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Project SafeCom News and Updates 7 October 2005 (2)
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Project SafeCom
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Oct 06, 2005 08:50 PDT
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Project SafeCom News and Updates 7 October 2005 (2)
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¤ - In this Edition - ¤
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1. Immigration's off to school
2. Cash offer smooths way back
3. High Court ruling could play part in claims
4. The ABC of an uncaring system
5. Queueing for justice
6. Interjection leaves Stott Despoja in tears
7. Activists admit Bakhtiyari breakout 'ploy'
8. The Bakhtiary boys: being "sorry for the lies"
9. ABC makes Bakhtiyari blue
10. Baktiyari boys unlikely to get visas
11. Head of UN refugee agency decries xenophobia
12. Building a case to help the Minister
13. Centacare chief questions Bakhtiari teens' criticism
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-|| as the RAC-VIC Newsletter (Racvicnews) since July 2004 by agreement
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-|| managed by Project SafeCom. More information about us below.
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=====================
1. Immigration's off to school
=====================
Sydney Morning Herald
By Louise Dodson
October 7, 2005
The Federal Government plans to change the Immigration Department's
Orwellian culture by establishing a college of immigration, border security
and compliance for its officials to attend.
We are told the $50 million allocated to fund the college will not be spent
on bricks and mortar, but will be for on-the-job training, classes and
online courses.
That's right. The same department that was found to be involved in a
"dehumanised, mechanical process", with a "flawed" culture, which paid
"insufficient attention to detainees' welfare and care needs", will do its
own training to improve its own culture. It is hard to believe.
The report tabled yesterday by the Commonwealth Ombudsman, John McMillan,
and the former Victoria Police commissioner Neil Comrie has condemned the
culture of the Department of Immigration, which it said had contributed to
officials wrongfully deporting an Australian citizen, Vivian Alvarez Solon.
"It is difficult to form any conclusion other than that the culture of
DIMIA [Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs]
was so motivated by imperatives associated with the removal of unlawful
non-citizens that officers failed to take into account the basic human
rights obligations that characterise a democratic society," it says.
The department's culture seems to bear more than a passing resemblance to
the parallel universe of the totalitarian society satirised by George
Orwell in his novel 1984.
For instance, the report found the interpretation and application of Ms
Alvarez's privacy needs contravened the spirit of privacy protection
requirements and had the potential to contribute to the danger she was in.
It defied "basic tenets of common sense and decency", the report found.
The report discovered the unlawful removal of Ms Alvarez had been the
subject of "significant discussion" within the department but nothing was
done about it. This is the departmental culture that the former federal
police commissioner Mick Palmer found in another report to be "overly
self-protective and defensive" and "unwilling to engage in genuine
self-criticism or analysis".
Let's hope the College of Immigration, Border Security and Compliance is
able to bring in a critical mass of outside experts to dilute this
dehumanised culture. Let's hope it sends some of its officials into the
real world, where people are not afraid to speak out if something seems wrong.
The department's new secretary, Andrew Metcalfe, has acknowledged the
problems and briefed his staff on the need to become more accountable, to
deal more fairly with people and to have staff who are well trained.
When the case of the wrongful detention of the Australian resident Cornelia
Rau emerged, the Minister for Immigration, Amanda Vanstone, acted to find
out if there were other cases of wrongful detention. That made political
sense and was an opportunity she seized to try to reform the department.
But when she batted back questions yesterday about who was responsible for
the problems by protesting "this is about 'can we get a minister sacked"',
she sounded like she was infected by her department's "overly defensive"
culture.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/immigrations-off-to-school/2005/10/06/1128562943283.html
=======================
2. Cash offer smooths way back
=======================
Sydney Morning Herald
By Joseph Kerr and Andrew Clennell
October 7, 2005
The wrongfully deported citizen Vivian Alvarez Solon could return within
days and the Federal Government could offer her compensation in the wake of
a report that calls the Immigration Department's handling of her case
"catastrophic".
The investigation by the former Victoria Police commissioner Neil Comrie
strongly criticised the department over the case, which resulted in the
mentally ill and injured woman being deported in 2001 to the Philippines.
Mr Comrie called for the "negative culture" in the department's Brisbane
office to be redressed and said the department should review its database
systems.
He recommended officers working in the compliance and investigations areas
be taught to be more objective and not make false assumptions, and to
exercise greater caution in dealing with people who may have mental health
issues.
Ms Alvarez's lawyer, George Newhouse, said his client would be back in to
Australia within "weeks, if not days" after the Government had "given
ground" on compensation.
"Where does Vivian go? She comes back to her family, she's reunited with
her family, and we look in the longer term at taking up Amanda Vanstone's
offer today of fair compensation," he said.
The amount could be finalised after Ms Alvarez had seen Australian doctors,
he said.
IThe Government yesterday accepted Mr Comrie's report, with the Immigration
Minister, Senator Vanstone, saying it would set up a training college for
officials and spend $230 million over five years to rectify identified
problems.
The Opposition's immigration spokesman, Tony Burke, described the report as
"as damning as you can get".
Mr Burke called for Senator Vanstone to be held accountable for the
shambles, not merely three public servants.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/cash-offer-smooths-way-back/2005/10/06/1128562943286.html
================================
3. High Court ruling could play part in claims
================================
Sydney Morning Herald
October 7, 2005
A recent High Court judgement could play a critical part in the success of
future claims for compensation for wrongful imprisonment by immigration
officials, such as from the deported Australian citizen Vivian Alvarez Solon.
Under the mandatory detention system, people have to be lawfully detained
if an immigration officer "reasonably suspects" they are not Australian or
do not have a legal right to be here.
But difficulties have arisen where cases of mistaken or unknown identity
have emerged.
In the case of Cornelia Rau, the Australian resident was unable to
adequately identify herself, as she was suffering from schizophrenia. And
Australian officials did not realise Alvarez's citizenship and identity
when they deported her in 2001.
According to a majority of the High Court in last month's final word on the
Taylor case (see main story), a period in detention does not become illegal
simply because the detainee is ultimately found to have had a legal right
to be here.
"So long, always, as the officer had the requisite state of mind, knowledge
or reasonable suspicion that the person was an unlawful non-citizen, the
detention of the person concerned is required," the court found.
In a NSW Court of Appeal finding in the same case, the NSW Chief Justice,
Jim Spigelman, noted there is not a simple "daily rate" for wrongful
detention, where a detainee would win more money the longer he or she spent
inside.
"A substantial proportion of the ultimate award must be given for what has
been described as "the initial shock of being arrested", Spigelman found.
"As the term of imprisonment extends, the effect upon the person falsely
imprisoned does progressively diminish."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/high-court-ruling-could-play-part-in-claims/2005/10/06/1128562943361.html
=========================
4. The ABC of an uncaring system
=========================
Sydney Morning Herald
By Joseph Kerr
October 7, 2005
"This is terrible. Let's not spread it any wider than it has - than it has
to be."
Those few words from a senior immigration official could have been the last
anyone heard about Vivian Alvarez Solon, were it not for her persistent
ex-husband.
Yesterday the Federal Government released its report on the latest scandal
from the Immigration Department, the wrongful deportation in 2001 of Ms
Alvarez, an Australian citizen, to a four-year exile in a hospice outside
Manila in the Philippines.
Recommending investigation into three senior officials who failed to raise
the alarm despite knowing the department had accidentally removed an
Australian, the report is shocking in its detail about the officers' actions.
The lead investigator, the former Victorian chief commissioner Neil Comrie,
found Ms Alvarez's detention was not reasonable - which is critical to the
issue of compensation. Detention is legal only if the officer reasonably
suspects the detainee is not lawfully here.
Mr Comrie was scathing about the department, its training, record-keeping
and culture, finding it rushed the injured mother of two out of the country
and failed to follow up on leads that might have led to her being found.
Were it not for the efforts of Ms Alvarez's former husband, Robert Young,
she might never have been found this year.
Two officers will be investigated under the Public Service Act by the
former head of the Australian Government Solicitor, Dale Boucher, for their
actions but the third will escape further scrutiny because he has retired.
Mr Comrie has not recommended criminal charges.
In Brisbane and Canberra, all three - dubbed A, B and C - were aware that
Ms Alvarez was wrongly deported.
In 2003, A was told by two junior officers of the case, after a search by
the Queensland missing persons bureau tipped them off, but took no action.
On September 29, 2004, A asked C, in Brisbane, to search the passports
database for Ms Alvarez.
C told his deputy state director, B, about the case the same day, to which
B replied: "This is terrible. Let's not spread it any wider than it has -
than it has to be."
Mr Comrie found no evidence that B or C did anything to fix the problem. On
September 30, C, in Brisbane, and A, in Canberra, had an eight-minute phone
conversation. The same day, A handed over the Alvarez file to a new junior
officer with no prior knowledge of the case.
"This is a file on Vivian Alvarez, an Australian citizen we removed," he said.
Going on holiday soon after, he told the junior officer to hang on to it -
then took no further action. The file remained in a box on the junior
officer's desk until April this year, when it was rediscovered after a
search driven by Ms Alvarez's ex-husband, the report reveals.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-abc-of-an-uncaring-system/2005/10/06/1128562943277.html
================
5. Queueing for justice
================
Sydney Morning Herald
October 7, 2005
The Rau and Alvarez Solon cases are the tip of the compensation iceberg,
writes Joseph Kerr.
For the convicted child sex offender, waking up in Silverwater jail on
October 1, 2000, was the most traumatic experience of his life. Alone in
his prison cell, he inexplicably found his hands tied behind his back and a
pillowcase over his head. Coming into his cell, prison officers slashed the
rope with a knife, freeing his numb hands, but he never found out who had
tied him up. He had a history of trouble with prison officers - in some
places he was known as a "rock spider" - and he was afraid to sleep at night.
It was hard, too, for the seven South Koreans. Over and over, they begged
officers to let them leave Australia, a country that was keeping them
against their will to give evidence against people-smugglers. So desperate
were they that they went on a hunger strike.
And then there was the fraudster. He was mortified to be grabbed by the
back of his pants outside his workplace in full view of Perth's business
community, his mobile phone and briefcase confiscated before he was tossed
by officers into a waiting van.
The three incidents differ wildly in detail, but they have one thing in
common: all won compensation from the courts for being falsely imprisoned
by Department of Immigration officials.
Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez Solon have been the public faces of the
department's bungles this year, but those cases aren't the first where the
Government has been forced to pay out for wrongly imprisoning someone - and
they won't be the last.
Yesterday the Commonwealth Ombudsman brought down his report on Alvarez's
2001 deportation, finding she had been detained illegally because the
suspicion she was an illegal immigrant was not reasonable.
The next issue will be just how large her compensation payout might be,
while the Ombudsman is continuing to investigate at least 220 cases of
possible wrongful detention, including 56 where the detention lasted more
than three weeks, any of which could lead to years of litigation or a
Government payout of more than $100,000.
The cases are a grab bag of different faces and circumstances, involving
nationals from nine countries - Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh,
Britain, China, Fiji, France, Malaysia and South Korea. Collectively, the
cases have cost taxpayers close to $1 million.
Until last month, the child sex offender Graham Ernest Taylor had won a
pretty decent house deposit from his time in the hands of the Immigration
Department.
Nearly six years ago, having served out his sentence on criminal
convictions for sexual offences against children, Taylor was arrested at
his Gunnedah home by immigration officers. The then minister, Philip
Ruddock, had cancelled his visa and wanted to send him back to Britain,
from which he had emigrated at the age of seven in 1966.
As a child sex offender, he didn't spend long in Villawood detention
centre, which at that time housed families and unaccompanied children, as
well as men. He was transferred to protective custody in Silverwater jail.
For six weeks, he was kept in a cell measuring 3.5 metres by 2.5 metres.
Taylor was let out for half an hour a day, but he feared spending time out
of his cell, believing his life might be in danger if inmates found out he
was a child sex offender. After an incident in which inmates in an
adjoining yard threw boiling water at him through a fence, he was
transferred to Goulburn jail, but even there the rock spider label stuck.
Taylor spent 161 days in detention before legal appeals to the High Court
bought him temporary freedom. A second stint of 155 days followed, after
the Government made a second attempt to cancel his visa. During this stint
he suffered the humiliation and terror of being tied up in his sleep, an
event he described as "the most traumatic experience of my life".
Winning his freedom a second time, Taylor sued the Government for wrongful
imprisonment. The District Court awarded him $50,000 for the first
imprisonment and $60,000 for the second period in immigration detention.
All up, he was awarded $116,000 - an eighth of the total compensation bill
the Immigration Department has faced for false imprisonment in recent years.
Sadly for Taylor, the High Court last month overturned that award by a 5-2
majority, stripping him of his $116,000 payout, finding both periods in
detention were legal because the officers who had detained him reasonably
believed him to be in Australia illegally.
Luckier than Taylor were the seven South Koreans detained by the
Immigration Department in 1986.
Park Oh-ho, Lee Jae-eun, Ko Jung-woong, Lee Jong-in, Han Bum-hoon, Song
Bang-jin and Chong Bong-yol claimed to have been brought innocently into
Australia as part of a migration racket run by South Koreans and corrupt
Australian Customs officers.
Arrested in July 1986, they were ordered to be deported the following
month. But after discussions with the Commonwealth Director of Public
Prosecutions, immigration officials decided to hang on to them until they
could give evidence against the alleged people-smugglers accused of having
brought them to Australia.
The South Koreans did not want to stay in Villawood, and by November 1986
were all repeatedly asking to be sent home, just to escape detention.
"The appellants did not acquiesce in their continued detention but made
strong and frequent pleas to be freed," the High Court found. They were
released in December 1986, later suing the department for false detention.
Litigation over the case dragged on for more than a decade, a jury awarding
six of the Koreans $50,000 each and the seventh $30,000 in 1997. The High
Court found that beyond a certain date, the detention of the seven Koreans
was illegal, because they were being kept for the wrong reasons.
They had been detained "pending deportation", and that did "not authorise
the indefinite detention in custody of a person for some ulterior purpose,
such as the purpose of being kept available as a witness in a pending
criminal prosecution".
And then there was Brian Gerald James Goldie. Goldie, a British citizen,
spent most of the 1990s in Australia on a series of different visas. In
1995, the Australian Federal Police advised the Immigration Department that
warrants had been issued in Edinburgh against him for fraud allegations,
prompting officials in 1997 to reject his application for permanent residency.
He remained in Australia on bridging visas, but in 1998, gaps in the
department's computer records - since horribly exposed by the investigation
by former AFP head Mick Palmer into the Rau case - led officials to believe
he did not have a visa, and should be detained.
On the day, security guards marched him from his office to the foyer of his
company's Perth building, where two officers were waiting to take him into
immigration detention. (His company had decided to sack him and would later
sue him for more than $417,000 for false use of company cheques.)
One officer told him that if he resisted he would be handcuffed, while the
other made him hand over his mobile phone and briefcase. Telling Goldie he
had no choice, one of the pair walked behind him, holding his belt, until
they got into a waiting van. At the detention centre, Goldie was searched,
made to remove his tie and shoelaces and photographed.
The belief that he did not have a visa was wrong, so when he was taken into
detention in February 1998, he was falsely imprisoned for three days.
While his period in detention was far shorter than in the other cases, what
upset Goldie was his arrest "in full view of the public in the business
area of Perth", being held by the back of the pants while he was moved into
a waiting van and being searched on arrival at the detention centre.
For those three days, he was awarded $22,000.
These are not the sort of sympathetic cases presented by Cornelia Rau - a
mentally ill woman unable to identify herself - and Vivian Alvarez, who had
suffered horrible injuries and was in very poor health when wrongly deported.
But however unsavoury their characters, the courts have upheld individuals'
rights not to be imprisoned illegally. Which raises the question: how much
are the cases still in the pipeline going to cost us?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/queueing-for-justice/2005/10/06/1128562943355.html
===============================
6. Interjection leaves Stott Despoja in tears
===============================
ABC NEWS ONLINE
Thursday, October 6, 2005. 9:03pm (AEST)
Democrats Senator Natasha Stott Despoja has broken down in federal
Parliament during a heated exchange about the Government's decision to
deport the American peace activist Scott Parkin.
The Senator was supporting a bid by the Greens to set up a Senate inquiry
into the intelligence ASIO used to justify its actions.
An interjection by Liberal Senator Julian McGauran about whether Senator
Stott Despoja even acknowledged the "war on terror" caused her to burst
into tears.
Senator Stott Despoja told the Chamber that because she lost a friend in
the September 11 terror attacks she is determined to uphold democratic values.
"How dare you, through you Mr Acting Deputy President, when a close friend
of mine was in the World Trade Centre?" she said.
"But Senator McGauran knows that, and it makes me all the more determined
to get justice.
"Not revenge, to get justice."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1476518.htm
===============================
7. Activists admit Bakhtiyari breakout 'ploy'
===============================
The Australian
Tom Richardson
October 07, 2005
REFUGEE activists who broke the adolescent Bakhtiyari boys out of Woomera
detention centre and smuggled them into the British consulate in Melbourne
admitted yesterday it was a "legal ploy" and never believed the boys would
be granted refugee status in Britain.
Alamdar, 16, and Montazar, 14, spoke scathingly about the ordeal in an
interview aired on the ABC's Lateline this week, blaming their lawyers and
refugee advocates for their deportation to Pakistan in December.
They were particularly angry about being "used" by Victorian Refugee Action
Coalition members who, in a highly publicised event in 2002, deposited the
boys at Melbourne's British consulate.
The Bakhtiyari case became the campaigners' cause celebre in their fight
against the Government's immigration policies.
Ian Rintoul, a spokesman for the coalition, yesterday admitted the episode
was more a political statement than a genuine attempt to get the boys
refugee status. He said many never believed the British Government would
grant the request.
"Some people thought (it would work), others had a different opinion - I
had a different opinion," Mr Rintoul said.
"As a legal ploy, to be honest, I thought it presented difficulties ... At
the end of the day, that episode simply revealed the Australian
Government's lack of compassion, (and) the British Government's
unwillingness to act." He said there had been "considerable discussion"
about what action to take.
"But things happened very, very quickly ... it's not like this was able to
be discussed at length among the community."
He denied the event was detrimental to the boys' case for a visa, arguing
that "it was just one more embarrassing thing the Government had to deal with".
From Pakistan, Alamdar told the ABC that when the pair were broken out of
Woomera, "we couldn't understand the rules ... we were only kids". "We were
taken and we were used against the Government."
The Bakhtiyaris' former guardian, Dale West, said he believed somebody had
given the boys false hope by advising them to apologise and to turn their
backs on supporters.
Mr West, the director of Catholic welfare agency Centacare, said the family
had to recognise they were unlikely to return to Australia. "I'm concerned
that it seems someone has advised them to say the things they've said ...
I'm afraid that someone has raised their hopes. People who are looking to
pursue a dream will latch on to anything they think will allow them to
achieve that."
Jeremy Khong, 15, a former classmate of Montazar at St Ignatius College in
Adelaide, said he had been in touch with his friend, who was "fine (but) a
bit lost within himself".
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16841062%255E2702,00.html
==================================
8. The Bakhtiary boys: being "sorry for the lies"
==================================
6 October 2005
Project SafeCom Inc.
The headline "Bakhtiyari boys sorry for the 'lies'" did the rounds amongst
the Murdoch press in the last day. It can be traced baqck to an inaccuracy
in the ABC-AM Transcript of 5 October. It has now been corrected. The
offending paragraph:
ALAMDAR BAKHTIARI: The Australian Government I would like to say sorry,
sorry, sorry to them. I can understand it was the rules, regulation, all
that they had to do, but (inaudible) I don't blame the Australian
Government for all this. I myself, now I can understand what's happening,
it was not the Australian Government who caused us to be deported. It was
all caused by our lies.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1475031.htm
IT NOW SAYS:
* This transcript has been changed.
ALAMDAR BAKHTIARI: The Australian Government I would like to say sorry,
sorry, sorry to them. I can understand it was the rules, regulation, all
that they had to do, but (inaudible) I don't blame the Australian
Government for all this. I myself, now I can understand what's happening,
it was not the Australian Government who caused us to be deported. It was
all caused by our lawyers*.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1475031.htm
======================
9. ABC makes Bakhtiyari blue
======================
The Age
By Sharon Mathieson
October 7, 2005
THE ABC has been forced to apologise for misquoting the teenage sons of
Australia's highest-profile asylum seekers, the Bakhtiyari family.
The national broadcaster issued a transcript of its AM radio program on
Wednesday quoting 16-year-old Alamdar Bakhtiyari apologising for the "lies"
that led to his family's deportation.
The national media picked up on the comments, which were made during an ABC
interview with Alamdar and his brother Montazar, 14, in Pakistan.
But the ABC last night issued a statement saying it had misquoted Alamdar.
It said Alamdar had blamed lawyers, and not his family's lies, for their
deportation to Pakistan on December 30.
"I don't blame the Australian Government for all this," he said in relation
to the Bakhtiyaris' deportation. "I myself, now I can understand what's
happening, it was not the Australian Government who caused us to be
deported. It was all caused by our lawyers."
However, the original ABC transcript said: "It was all caused by our lies."
"Due to a mistake in transcription, the word 'lawyers' was misheard and
written as 'lies'," the ABC said in its statement. "The website has now
been amended to correct the error, for which the ABC apologises."
Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said yesterday she wanted to hear more
of what the Bakhtiyaris now had to say.
She said it was tragic if the boys felt they had been used by lawyers and
refugee advocates.
She said it was unlikely the boys would be allowed back to go to school.
Any official considering their request for a study visa would question
whether they would be prepared to leave once their visas expired, she said.
AAP
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/abc-makes-bakhtiyari-blue/2005/10/06/1128562943692.html
============================
10. Baktiyari boys unlikely to get visas
============================
news.com.au
From: AAP
October 06, 2005
IMMIGRATION Minister Amanda Vanstone holds out little hope of the teenage
sons of Australia's highest profile asylum seekers, the Baktiyari family,
getting back into the country on study visas.
She said any official who had to consider their application to study in
Australia would have to question whether the teenagers, Alamdar and
Muntazar Baktyiari, would leave the country once their visas expired.
The teenagers, 16 and 14 respectively, have apologised to the Federal
Government for the lies they say led to their deportation to Pakistan late
last year.
They blamed the lawyers who acted on their behalf and the refugee advocates
who supported them.
The brothers say they now realise the Federal Government had no option but
to deport them.
Alamdar and Muntazar made international headlines in 2002 when they escaped
from Woomera detention centre in South Australia and walked into the
British consulate in Melbourne, seeking refuge.
They had been helped by a group of refugee advocates who used their case to
publicise what they claimed were the horrors of Australia's hardline
immigration controls.
Senator Vanstone said today it was tragic if the boys felt they had been
used by lawyers and refugee advocates.
She said she would like to hear more of what they now say.
"I think it's very sad if they believe that they were led into the
situation they were in, or if they were led to telling lies or whatever, as
a consequence of advocates and lawyers," she said.
"I think that is a tragic situation but if they are now happy to discuss
those matters, I for one would be particularly interested in any comments
they want to make about where the counterfeit documents that were provided
to the Afghan embassy came from.
"If we're going to have an opening up and a sharing of what really
happened, then I'd be very interested to hear quite a bit more."
However, Senator Vanstone said there was a three-year ban preventing the
return of anyone removed from Australia, and indicated that even after that
period the Baktiyaris were unlikely to receive an Australian visa.
"The second point is, I think it's fair to say that any decision-maker who
looked at that would necessarily have in the back of their mind a query
about whether, if they were let back in, they would abide by their visa and
leave at the end of its duration," she said.
"And in doing so might consider whether that would reopen another sorry saga."
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16832933-29277,00.html
=====================================
11. Head of UN refugee agency decries xenophobia
=====================================
Financial Times, UK
By Frances Williams in Geneva
October 3 2005 20:00
Populist politicians and scare-mongering media campaigns are cynically
fanning xenophobic fears and prejudices and putting protection of genuine
refugees at risk, the new head of the United Nations refugee agency warned
on Monday.
Antonío Guterres, former Portuguese prime minister, who took over as High
Commissioner for Refugees in June, said rising intolerance was the most
difficult contemporary challenge faced by the agency.
"The rise of populism has led to a systematic and wilful confusion in
public opinion, mixing security problems, terrorism, migrant flows and
refugee and asylum issues," he told the UNHCR's 68-member governing
executive committee. "Terrorism must be fought with total determination.
But asylum is and must remain a central tenet of democracy."
The UNHCR has voiced concern in recent years about tighter asylum rules,
especially in Europe, which it says now make it difficult or impossible for
those genuinely fleeing persecution or violence to have their asylum claims
heard. Switzerland, for example, is introducing rules that will deny a
hearing to asylum seekers who do not have valid travel or identity
documents. "Guarding borders must not prevent physical access to asylum
procedures or fair refugee status determination for those entitled to it by
international law," Mr Guterres said.
The high commissioner also emphasised the UNHCR's primary role as a
protection agency, a response to criticism that it has devoted too much
attention to the provision of relief aid that other agencies can do as well
or better. UNHCR's caseload is now around 19m, including 9m recognised
refugees as well as asylum seekers, returnees, internally displaced people
(IDPs) and others the agency has been asked to look after.
But Mr Guterres reminded the executive committee that, while the global
number of refugees those who have crossed national borders is at its lowest
level in nearly a quarter of a century, up to 25m people worldwide are
displaced in their own country without the protection of the 1951 refugee
convention.
"The inability to address internal displacement has become the single
biggest failure in the humanitarian action of the international community,"
he said.
UN agencies, including the UNHCR, are normally obliged to wait for a
government request to help IDPs and even then there has often been an
incoherent UN response. Thus in Darfur, Sudan, the aid effort was
handicapped by confusion over whether it was the responsibility of the
UNHCR or UN-Habitat to provide shelter materials.
www.unhcr.org
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/756a02ac-343e-11da-adae-00000e2511c8.html
============================
12. Building a case to help the Minister
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Letter to the Editor
The Courier Mail
6 October 2005
Its sad to see the boys (they are minors) fall into Ruddock's set piece
about blaming lawyers and migration agents.
Mistakes were made - there was no coherent case management on the part of
lawyers/agents/ in Adelaide- Sydney- Canberra - and supporters all over
Australia were writing letters, speaking out. Many so called refugee
advocates were learning on the run - and the law and process around asylum
seekers still baffles most lawyers, journalists, editors etc! I don't
question the goodwill.
The Minister (and DIMIA?) made up their minds early on when the case was
made so very public. The reaction was: Punish. Make an example. The
Minister appears to have managed this case himself! Servants at his
direction built the case for him - facts, documents as required. Vanstone
inherited a case in progress and came to it with very little understanding
of the human rights issues.
Frederika Steen (retired DIMIA Officer 1984-2001)
Chapel Hill Qld
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13. Centacare chief questions Bakhtiari teens' criticism
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ABC ONLINE NEWS
Thursday, October 6, 2005. 11:00am (AEST)
A key supporter of the Bakhtiari family says the recent criticism levelled
at those who made efforts to prevent their deportation does not appear to
be genuine.
Bakhtiari teenagers Alamdar and Montazar have blamed activists and their
lawyers for their deportation to Pakistan last December.
They are now living in Afghanistan, where they have always maintained they
were originally from.
Director of Centacare, Dale West - who looked after the family in Adelaide
- says the Bakhtiari teenagers may now be trying to appease the Federal
Government by criticising those who supported them.
"I guess what I'm concerned about is that it seems like someone has advised
them to say the things they've said because it is different to what our
conversation content has been in the last nine or 10 months," he said.
"I'm just concerned that somebody has raised their hopes that if they were
to apologise to the Government, distance themselves from other people, that
that may seem them come back, but we just know that it's not possible."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1475888.htm
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