
SUNDAY Interview: Amanda Vanstone

Vanstone's Oldest Admirer

[Wolf]

Quote

Outcry over school 'raids' to detain children
March 16, 2005 - 4:23PM

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Argument raged today over immigration officers removing children from schools and locking them in detention centres.

Parents, opposition politicians and medical experts say the practice is cruel and must stop.

They condemned the Immigration Department after the NSW Teachers' Federation uncovered what they said were instances in the past fortnight of immigration officials detaining school children because their parents had overstayed their visas.

The federation maintains that children as young as six were taken to Villawood detention centre, in some instances after being removed from their school yards by immigration officials.

It is investigating immigration raids on schools in Stanmore, Kogarah, Chester Hill, and a Seventh-Day Adventist school.

In one instance, two girls aged 11 and six were taken from a school in Sydney's inner-west and immigration officers refused to allow the principal to contact the children's carer, the federation's senior vice-president Angelo Gavrielatos said today.

Advertisement
AdvertisementThe Immigration Department has confirmed the raids but said today it only occasionally entered schools.

"The number of cases where officers need to enter school premises to detain children is very small," a spokesman said.

"We work closely with the school in question to ensure as far as possible the cases are handled sensitively ... we attempt to engage the assistance of the school principal to resolve any issues relating to pupils."

However, Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said children were only taken to Villawood after advice from detained parents.

One incident had occurred where a principal was notified and the parents had asked that the child be removed from the classroom.

"If you wish to create the impression that there are immigration officers running around snatching children from schools, good luck to you," Senator Vanstone said.

She said newspaper reports were exaggerated, adding: "My advice is that over the last couple of weeks there have been two instances in NSW schools.

"The supposition put to me that children were taken from a schoolyard in front of other children is not correct."

Mr Gavrielatos called on the federal government to end what he maintained was a "cruel" policy.

"We are shocked and appalled at the events of the last week or two which have seen officials from the Department of Immigration enter our schools and remove children from schools," he told reporters in Sydney.

"This is an absolute outrage, it has shocked us all. We call on the government to end the cruelty ... and observe the basic rights that these children have."

NSW Parents and Citizens' Association president Sharryn Brownlee said parents were horrified about the reported schoolyard raids, and the students had been traumatised.

"The impact on these young children's lives will remain with them forever," she said.

The National Association of Practising Psychiatrists said the raids would have a huge impact on the children detained, their friends and school staff.

"It's very traumatic for everybody and it could well have long-lasting effects on some of them," president Dr Jean Lennane said today.

"There's nowhere for them to look for help or security - if you can't rely on a school as a place of safety, where can you look?"

Labor's immigration spokesman Laurie Ferguson said the Immigration Department's actions were "absolutely over the top and unnecessary."

NSW Education Minister Carmel Tebbutt would not comment on the raids today but a spokesman previously said the Immigration Department's actions were inappropriate.

http://www.smh.com.a...0913654553.html

Obviously these children pose a real and significant threat to the safety of the country.

[Mowlana Vector]

(cartoon courtesy of Bill Leak , The Australian, 10 March 2005, P.12)

[Mowlana Vector]

Howard Set to Free 120 Detainees

Australia's longest-term detainees may soon be released into the community under a major change in Government policy being spearheaded by John Howard.

Cabinet is considering releasing, on some form of temporary visa, failed asylum seekers who have been detained more than three years and cannot practically be repatriated. About 120 people, who came to Australia in boats, are in this category, although the cases of about 30 of them are already under review.

Mr Howard is responding to backbench pressure and increasing community disquiet. The detainees' plight was highlighted by the case of Cornelia Rau, an Australian resident mistakenly locked up at Baxter.

Government sources said cabinet was seeking a way to release the long-term detainees without sending a wrong signal to people smugglers.

Cabinet discussed the issue on Monday, including whether there should be a new form of temporary visa, and what power the Immigration Minister had to issue a conditional visa. The aim would still be to have these people leave Australia eventually if possible. Officials' work will come back to cabinet within weeks, possibly as early as Tuesday.

Some long-term detainees have appeals under way. There are problems getting travel documents for some; a few are stateless. The longest serving detainee, Peter Qasim, a Kashmiri, is in his seventh year, with India refusing to accept him.

Victorian Liberal backbencher Petro Georgiou, a strong advocate for the detainees, said last night: "It's very important that the regime of indefinite detention be terminated. People who are not a threat to Australian security should be let out of detention."

He said the Government should also give permanent visas to the several thousand refugees on temporary protection visas, but Government sources said the temporary protection visa issue was not before cabinet.

Liberal backbencher Bruce Baird, from NSW, who with Mr Georgiou and Judi Moylan (WA) met Mr Howard recently to plead for a change of policy, told Lateline on Friday that Mr Howard was "sympathetic in listening to our story". National party whip John Forrest said yesterday: "I'm hopeful of a shift in policy on long-term detainees."

David Manne, co-ordinator of the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre in Melbourne, said the indefinite detention policy needed "wholesale reversal".
Source
=============================================

ALSO SEE
Refugees Found To Be Wrongfully Detained

A New Twist in the Mandatory Detention of Refugees

[Mowlana Vector]

Doublespeak
By: Julian Burnside

Refugee advocate, Julian Burnside, takes aim at weasel words and dangerous "doublespeak".

Outside the realm of high art, language is intended to convey meaning. Ideally, it should do so accurately. Some writers and speakers betray this ideal, and use language as a sham to mask an intellectual void; or worse, as a stalking horse for quite different ideas they dare not acknowledge.

The world is awash with examples of the first sort – empty rhetoric dressed up in false finery, or vacuous new-Age gush, or the yawning post-modern fashion of abstraction piled on abstraction – all devoid of real content. These are the empty calories, the fast food of modern discourse. They are the staple of cheap magazines, talk-back radio and bad art criticism.

More interesting is the second sort: speech which serves to disguise the thing being discussed. Depending on circumstances, it may be called tact, or diplomacy or doublespeak or lying. The proper description depends on the speaker’s purpose.

Tact sets out to avoid giving offence. It suppresses or disguises an unhappy truth to spare the feelings of another. It is falsehood in the service of kindness; a down-payment on future favour. When tact is lifted from the personal to the national scale, it is called diplomacy.

Euphemism does not directly suppress the truth, but disguises it by substituting gentle words for harsher ones. Its intention is benign, if somewhat fey. Its excesses of delicacy inspired Dr Bowdler to strip Shakespeare of any questionable content, removing, as he said, its ‘blemishes’. Euphemism is especially needed where body parts and body functions are the subject: a cheap frock for recognised facts.

Tact is kind; diplomacy is useful; euphemism is harmless and sometimes entertaining. By contrast, doublespeak is dishonest and dangerous.

In his closing address at Nuremberg, US prosecutor Robert Jackson said:

"Nor is the lie direct the only means of falsehood. [the Defendants] all speak with a Nazi double talk with which to deceive the unwary. In the Nazi dictionary of sardonic euphemisms "final solution" of the Jewish problem was a phrase which meant extermination; "special treatment" of prisoners of war meant killing; "protective custody" meant concentration camp; "duty labor" meant slave labor; and an order to "take a firm attitude" or "take positive measures" meant to act with unrestrained savagery."

When Soviet tanks invaded Prague in 1968, the manoeuvre was described as “fraternal internationalist assistance to the Czechoslovak people”.

The war in Vietnam produced such doublespeak expressions as:

Collateral damage meaning killing innocent civilians

Energetic disassembly meaning nuclear explosion

Incontinent ordnance meaning bombs which hit schools and hospitals by mistake

Active defence meaning invasion.

Doublespeak uses language to smuggle uncomfortable ideas into comfortable minds. The Nazi regime were masters at it. Many governments today are enthusiastic imitators.

The victims of incontinent ordnance, or active defence, or fraternal internationalist assistance often flee for safety. A small number of them arrive in Australia asking for help. They commit no offence under Australian or international law by arriving here without an invitation, in order to seek protection. Nonetheless the Australian Government refers to them as “illegals”. This is done for a purpose: these people are immediately locked up without trial. No doubt it seems less offensive to lock up “illegals” than to lock up innocent, traumatised human beings.

They are also disparaged as "queue jumpers": a neat device which falsely suggests two things. First that there is a queue, and second that it is in some way appropriate to stand in line when your life is at risk.

When the “illegals/queue jumpers” arrive, they are "detained" This means that they are locked up without trial, for an indefinite time - typically months or years.

If necessary, they can be detained for the rest of their lives.

Baxter detention centre is surrounded by a 9000 volt electric fence. But in the doublespeak of the Department of Immigration, this is an “energised courtesy fence”.

Solitary confinement, which is regularly used, is called ‘separation detention’ or ‘the management unit’.

If detainees are driven to the desperate extreme of suicide or self-harm, this is disparaged as “inappropriate behaviour” designed to “manipulate the Government”. By that doublespeak, the victim becomes the offender.

In 1946, George Orwell wrote Politics and Language, in which he exposed the deceits and devices of doublespeak. He might have thought that it would lose its power once its workings were revealed. But he would be disappointed. Language is as powerful now as in 1933: it can hide shocking truth, it can deceive a nation.

If we value the truth, we need to watch our language.

Source
===========

ALSO SEE
True Lies, Double Speak and John Howard

[inward]

Religion factored in to refugee policy: PM


The Government's immigration policy contains no Christianity-specific clauses but must take religious conversions into account, Prime Minister John Howard says.

The cases of 30 of Australia's longest-serving immigration detainees are under review, some of them because they have converted to another religion, including Christianity, since arriving in the country.

Mr Howard says the Government's policy is always under review, although there will be no major changes.

He says that while the policy is not biased in favour of Christians, concerns about religious persecution are taken into account.

"We're not in the business of saying 'well we're going to give a special preference'," Mr Howard said.

"We are nonetheless concerned when people can demonstrate that by dint of having embraced a particular belief they may suffer persecution if they go back to a particular country - that's always been there."

"The idea that we've introduced something that is peculiar only to people that convert to Christianity, that's not correct," Mr Howard added.

More conversions

But Labor's Laurie Ferguson is sceptical.

"To basically have a situation here now where a great possibility is given to those people who convert, I think we're going to find a few more conversions quiet frankly," Mr Ferguson said.

The chairman of the Family First Party, Peter Harris, has also questioned the review of immigration detainees who have converted to Christianity.

Mr Harris is concerned some detainees may convert just so they can stay in Australia.

"Let's not underestimate persecution that occurs in different countries but I think that if the Government makes decisions on the basis of religion as opposed to having a process of compassion and expediency, there are some real dangers in causing people to go down that pathway," he said.

source:abcnews

This post has been edited by inward: 21 March 2005 - 02:24 PM

[idriys]

inward, on Mar 21 2005, 02:22 PM, said:

Religion factored in to refugee policy: PM
The Government's immigration policy contains no Christianity-specific clauses but must take religious conversions into account, Prime Minister John Howard says.

The cases of 30 of Australia's longest-serving immigration detainees are under review, some of them because they have converted to another religion, including Christianity, since arriving in the country.

Mr Howard says the Government's policy is always under review, although there will be no major changes.

He says that while the policy is not biased in favour of Christians, concerns about religious persecution are taken into account.

"We're not in the business of saying 'well we're going to give a special preference'," Mr Howard said.

"We are nonetheless concerned when people can demonstrate that by dint of having embraced a particular belief they may suffer persecution if they go back to a particular country - that's always been there."

"The idea that we've introduced something that is peculiar only to people that convert to Christianity, that's not correct," Mr Howard added.

More conversions

But Labor's Laurie Ferguson is sceptical.

"To basically have a situation here now where a great possibility is given to those people who convert, I think we're going to find a few more conversions quiet frankly," Mr Ferguson said.

The chairman of the Family First Party, Peter Harris, has also questioned the review of immigration detainees who have converted to Christianity.

Mr Harris is concerned some detainees may convert just so they can stay in Australia.

"Let's not underestimate persecution that occurs in different countries but I think that if the Government makes decisions on the basis of religion as opposed to having a process of compassion and expediency, there are some real dangers in causing people to go down that pathway," he said.

source:abcnews

I reckon them to be opportunists and, therefore, the very essence of the type of person who should be refused entry. Question: As apparent kafirs, is one supposed to go and kill them while they are here, in Australia, or should one leave them to their fate, when they arrive at that time and place which awauts us all?

[Mowlana Vector]

Immigration Detention Centres Inhumane: APS


(image courtesy of Bill Leak, The Australian)

IMMIGRATION detention centres are inhumane and create mental illness that leaves detainees unfit for normal life, the Australian Psychological Society (APS) said today.

APS president Dr Amanda Gordon told a public forum in Sydney the detention centres create an "enormous mental illness burden" on society, because the detainees are left unable to cope with a return to normal life.

"There is good clear physiological evidence that keeping people in detention ... is punishing in that it causes mental illness," Dr Gordon told the forum, titled Human Rights and Mental Health in Australia.

"Detention is inhumane because it keeps people away from other people but it also actually creates mental illness."

Her comments follow the detention of Cornelia Rau, a 39-year-old permanent Australian resident from Sydney, who was wrongly held at the Baxter detention centre for several months.

The former Qantas flight attendant, who was listed as missing in August last year, has been diagnosed as suffering a severe psychiatric disorder. She was released from Baxter in February and taken to an Adelaide psychiatric hospital.

The APS has previously urged the federal government to broaden the scope of its inquiry into Ms Rau's detention to include a review of the management of emotional and behavioural disturbance in immigration detention.

NSW opposition mental health spokeswoman Gladys Berejiklian told the forum NSW had one of the worst records on mental health in Australia.

Ms Berejiklian said she had been "floored" by the extent of mental health problems in the state after being appointed to the role six weeks ago.

"The magnitude of the problem is huge," she said.

"Whereas the national picture is quite appalling, NSW is the worst of all the mainland states in relation to providing these hospitals for psychiatric patients."

Ms Berejiklian said 14.1 beds were allocated for mental health patients per 1,000 people, some of the worst data in Australia.

Many community-based mental health clinics also were being closed down, forcing patients to go to nearby hospitals for treatment, she said.

"It's about the worst thing you can do ... mentally ill people associate hospitals with the worst episodes of their illness," she said.

She said the NSW government did not have a dedicated mental health minister, with those issues included in the portfolio of Health Minister Morris Iemma.

Ms Berejiklian said as long as mental health was included in the NSW government's health portfolio, it would remain a third or fourth priority.

AAP

Weblink
========================

SEE ALSO
Australian Psychological Society

Detainees Who Find Christ May Be Allowed To Stay

[Mowlana Vector]

Human Cargo
Reviewer: James Bradley

Human cargo: a journey among refugees
By Caroline Moorehead
Chatto & Windus, $44.95

I recently found myself in a conversation about several of the writers who have spent time or are still held in Australia's immigration detention centres. While attempting to explain the inconsistencies and capriciousness of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs' procedures, I mentioned in passing that one of them had come via Indonesia. "Of course he could have stayed there," said my friend, himself the child of Jewish refugees resettled in the late 1940s. "Coming here was a choice."

In the last decade, and particularly since the events leading up to the 2001 election, opinions such as these have become commonplace in Australia, reiterated so often as to become absolutions of a kind, allowing the speaker to dissociate themselves from the broader question of our treatment of asylum-seekers.

His words came back to me while reading Human Cargo, Caroline Moorehead's remarkable account of her three years among the world's refugees, a book that does much to make real the plight of those made homeless by war, persecution and economic need, and almost as much to problematise the apparently simple distinction on which it rests, that of the "good" refugee - those with a valid claim of persecution - and the "bad" refugee (or "economic migrant") who are not fleeing persecution but merely seeking a better life.

Given the bitterness of our domestic debate on the issue, Moorehead's book can sometimes seem curiously dispassionate, and yet the voices of her subjects - Liberian teenagers trapped in Cairo, Africans in the UK, Ivorians in Guinea, Afghani returnees and many others - say more than she or any commentator ever could. One by one, sometimes together but usually alone, they relate stories that challenge the reader to revise their easy notions of what it might mean to be displaced, of its causes and its costs.

Set against the stories she finds, the easy distinctions in which the political debate in Australia and other developed countries trade become less and less persuasive, a horribly stunted and almost criminally inadequate framework that seems to operate in a vacuum of its own making.

Nonetheless, many of the stories Moorehead finds are inspiring. Time and again, the people she speaks to exhibit a determination to keep living, to learn, to succeed - which is humbling to hear. And yet simultaneously, the human cost of their displacement begins to take shape, the way it fractures time and self, leaving the displaced caught somewhere in between a past they cannot escape and a future that seems unable to begin.

Trapped thus, it is also possible to glimpse how easy it is for this determination to give way, to be betrayed by the reality of their plight. Some grow embittered, some return, only to be killed or disappear, others fall victim to accident or violence in the places to which they have fled while waiting for their chance to begin again, some choose to take their own lives or go mad.

While Human Cargo is not so much a polemic as a testament, an act of bearing witness, it is also inescapably a plea for a more humane response to the plight of refugees worldwide. At the beginning of 2004, 17 million people were assessed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as being "of concern". Of these, perhaps 9.7 million were refugees, just under a million were asylum-seekers, close to 4.5 million were internally displaced and more than a million were stateless. Almost half were children, with 5 per cent of them unaccompanied by adults. Of these 17 million, 55,000 were resettled in 2003, mostly in the US, Australia and Canada.

A problem on such a scale, with its attendant human and economic costs, should demand concerted action, particularly by those nations that are most able to bear the cost. And yet most of the world's refugees end up in those countries least able to afford them, while governments in developed countries such as Australia and many European nations have cynically promoted climates of fear and hostility towards the displaced for political gain.

Refugee matters worldwide, have, as one UNHCR official Moorehead interviews says, become "profoundly dysfunctional . . . large sums are spent keeping small numbers of refugees out, and small sums on protecting large numbers of refugees in distant camps".

But as my friend's remark so clearly demonstrates, the problem is a deeper one, one of comprehension, made possible by a very particular failure of the moral imagination. And while Moorehead does not pretend there are easy answers to the problem, this immensely moving and frequently upsetting book does demand of her readers that they look again, and listen.

James Bradley is editor of Sydney PEN Centre's Quarterly magazine. His third novel, The Resurrectionist, will be published by Picador next year.

Source
==============================================

[Mowlana Vector]

The Five Star Asylum journo(known to his mates as Pembo), is now the newly appointed Editor of NSW's highest circulating (tabloid) newspaper
===================================

Be Bash, Be Bold, and Make It Sell
By: Samantha Maiden
The Australian, The Media Section (7 April 2005)



David Penberthy knows how to shock, outrage and be controversial. He did it when he discovered an old photo of Alexander Downer in a fishnet stocking and leopard-print high heel. The now Minister for Foreign Affairs had agreed to pose as part of a harmless publicity stunt - but Penberthy decided it needed wider circulation, and Downer's foot has been a constant joy for cartoonists ever since.

He did it again when he examined detention centres under the heading "Five-Star Asylum", and when he covered a federal election by travelling in a hotted-up old Holden to meet voters. His weekly columns are often contentious but rarely boring.

Now he is being asked to bring those talents to News Limited's most important tabloid, Sydney's The Daily Telegraph, as editor.

News Limited (which also publishes The Australian) has indicated that by plucking the 35-year-old journalist from the editorial floor and skipping the usual run as a deputy editor somewhere out of town, it is looking for someone who is going to cause a stir - and by so doing possibly arrest a declining circulation.

Many of his former colleagues believe News is looking for a return to the good old days when, under Col Allan, The Telegraph regularly upset vast tracts of the Sydney establishment and commanded attention by being bold and brash.

A law school drop-out with a taste for meat, beer and cigarettes, News Limited's youngest editor began his career as a cadet journalist for Adelaide's The Advertiser in 1992.

After he signed off his last column on Friday with a love letter to blokey tears, Penberthy's appointment was announced to colleagues in the afternoon and on Sunday he stepped straight into the job of editing NSW's biggest-selling newspaper. He says it was only on Thursday that he "got the call and went upstairs. The great thing about News Limited is you don't have long-winded meetings about things.

"Someone compared [the job] to drinking water out of a firehose," he says. "It's not until you start doing a job like this that you suddenly realise why you could never find your editor. It's those other demands that when you're a reporter you don't think as much about - production, marketing, circulation."

For some, Penberthy's age and Adelaide past provide cause for reservations about his elevation, but he laughs at The Weekend Australian's decision to lead his appointment announcement with: "A 35-year-old journalist from Adelaide was yesterday appointed editor of Sydney's largest-selling newspaper."

"I thought the intro should have read: 'Incredibly important newspaper to be edited by idiot savant from Snowtown' - that seemed to be the flavour," he says.

"The thing that reassures me, if I start to get the staggers, is I can look across the room at people who know exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it."

Penberthy says he's been lucky to work with some of the best editors in the country - his first boss in Adelaide was Peter Blunden, now editing Australia's biggest selling daily, The Herald Sun, and while an Advertiser correspondent in Canberra, he was handpicked by former Daily Telegraph editor Steve Howard to become NSW state political reporter in 1999.

It was in Adelaide that Penberthy first spied the famous photograph of the Foreign Minister in fishnet tights; Downer had agreed to pose for a match-the-legs competition in The Advertiser.

Blunden recalls first meeting Penberthy when the latter arrived to interview him in 1990 for On Dit, the student newspaper he was editing at Adelaide University.

Blunden rates this early journalistic foray poorly. "Average; I give it about a four out of 10. If you put the slightest 'um' into a sentence, he used it -- and I thought that was a bit cheeky," he says. "After the interview, I said, 'Turn the tape recorder off.' I said, 'What are you studying?' I recall him saying law. As a typical newspaper person, I said: 'Just what we need, another lawyer.' I asked him if he'd thought about journalism and he said he hadn't given it much thought. He'd been a bit cheeky at the student newspaper, but I thought we could knock those edges off."

In a cadet interview some months later, Penberthy surprised Blunden and chief-of-staff Kym Tilbrook, who had resolved to give him a hard time about why he wanted to work at the paper, given the student newspaper's passion for bashing The Advertiser, when Penberthy responded: "Because I know I've got to write for my market."

It was at Adelaide University - where Penberthy's brief flirtation with Trotskyites culminated in a university protest during which he admits shouting: "Tax the rich, not the poor" next to the charcuterie counter in the David Jones Food Hall - that he first fell foul of political correctness.

A mock recruitment ad for the Young Liberals that Penberthy prepared as a political satire for the university's Orientation Week Guide featured an image of an Aboriginal elder and the headline: "This man wants your land - only the Young Liberals will keep him in the park where he belongs." He was promptly ordered to appear before the Equal Opportunity Commission.

The furore made the newspapers, with Penberthy later admitting: "It wasn't funny, and it showed how a bunch of white smart-arses who didn't know any Aborigines would have no idea what would offend them, a point made embarrassingly clear when they came to our office and politely complained."

The affair was echoed a decade or so later, when his "Five-star asylum" front page, claiming asylum-seekers had access to "DVDs, pay-TV, yoga classes, flower arranging and driver education", sparked anger and riots inside detention centres.

David Marr, who tackled Penberthy about the piece on the ABC's Media Watch, says it particularly concerned him that someone who was "a good journalist, not a flake" would write such a piece.

"He reported there was a swimming pool at Villawood [a Sydney detention centre] when there was no swimming pool at Villawood, there was a plastic sheet you can stand on and get hosed down," he says. "But I'm told ... that as a result of his embarrassment he has become a regular visitor to Villawood and has taken an interest in the issue, and I think it's wonderful for the community that someone like that is the editor of The Daily Telegraph."

While Penberthy doesn't advertise his Villawood visits, Marr is correct. Challenged to visit the detention centre by refugee advocate Ngareta Rossell, he has since lined up to visit detainees more than 30 times, forging a friendship with an Iranian refugee.

Rossell says: "I rang him up and said, 'Look, I visit Villawood and why don't you come with me.' He paused for a minute and he said OK. I picked him up outside News Limited [headquarters] and I took him out there and I introduced him to a couple of detainees and he got along very well. I really admired him because he came out and said it, that he had written the "five-star" piece, and then he wrote some pieces saying that refugees were people too."

His former boss, mentor and ally Campbell Reid, who is moving on to be general manager at News Limited's Queensland Newspapers, believes Penberthy's key ability is to "bring serious issues alive in a really accessible way. He has an ability to bring an issue alive in a way that makes readers say, 'That's dead right, that's exactly what I think.'

"He had this idea that he'd go and buy this wild old car to cover the federal election, and if it broke down all the better - he could engage with people about how to fix it. He proposed the idea thinking I would say no and, of course, I said yes, but not expecting he would buy the most ridiculous car in Australia - a turbo-charged Holden."

Penberthy recalls Reid telling him on his appointment as opinion editor that he didn't want to look at the pages at 9pm at night and think, "Bloody hell, I better get the defibrillators on it."

News Limited's editorial business development manager Steve Howard, a former editor of The Daily Telegraph and The Advertiser, says Penberthy is now facing his toughest test. "It's the greatest challenge in Australian newspaper journalism," he says. "The battle between the Telegraph and the SMH is legendary."

News chief executive John Hartigan says the circulation challenge facing all newspapers demands "relevance".

"I think that [Penberthy] has all the attributes that make a great editor: he's intensely curious, he has a healthy scepticism, he's got moral courage and a passion for the truth," he says. "People are tired of some of the hypocrisy and the political correctness gone mad, and they want some straight talking commonsense."

Penberthy has a big job ahead of him. Arresting The Daily Telegraph's falling circulation is one reason News management decided an editorial change was needed. Weekday circulation in the 12 months to December last year, according to the last audit, stood at 390,410. In December 2000 it was 412,190. For Saturdays the figures are 339,469 in 2000 and 337,263 now.

Penberthy describes the newspaper's recent anti-bullying campaign as a good example of its "commitment to what motivates the minds of mainstream Australians".

However, his attitude hasn't always pleased everyone, including NSW Premier Bob Carr, whom he once labelled a philosopher king determined to enter "self-imposed intellectual exile".

"I came across David one frosty morning on the back steps of Parliament House mid-winter 2001," Carr recalls. "It was the day after he'd written a particularly caustic piece on my leadership style. As I recall David was eating a cream bun and smoking a cigarette - he called it 'breakfast'.

"I gave him a sharp critique of the piece - juvenile, lazy, undergraduate, gratuitously insulting. Quick as a tabloid editor he asked me if I thought there were any bad bits in it."

Penberthy, long regarded as a good bloke, now faces the task putting his own editorial stamp on The Daily Telegraph. "Obviously it's about breaking news, it's about exclusives, the best pictures, it's about making people laugh, but it's also about knowing why you put a story in the paper," he says. "The bottom line is you've got to sell more papers. At the end of the day, that's what it's all about."
==========================================

ALSO SEE
Quest For Readers Takes Editors Down Different Paths

5 Star Beat Up

Detention: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Making Connections: Reporting Refugee Policy

Survey of Media Coverage of Refugee and Asylum Issues

Enfant Telegraph: David Penberthy In Conversation

[Mowlana Vector]

Refugee Journalism Student Honoured

[Mowlana Vector]

Academics Take on Immigration Detention Investigation


( File photo, ABC Online)

Academics are beginning their own inquiry into immigration detention in Australia by taking evidence in Port Augusta, in South Australia, at the end of the month.

The Australian Council of Heads of Social Work Schools says the move has arisen from community frustration with the Federal Government's handling of the Cornelia Rau affair.

Linda Briskman from the School of Science and Planning at Melbourne's RMIT University says they will take evidence from anyone who has had involvement with detainees in the Baxter detention centre.


(image courtesy of projectsafe.com)

"We're expecting that in that location it will be mainly visitors to detention. People who live in Port Augusta, Port Pirie, Whyalla and surrounds," she said.

"We'll be giving the results to the Government and also making them available widely. Our report will be on the public record."

Ms Briskman says the gathering of their evidence will be broad-based.

"I think the comparison is the Stolen Generation inquiry into Indigenous children who were removed from their families," she said.

"There'll be a lot of oral testimony, confidential oral testimony and research-based evidence that people will be able to refer to for a long time."

SOURCE
==========================================

FURTHER READING
UN Urged To Investigate Nauru Detainees

ALSO SEE

Councillors Emerge From Baxter Dazed, Inspired

Fatima Erfani: Why Did She Die?


Anna's Story


The Cage House: Australia Welcomes Shayan Saeed Badraie

Letters To Ali

[Mowlana Vector]

Spell Me Freedom



A remarkable movie debut by media students and refugees from Perth

From a collaboration between media students and refugees comes a sharply crafted short story of life in Australia's detention camps and its darkest side: lip stitching, drinking shampoo, the desperation of life inside and the dilemma of an escape, followed by the inevitable post-traumatic flashbacks.

More Details Here ...

[Mowlana Vector]

'This Is Not Detention, This Is Hell'


"When I'm doing positive things, it brings peace to my heart" ...
Ali Mullaie, a Nauru detainee, keeps busy teaching computing skills at
Nauru college. (Photo: Mike Gordon)

Michael Gordon met the last 54 asylum seekers held in Nauru and found despair, depression and a sense of injustice. He also found the triumph of the human spirit.

It's mid-morning on Tuesday and the tiny, near-bankrupt island of Nauru is, predictably enough, sweltering and enduring a power failure. In the Nauru College computer room, the heat and humidity are more oppressive than out in the open air, but the students are so engrossed they ignore the bell that signals playtime.

Their attention is fixed on Ali Mullaie and his battery-powered laptop computer as he gently explains the basics of desktop publishing. It is almost 10 minutes before he realises the time and calls the lesson to a halt.

For three years, 22-year-old Mullaie has contributed his time and energy to Nauru's cash-strapped education system, receiving no pay in return. What is more remarkable is that, just four years ago, Mullaie could barely speak English and could not use a computer.

Refugees who have since settled in Australia and New Zealand credit him with equipping them for the transition; Australians who began sending letters of support to those on Nauru call him an inspiration; and kids across the island, with affection, just call him Ali.

Mullaie is one of the last 54 asylum seekers who remain stranded on Nauru under the Government's "Pacific solution" to the problem of unwanted boat arrivals (a problem that has disappeared since 2001), their pleas for refugee status either rejected or, in the case of two Iraqis, pending.

While many appear psychologically spent and exist on a diet of sleeping tablets and other medication, Mullaie is one of several who attempt to keep bad thoughts at bay by staying busy. "When I'm doing positive things, good things, it brings peace to my heart," he says.

This week, Mullaie and the others on Nauru were finally able to plead their case directly to the outside world after Nauru's Minister for Internal Affairs, David Adeang, allowed the Herald unfettered access to the asylum seeker camp and its population of broken souls.

It had been a long time coming. Under the former Nauru government, led by Rene Harris, requests for visas by journalists, lawyers and human rights advocates were consistently rejected.

Adeang relaxed the camp rules in March, allowing the asylum seekers freedom to leave the camp without escorts in daylight hours.

Arriving at the State House camp, I am met by the officer-in-charge, Shamel Mahmoodi, of the International Organisation for Migration. He is a handsome Afghani man with an engaging smile. The conditions are harsh, but it seems clear that the organisation does its best to minimise the hardships of those in its care.

This much is suggested by the camp's terminology. It is an "offshore processing centre", not a jail; the residents are "migrants", not illegals; the security people are for the "safety" of the migrants and the "security" of the assets.

There are 150 staff (including 89 locals) at this centre and the Topside Camp, which is ready for use in the unlikely event another flotilla of boats should appear on the horizon. "Migrants" have access to 24-hour medical services and receive a $50 phone card every two months, a clothing allowance and other essentials.

The impression is that it is not the camp regime that is repressive, but the combination of the harsh environment, the remoteness, the loneliness and the indefinite nature of the detention.

For those who will ultimately succeed in their claims - and migration agent Marion Le has no doubt that mistakes have been made and the majority who remain deserve protection - there is also the conviction that they have been wronged. The sense of injustice eats away at the soul.

As Hassan Ali, 22, puts it: "We heard that there this one country, Australia, who is accepting people who are refugees, so we decided to go Australia and after very dangerous and very difficult and long journey we reached Australia and now we trapped in Nauru ... It is very hard for us."

I meet Mullaie that afternoon. It is school holidays, but he is waiting outside Nauru College in the hope the principal might drop by. He wants to make sure the school's computers will be ready when the new term starts.

He tells me the main threads of his story: how he was forced to flee his home in the Afghan district of Jaghoori in 2001, leaving behind his parents and six younger siblings. There was no time to take family pictures or for proper goodbyes, and he now struggles to visualise his siblings.

He also speaks of the pain of being repeatedly rejected, and bidding farewell to friends whose applications for refugee status have been accepted. "For 24 hours, or two days, or three days [after the others left], my heart has been burning, feeling it's the end of my life," he says. "But, unfortunately, it is not one time, two times, three times. Many times it has happened, especially the last time."

The last time was the hardest because Mullaie was convinced he would be accepted. So, too, it seems, was just about everybody else inside the camp. It was May 15 last year when 44 Afghans received their decisions. Forty were accepted and Mullaie was one of four rejected. "I really could feel like all my body been numb," he recalls. One of the staff sensed his distress and offered to help him leave the area. "I said: 'No, I can walk.' But I tried to walk and it was very hard."

Mahmoodi, also an Afghan refugee, was told the decision by radio and came immediately to offer support, counselling Mullaie: "It's not the end of the world. You're still young, with your whole future ahead of you. Maybe this is God's will."

Mullaie asked to be taken to the internet cafe and conveyed the news to Le, the migration agent who had visited the camp weeks earlier to help asylum seekers prepare their applications. "You may recognise me," the email began. "I told you my story why I am not being able to return back to my country. You hugged me and cried with me when you heard my story. It is with regret to inform you that today ... I received a negative decision."

Indeed, Mullaie made quite an impression on Le during her stay. He was the one always helping others and offering to make her tea when he was not teaching. "I remember the night before I was leaving, saying to him: 'Ali, does anyone look after you? You're running around looking after everyone. Can I do anything for you?"' she says. "And he said: 'Can you just put your arms around me like a mum?' So I gave him a hug and he absolutely disintegrated. For half an hour he just cried. Then he told me how hard it was to hold himself together every day when he doesn't know where his parents are and how he worried about a missing brother."

Word of his rejection soon reached Nauru College, where some Afghan children had told the teachers they had been accepted and Mullaie had not. Elvira Benjamin was among the teachers who tried to console Mullaie. "It's probably not your time, but Nauru College needs you," she told him. "Your time will come."

I meet Mullaie again, when I spend a day at the State House camp, talking to those who wished to see me. He introduces me to the other asylum seekers, makes cups of tea and acts as interpreter for some young Afghan men.

The theme running through all the conversations is the same: these people are running on empty, their reserves of hope, resilience and drive long gone. But there are also the specific problems, such as being the only teenage girl in the camp and, under Afghan culture, having to be escorted everywhere by your family. That is the lot of 14-year-old Ilham Rehmati. Or being the only Afghan girl in a primary class of Nauruans, having seen all your friends depart for Australia or New Zealand.

When the interviews are over, I go to Mullaie's small room, made even cosier because he has inherited a desk, bookshelf and other objects from those who have won freedom. He would still like to go to Australia. "I'd like to say thank you face-to-face to the people who are helping us, to show them that the person writing to you is not different [to the real person]."

Unlike many, perhaps most of the residents, he chooses not to take sleeping tablets. When he cannot sleep, he writes poems in Dari and then translates them into English. After his rejection, he wrote:

I shouted and no one heard my cries,

The universe laughs at my cries,

This load has broken my backs,

Every joint in the body is cracking.

In his darker moments, Mullaie fears he has been penalised for trying to improve himself in his years on Nauru. In one email to Le, he noted how an interviewing officer looked surprised at his neat handwriting and appearance (he went to the interview in his school uniform). "In Afghanistan I did not have the opportunity to educate myself because of bad circumstances, so when I came to Nauru Camp, I got the opportunity," he wrote.

Certificates in his room confirm he has completed courses in electronics and teaching. Letters from Nauru College testify to his "kind assistance", his expertise as a computer teacher and his willingess to "offer his services for the benefit of the children". Nauru College's principal, Floria Detabene, says: "We don't have any [asylum seeker] students any more. But he wanted to stay and help our students any way he could. We don't treat him as a refugee any more. We treat him as a local."

She says Mullaie used to show his sadness. "He used to become very pale and we'd know he'd been stressing out and psychologically feeling down, but as the years go by, I think because we made him feel at home, he started improving."

But there are also times when Mullaie locks himself in his room and cries. It is only on my last day on Nauru, after I have watched him in the classroom during the power failure, that he confides he, too, is close to breaking point and wonders out loud how much longer he can go on.


(courtesy of AGE online)

Ali Jan Jafari

Ali Mullaie translates for Qurban Ali Changizi, 25, who insists he has been wrongly deemed to be from Pakistan. "The Afghan embassy can prove he is from Afghanistan. All of his family is there: father, mother, sisters, brothers," says Mullaie.

"He left Afghanistan because his life [was] endangered. He needs help. He is young and he is tired of waiting here. It is too long in this detention centre. How is it that thousands of refugees from Afghanistan are living in Australia, and 29 people from Afghanistan are left here and rejected. It's not fair."

Muhammad Faisal

Muhammad Faisal, 25, is one of two Iraqis who are still waiting for decisions on their claims for refugee status. He has a problem with his eyes that makes it hard to read or watch TV, a problem he believes could be treated in Australia.

"I am enduring all this just to get freedom and be treated as a human being. If I didn't have a problem I would go back [to Iraq] and would not endure this terrible situation here. I don't want human rights to be given to me. I want animal rights."

Qurban Ali Changizi

Mullaie translates also for Ali Jan Jafari: "I was 21, but now I'm 24." Adds Mullaie: "He wants to tell the people of Australia that day by day he is losing his mind." Jafari's parents are dead and his only brother also left Afghanistan, but he has no idea where he is. "He has psychological problem and taking tablets and it is not helping him." Recently Jafari stepped in front of a car during day leave from the camp but was pulled clear by one of his friends. "His mind is not working," says Mullaie.

Ali Hussaini and family

When Ali Hussaini was interviewed about his claim for refugee status, he chose to speak in English, believing this would help convince the case officer he had not been wasting the years he had been detained on Nauru with his wife and two children.

The decision backfired. Hussaini says he was told he spoke like an Australian and must be from Pakistan. "I learnt my English here, working in the kitchen," he says. "I always asked the [Australian] cooks: 'How you say this? What is this?"'

Hussaini says he was also tutored by his friend Zakil Hussain Jaffari, whose claim for asylum was accepted by New Zealand last year. He says several refugees now in Australia and New Zealand could verify his status as an Afghan.

His daughter, Zahra, was three when they arrived at the camp. Now she is nearly seven and she also speaks English like an Australian. "She is also Pakistani?" he asks.

Hussaini and his wife, Batool, try to keep busy with embroidery, but he says their children are desperately lonely. Zahra says her friends in the camp have gone to Australia or New Zealand. "And I want to go with them."

Abuozar Al-Salem

Abuozar al-Salem was 19 when he attempted to come to Australia after fleeing Iraq. He is now 23. His brother, Fares, is an Australian citizen who lives with his wife and four children in country Victoria. Fares, who fled Iraq after the first Gulf War, offered to take responsibility for his younger brother but the request was denied.

Abuozar says he was not believed during his first interview when he said he had a brother in Australia and does not know why his second application was rejected.

He thanks those Australians who have written to him expressing their support, but says: "This is not detention. This is hell." The asylum seekers are now free to leave the camp during the day, but he adds: "This is not freedom. This is half-freedom.'

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