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Project SafeCom News and Updates 11 March 2006
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Project SafeCom
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Mar 10, 2006 16:24 PST
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Project SafeCom News and Updates 11 March 2006
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¤ - In this Edition - ¤
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1. Howard's ten years
2. 'Living hell' built for two
3. The invalid brought home, only to be told to become a Serb
4. Deportation fears loom for stateless man
5. Jovicic given four-week visa
6. Jovicic urged to take Serbian citizenship
7. De-monopolising Citizenship
8. Greens Party Accepts Invite To Visit West Papua
9. Detention Centre Protest Easter 2006
10. Govt ramping up African refugee efforts
11. Court refuses to hear appeal from British man facing deportation
12. Human rights 'council' delayed
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================
1. Howard's ten years
================
an alternative political analysis
by Tony Kevin
2 March 2006
In the welter of words ranging from blatant hagiography to tempered
criticism on John Howard's ten years as Australian Prime Minister, the
default position may be summarised thus. Howard has been highly successful
in reading and responding to the electorate's mood, and in using prime
ministerial power and leverage to implement programs that meet majority
concerns. He is respected, not loved. Australia has become a meaner and
more conformist society under his tenure, and these are hard times for
liberal dissenters. But he has provided high levels of economic stability
and national security. Legitimately, he has a democratic mandate within a
still-healthy democratic system.
I have a bleaker view of the Howard years. Only time will tell if my case
is overstated. I see Howard as a disruptive and dangerous national leader.
His rule is steadily degrading the values of our society and corrupting its
political institutions. The longer he stays in power, the more the checks
and balances of our society will crumble. We will continue our slow slide
towards an Australian model of fascism.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That is why checks
and balances are crucial to the health of democratic systems. They are the
grit in the gears of government machinery, preventing excessive
concentration of power.
Australian society used to be rich in such checks and balances. First, the
political balance between executive, legislature and judiciary. Second,
within the executive arm, a healthy Westminster system, dividing power
between elected parliamentarians, and permanent professional civil,
military and police services that were a-political guardians of national
interests. Third, a true division of power between Commonwealth and States,
with each enjoying real taxing and spending rights. Fourth, complex
balances between the political sphere and civil society: the latter being a
diverse range of academic, cultural, sporting, ethnic- or religious-based
associations, cause-based and hobby-based groups, etc. Finally, local
government councils occupied spaces between political and civil society,
introducing more grit into the gears of governance.
Looking at all these balances over the past ten years, one sees
concentration towards federal executive power, that is increasingly centred
around the Prime Minister's Office.
The Commonwealth Government now routinely dubs itself "The Australian
Government, Canberra". State and territory governments are thus being
reduced to mere executing agencies. The Commonwealth through
ever-expanding GST and other tax revenues now has huge financial leverage
over policy areas that used to belong to states, local councils, or local
communities. It can tell schools how to test students, what flags to fly,
what "values" curriculum to teach. It can control what local roads are
maintained, and even how well bushfire brigades are funded. It can
determine priorities and values in national sport, and reshape solemn
community observances like Anzac Day to convey whatever national cohesion
messages it wishes. It presumes to enter, even set the terms of, national
debate on every issue.
With the loss of the Westminster system, officers of the public service,
defence and police forces have all become more silently malleable to
political will. There are still individuals of integrity in these systems,
but the times now suit the yes-men and yes-women.
The government routinely gets away with an unending series of abuses of
proper process and accountability in areas of government fiscal probity,
policing, defence and use of the ADF, border protection and
counter-terrorism, because it now has all these bureaucracies firmly under
political control. There is no permanency and no systemic protection for
whistleblowers. Career advancement depends on uncritical responsiveness to
government wishes.
A similar analysis can be applied to the coalition parties themselves -
parliamentarians who dissent do so at high career risk.
The Howard system of governance is a dynamic, not static, organism, and can
be analysed using biological or ecological models. It continues restlessly
to probe for areas of weakness in all countervailing institutions, which it
might exploit to expand its powers. As they weaken, it grows in strength.
Thus, the loss of opposition Senate control is quickly leading to erosion
of Senate investigative powers. Senator Heffernan's disgraceful attack on
Justice Kirby, initially condoned by Howard, almost led to the loss of this
key independent judge. And as the years pass, the power to fill retirement
vacancies in any case moves the courts towards greater conformity with the
political centre.
Just as a free market system risks sliding into monopoly if one firm
becomes too dominant, so a political system of checks and balances can thus
gradually slide into a hegemonic system, if the will to expand power is
there and if opportunities present. There is no doctrine of limits. Border
protection and the War on Terror were providential opportunities to extend
the centre's powers that Howard exploited to the hilt - and still does.
In such an analysis, one must also look beyond formal areas of governance.
The tentacles of Howard's army of unaccountable political minders and
culture warriors now reach out into key institutions of civil society.
Quietly networking in universities and think-tanks, distributing grants and
consultancies, vetting promotions, this hidden army of persuaders is at
work in strategic areas of civil society - mainstream media, the internet,
academe. Dissenters are identified and their personal vulnerabilities
filed, ready for coordinated targeted attacks when the time is right, with
the aim of discrediting and marginalizing their voices. In this way,
cultural pluralism is suppressed and social consensus around the political
centre is strengthened
If these are culture wars, they are very unequal wars, fought between
isolated, outnumbered and unfunded individual guerilla fighters, and a
well-briefed well-funded army of Thought Police. Many dissenters retire
hurt from the fray. Government resources are inexhaustible.
Australian-ness is being re-defined in these Howard years, to mean
assimilation to a conformist set of claimed "Australian" values. Democratic
pluralism, a multiplicity of "values" and voices sharing the fruits of one
liberal society, is no longer legitimate. The War on Terror has become the
vehicle of a repressive climate of social and cultural conformism, more and
more fascist in spirit even if its proponents do not yet acknowledge the
similarities.
Language has been perverted in true Orwellian style: mendacity is
everywhere, a commonplace now.
Howard's agenda-setting power as Prime Minister gave him the power over
these 10 years to reshape the national agenda around his preferences and
prejudices. Opposition leaders and mainstream media leaders perforce
inhabit a world whose language and frame of reference Howard's rule has
largely defined. Real dissenters in the opposition and media are ridiculed
and pushed to the margin. A few illustrious names are left to work in
place, as token demonstrations that the right to dissent still exists.
Occasionally, public scandals flare up, like the Rau-Solon migration abuses
and AWB now. But many issues of gross misgovernance - e.g. SIEV X in 2001,
the demonstrated proven DFAT negligence towards Australian holidaymakers'
safety in Bali in 2002, and the illegal secret ADF invasion of Iraq in
18-20 March 2003 - are simply ignored by mainstream politics and media.
They are too dangerous to tackle now.
Based on such an analysis of the Howard decade, we seem on a downward slide
towards an Australian fascism.
So is this man a political super-hero? An über-leader? No, and here the
fascist model helps us to understand. Fascist structures sometimes allow
quite mediocre people to accumulate large powers, because they concentrate
groups of people who enjoy living in or close to systems of raw power, and
the corporate and support resources such staffs can call upon. Howard
Inc. is now a lot larger than John Howard as a man. It is a powerful
corporate entity and needs to be analysed as such. (A good place to start
is the Australian Financial Review 2005 'Power' magazine supplement,
offering a rare insight into how the Prime Minister's office works).
Another useful way of looking at the Howard years is as a failure of nerve
by Australia's managing elites. Many thousands of politicians, officials
in various agencies, business leaders and civil society leaders, have
periodically failed at crucial moments of choice during the past 10 years
to exercise their powers and responsibilities in what used to be a
pluralist system of checks and balances (e.g. children overboard, SIEV X,
Iraq War, AWB now) to denounce or to simply say 'No' to the latest demands
of Howard Inc. With each such successive failure, Howard Inc. grows in
power and ambition.
To me, this history of the past decade is not about a more passive, selfish
society that by democratic majority vote has accepted what is being done to
our country as the necessary price for our economic and political
security. To me, it is much more about a betrayal of values by our elites,
who should know better, and the conning of our people.
Here is the real story of the Howard years. We no longer live in a healthy,
self-correcting democratic system, but in an expanding, albeit still
"soft-authoritarian", system of corporate national power. While leading
elites remain mostly quietly complicit, dissenters look on in horror as our
national pride is devalued and our freedoms are dismantled.
Some of us, thankfully, are still fighting.
http://www.tonykevin.com/Howards10Years.html
==================
2. 'Living hell' built for two
==================
The Age
By Michael Gordon
March 11, 2006
MUHAMMAD Faisal calls his life a living hell. He suffers from high anxiety
and poor vision, takes medication three times a day, and recently, in an
act of desperation, tried to take his life.
Faisal, 26, is one of the last two asylum seekers left on Nauru under the
Howard Government's Pacific Solution. The other, Mohammad Sagar, 29, became
concerned last month when he knocked on Faisal's door and there was no reply.
He called the security people and a nurse at the camp and, when they opened
the door, he saw Faisal, semi-conscious, bleeding from cuts to his chest,
arms and stomach. Faisal was taken to the clinic that once served several
hundred mainly Afghan and Iraqi asylum seekers on the tiny, impoverished
island.
He later said he had been "pushed to the edge" by the isolation and
uncertainty of his situation and a sense of desperation.
"In Nauru life is black," he told the The Age this week. "I feel I am in
hell. When I came to Nauru I was 21. My age now is 26. Everything is negative."
Now, almost 4½ years after being sent to Nauru, two of the world's
loneliest asylum seekers are now preparing for a new existence outside the
camp.
While the camp will be maintained, at a cost to Australian taxpayers of $1
million a month, those employed by the International Organisation for
Migration (IOM) who have been responsible for the welfare of the two men,
including a psychiatrist, are pulling out.
In the coming weeks, the two Iraqis will have to adapt to new "independent
living" arrangements where they will have their own accommodation, complete
with a television, DVD player, telephone and internet access.
There will also be an allowance to buy their own food and a pushbike,
complete with helmet and padlock, for each to travel around the once
phosphate-rich but now near-bankrupt 21-square-kilometre island, where
power failures and water shortages are daily occurrences.
The shift is portrayed by the Immigration Department as an opportunity for
the men to make their own choices. The men see it differently. "I feel that
this step means that they want to keep me on Nauru forever," Faisal wrote
in a recent letter to Neill Wright, the regional representative of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Both men have been found to be refugees, with genuine fears of persecution
if they returned to Iraq, but both were deemed to be a security threat to
Australia after extensive interviews with ASIO last year.
The finding has left the two men, and parties such as the UNHCR who are
trying to find another country willing to resettle them, in an invidious,
almost impossible position. They have not been told the basis of the
finding and there is no provision for an appeal or a review by an
independent authority.
Not knowing the allegation against them is a constant worry. As Faisal puts
it: "I am not doing anything wrong to other countries, or in my own
country, or on Nauru. Why am I rejected? I am not dangerous to anyone."
When The Age became the first media organisation to be given unfettered
access to the camp almost 12 months ago, both complained about the way the
ASIO interviews had been conducted.
Back then, Sagar said he was struggling to cope with the anxiety. "I'm
living in limbo. To think there is a possibility, even 1 per cent, to get a
rejection, makes me feel very, very bad."
Both said then that they had been accused of being uncooperative in the
interviews, but emphatically denied this. It was not until many months
later that they were told of the ruling, around the same time that the
other 25 asylum seekers still on Nauru were given visas to come to Australia.
Susan Metcalfe, a researcher who has visited the men twice on Nauru and has
provided support to many of those who have since left the island to begin
new lives in Australia, was distressed, but not surprised, that Faisal had
resorted to self-harm.
Only days before the episode, she had written to Immigration Minister
Amanda Vanstone voicing her concern about his mental condition.
"I am deeply concerned that he will not cope when the psychiatrist leaves
this weekend," she told The Age yesterday. "The departure of the last
Arabic-speaking staff member in January had a very negative impact on
Faisal and contributed to his distress."
Ms Metcalfe also shares the men's concern that the new arrangements are a
first step towards the Australian Government washing its hands of any
responsibility for them, despite the commitment when Nauru agreed to set up
the camps that "no persons will be left behind on Nauru". She finds the
adverse security assessment hard to understand. "Both men are very human
and not at all threatening. I don't believe that anyone has ever had a
problem with them and I know that their friends in Australia find the
ongoing situation incredibly distressing," she said.
"It is an absurd situation and a complete waste of all our time, energy and
money. I doubt that Muhammad Faisal could have coherently answered
questions in his ASIO interviews without psychological assistance, so I do
have concerns about the basis for the decisions.
"I know that the lack of explanation for the decisions causes ongoing
despair for both men. They can't even defend themselves because they don't
know what they are being accused of."
Migration agent Marion Le, who met both men on Nauru, finds their situation
"incomprehensible", suggesting there may have been a different outcome if
the men had advocates present during their ASIO interviews.
Another who is surprised is Maarten Dormaar, a psychiatrist, who worked for
the IOM at the camp until 2003. He says Sagar worked as a voluntary
interpreter when required and performed the job well. "He was very
respectful and unbiased as far as I could guess from the way the patients
behaved during the interviews," he said in an email to Ms Metcalfe.
Sagar has several concerns about the new arrangements, which were set out
in a document prepared by the Immigration Department and presented to the
two men. They include questions of health care, transport and security.
On transport, for instance, the document notes the IOM's commitment to
provide "safe and dignified" transport for camp residents, with as little
public exposure as possible. Under the new arrangements, this obligation
would be met by the provision of pushbikes and helmets "for their exclusive
use".
"I don't think it's a very wise idea, giving us bikes," Sagar told The Age.
"Faisal is extremely short-sighted and taking medication three times a day.
I don't think he would be able at all to ride a bike."
But their greater fear is that they have been forgotten. "We are afraid of
that one day we would find ourselves abandoned on this tiny island and have
to beg for the food," Sagar said in a letter to Mr Wright.
While Sagar has improved his English and computer skills on the island,
Faisal is struggling. He says he thinks constantly of the friends who have
left Nauru and is distressed that the department will no longer provide an
interpreter.
In his letter to the UNHCR, Faisal said he was dying a slow death. "The
only solution to my problem is that I get a country to live (like) a human
being without being humiliated. My wish is to feel, even for once, that I'm
alive."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/living-hell-built-for-two/2006/03/10/1141701695874.html
============================================
3. The invalid brought home, only to be told to become a Serb
============================================
Sydney Morning Herald
By Ben Cubby, Malcolm Brown and Stephanie Peatling
March 11, 2006
A DAY after Robert Jovicic was allowed to return to Australia on
"compassionate grounds", the Federal Government has announced it expects
the invalid to apply for Serbian citizenship - and possibly leave Australia
yet again.
"I'm absolutely shattered, gutted," Mr Jovicic said in his Australian
accent yesterday, after learning that he had been granted a special purpose
visa only until April 6.
The 39-year-old - who has lived in Australia since he was two - attended a
meeting with immigration officials in Sydney on crutches yesterday, a day
after flying back to Australia from Serbia, where he had lived as a
stateless person for 20 months.
He had been deported after committing crimes, including robbery, to support
his heroin addiction.
"I am so shocked that they have made me - put me in limbo again," Mr
Jovicic told the Herald. "I am Australian."
The Government has asked him to apply for Serbian citizenship "as a sign of
good faith", but suggests that he may be allowed to stay in Australia if he
can "demonstrate his willingness to reform". The community had the right to
expect this, while the Government further considered his visa status,
according to the office of the acting immigration minister, Julie Bishop.
"What is this good faith?" Jovicic's sister, Susannah, asked. "We asked
them in the meeting what it was and we got silence." A letter from Ms
Bishop was handed to Mr Jovicic explaining that his visa expired on April
6, and in the meantime he might have to report to police.
Mr Jovicic's Australian visa was cancelled in December 2003 and he was
deported in June 2004, but he faced resistance from Serbia on the grounds
of his criminal record. The Immigration Minister's office has told the
Herald it has advice that the Serbian Ministry for Foreign Affairs
indicated in December that Mr Jovicic would be eligible to apply for
Serbian citizenship, though there was no guarantee he would receive it.
A case to have Mr Jovicic treated as an "absorbed citizen" of Australia is
still before the Federal Court. Commonwealth lawyers argue that only people
who remained in Australia between April 2, 1984, and September 1, 1994 are
eligible. Mr Jovicic, then 17, took a six-week holiday in Serbia with his
father in 1984.
Labor's immigration spokesman, Tony Burke, said Mr Jovicic was "undeniably
Australia's responsibility", though he was not a model citizen. "I don't
understand why they are spending the money on his accommodation, his air
fare and now possible legal action when they're trying to send him back to
where he came from - freezing to death in Serbia."
http://smh.com.au/news/national/the-invalid-brought-home-only-to-be-told-to-become-a-serb/2006/03/10/1141701698601.html
===============================
4. Deportation fears loom for stateless man
===============================
The Age
By Andra Jackson
March 11, 2006
A MELBOURNE man returned to Australia on compassionate grounds after being
deported to Serbia was gutted to be given only a four-week visa by acting
immigration minister Julie Bishop yesterday.
He was told to "act in good faith" and apply for Serbian nationality,
fuelling concerns the Immigration Department still plans to deport him. "I
feel shock and disbelief," Robert Jovicic told The Age last night.
Mr Jovicic had hoped to have his permanent residency restored after being
deported to Serbia in 2004. He had never lived there and ended up
destitute, with no rights to work or medical benefits.
His immigration lawyer, Michaela Byers, accused the Immigration Department
of a "sleight of hand" by which it plans to return him to Serbia.
"This time they want to get it right," she said.
Yesterday was Mr Jovicic's second day in Australia after Immigration
Minister Amanda Vanstone had him returned on compassionate grounds.
Stepping out of the noon meeting with Ms Bishop in Sydney, Ms Byers said:
"He was given the second worst outcome possible. The worst would have been
detention."
Ms Byers said Mr Jovicic had been issued with another Special Purpose visa,
which expires on April 6, and he must report to police and Immigration.
"They want him to apply for Serbian citizenship," she said. "That would
allow them to process his departure from Australia."
Mr Jovicic was told he must be responsible for his own circumstances. His
visa provides no Centrelink or medical benefits.
There is no right of appeal against a Minister's decision but Ms Byers said
an appeal would be made to Senator Vanstone, who is overseas.
Ms Byers has also launched federal court action on Mr Jovicic's behalf,
claiming the cancellation of his Australian residency rendered him
stateless and that his deportation to a country where he had no rights had
endangered his life.
She said of Mr Jovicic's reaction: "He's gutted. He really feels that they
are trying to send him back to Serbia."
Mr Jovicic was deported by then immigration minister Philip Ruddock in June
2004after convictions for drug offences.
Labor's immigration spokesman Tony Burke said: "Philip Ruddock wanted to
prove he was tough on refugees. For some reason Amanda Vanstone wants to
prove that she is tough on Australians."
He called for Mr Jovicic to be allowed to apply for Australian citizenship,
saying he is approaching 40 and has been here since the age of two.
"I don't believe for a minute that he's been a good member of the
community, but he is undeniably Australia's responsibility. He certainly
didn't develop a criminal mind before the age of two when he came here." Ms
Bishop issued a statement saying the Government would consider Mr Jovicic's
status before his visa expires.
"The Government and the Australian community have a right to expect that he
has changed the patterns of behaviour that led to the decision to cancel
his earlier visa," she said.
The Australian Government's view, based on advice, including from the
Serbian Government, is that Mr Jovicic is not stateless and is eligible for
Serbian citizenship, she said.
DIMIA'S BLUNDERS
• Cornelia Rau: mentally ill Australian resident found in Baxter Detention
Centre in February 2005. She had been wrongly held in immigration detention
for 10 months.
• Vivian Alvarez Solon: Australian citizen with severe physical injuries,
wrongly deported to the Philippines in July 2001. Found last May living in
a hospice for the ill and dying.
• Robert Jovicic: Melbourne man who spent all but two years of his life in
Australia, deported to Serbia — a country he had never lived in — because
of a string of drug-related convictions. Found living on the streets of
Serbia last November.
• Ali Tastan: an Australian citizen with paranoid schizophrenia found in
January destitute on the streets of Turkey, the country he left as a
12-year-old, after being wrongly deported from Australia.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/deportation-fears-loom-for-stateless-man/2006/03/10/1141701695918.html
=====================
5. Jovicic given four-week visa
=====================
news.com.au
From: AAP
March 10, 2006
MELBOURNE man Robert Jovicic faces being deported from Australia again, his
lawyer says, after he was granted a temporary four-week Australian visa
during a meeting with immigration officials in Sydney.
Mr Jovicic, 39, had been granted a special purpose visa by acting
Immigration Minister Julie Bishop, which expires at midnight on April 6,
his lawyer Michaela Byers said today.
Ms Byers said the visa left Mr Jovicic, who suffers from spinal and
prostate problems, with no entitlement to Centrelink or Medicare benefits.
In the meantime, he is required to apply for Serbian nationality, but Mr
Jovicic has indicated he will not apply.
"(Today's decision) requires an act of good faith that Robert apply for
Serbian nationality, to take responsibility for his own circumstances," Ms
Byers said.
"Robert has been asked to do this previously and has said on a number of
occasions that he is Australian.
"He does not see himself or believe that he is Serbian and he does not want
to be in Serbia and does not want to apply for Serbian nationality."
Ms Byers said Mr Jovicic believed the decision was "a way to attempt to
make him go back to Serbia, putting himself in the position where he can be
forced to return to Serbia".
The minister is still considering allowing him to stay in Australia on
compassionate grounds, she said.
"But we find it quite a negative concept that this appears to tie him to
acting in good faith and applying for Serbian nationality," she said.
Ms Byers said she did not want to contemplate the likelihood of her client
being deported again from Australia after the April 6 deadline.
Mr Jovicic returned to Australia yesterday, 20 months after being deported
to Serbia on character grounds following a string of crimes to support a
heroin habit.
Mr Jovicic was born in France to Serbian parents.
He was deported from Australia in 2004 despite never having lived in Serbia
and not speaking the language.
A tearful Mr Jovicic said he was "absolutely gutted" by the minister's
"shock" decision.
He said he would not survive if forced back to Serbia.
"The minister wants me to turn back to Serbia. I'm shattered by that I
don't want to entertain the thought," he said.
"I would not survive there."
Mr Jovicic said he wants the rights of an Australian citizen returned to
him so he can get on with his life.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18413645-29277,00.html
===============================
6. Jovicic urged to take Serbian citizenship
===============================
ABC ONLINE NEWS
Friday, March 10, 2006. 4:12pm (AEDT)
Uncertainty continues to surround the future of a Melbourne man who has
returned to Australia after being deported to Serbia.
Robert Jovicic, who returned to Australia yesterday, has been told he has
been granted a special purpose visa.
It allows him to remain in the country until April 6 while his case is
further considered.
The Acting Immigration Minister is encouraging Mr Jovicic to apply for
Serbian citizenship.
Mr Jovicic, who has lived in Australia for 36 of his 38 years, says he
believed he would be receiving permanent residency upon his return.
He says he is Australian and will not consider the citizenship request.
"I just would not survive, I know I wouldn't survive it," Mr Jovicic said.
Mr Jovicic was stripped of his residency and deported to Serbia in 2004
because of his criminal record.
He had never been to Serbia prior to his deportation and did not speak the
language.
Serbia refused to recognise him as a citizen, leaving him without access to
medical care, welfare or employment.
He has mental health issues and suffers from a spinal condition and
prostate problems.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200603/s1588929.htm
======================
7. De-monopolising Citizenship
======================
Letter to the Editor
Canberra Times
11 March 2006
Dear Editor,
The sly and brutal way the Howard regime trashed Robert Jovicic's human
rights suggests State governments should resume the right to issue identity
papers in the same way they issue birth, death and marriage certificates.
Once such an identity certificate is issued, State or Territory police
could arrest Immigration thugs if they kidnap or mistreat a certificate
holder.
Prime Minister Howard often says it's a good idea for the States to
transfer their powers to him. If ever there was a case for one of Howard's
powers to be forcibly de-monopolised, it's his power to grant citizenship
certificates.
Yours sincerely,
Graham Macafee
======================================
8. Greens Party Accepts Invite To Visit West Papua
======================================
Pacific Magazine, HI
Thursday: March 9, 2006
Source: STUFFNZ/PNS
Greens Senator Kerry Nettle today met with a delegation of West Papuan
leaders from the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation, and accepted
an invitation to visit the troubled province as soon as is possible.
The delegation of civil society, human rights and political organisations
from West Papua was in Melbourne to participate in workshops on non-violent
strategies to achieve self-determination in West Papua.
External spokesperson for the Coalition Rex Rumakiek extended the
invitation to Senator Nettle to visit West Papua at today's meeting in
Melbourne.
“I am hoping to visit West Papua to see for myself the situation on the
ground that has led the 43 West Papuans now in immigration detention on
Christmas Island to flee their country. My office has begun the process of
arranging an official visit,” Senator Nettle said.
“West Papua has been closed off to foreign journalists by the Indonesian
government and so it is all the more important that concerned politicians
from around the region visit," he explained.
“The delegation told me that there are many more would be refugees who are
seeking to flee overseas to salvage some hope for their lives," the senator
continued.
“The West Papuans are keen to invite foreign parliamentarians to visit
their province in order that their situation can be better understood. I
hope to be a part of that process.”
The West Papua National Coalition for Liberation is a grouping of
ex-military groups, civil society groups, and political groups who have
unified under one umbrella to seek non-violent ways to achieve
self-determination for West Papuans.
http://www.pacificislands.cc/pina/pinadefault2.php?urlpinaid=20770
=============================
9. Detention Centre Protest Easter 2006
=============================
no-racism.net
08. Mar 2006
Villawood Detention Centre Protest Easter 2006: April 14-17
Activists from across Australia will converge on Villawood Detention Centre
in SW Sydney to collectively voice our opposition to the Howard
government's treatment of refugees.
Inspired by previous Easter convergences at Woomera and Baxter, this year
we turn our sights on Villawood, where a majority of refugees are now
incarcerated: at January 6, there were 263 detainees, 143 of them Chinese.
The high rejection rate of Chinese asylum seekers by the RRT (89.6% in
2004-05) is significant, especially with free trade negotiations in train.
V06 call to action: Why converge on Villawood?
to show solidarity with people imprisoned for applying for their lawful
right to asylum. Join with the detainees inside Villawood IDC in struggling
for their freedom --- and for our own.
to show your opposition to the blatant disregard of human rights
perpetrated by the Howard government.
converge at Villawood to show the Australian government your opposition to
the war for oil that has displaced tens of thousands of people from their
homes.
to show your rejection of the free flow of global capital while restricting
the freedom of movement of people.
to show your solidarity with the indigenous peoples of Australia and their
continuing struggle for land rights.
to recognise the extra hardship for women refugees in escaping war and
danger (there are 31 women in Villawood).
to reject the tightening stranglehold on civil liberties, the continuing
disregard for the environment and the ever-increasing militarisation of
Australia.
http://no-racism.net/article/1585/
===============================
10. Govt ramping up African refugee efforts
===============================
The Age
March 10, 2006 - 2:59PM
The federal government is stepping up screening to prevent diseases being
carried into Australia by African refugees, Health Minister Tony Abbott says.
NSW Premier Morris Iemma has accused the federal government of dumping
vulnerable immigrants on the state without providing proper medical checks
and treatment to protect them and the community.
Mr Iemma said the increase in asylum seekers arriving from African
countries such as Sudan was posing a range of complex problems never before
encountered by the state's health system.
But Mr Abbott has rejected reports that only 40 per cent of African
refugees who came into NSW had been screened.
He said the federal government knew in the middle of last year that African
refugees posed a health risk.
"Since then, in addition to the standard health checks that all refugees
undergo, there is now an additional pre-departure check for up to 50 per
cent of African refugees," Mr Abbott told reporters in Sydney.
By the middle of this year, he said all African refugees would have a
pre-departure check in addition to the initial health screening.
"There are some problems here, no doubt about it," Mr Abbott said.
"I'm not saying that we aren't getting some people coming into Australia
with fairly exotic diseases.
"But the federal government has been on to this ... and we are ramping up
our efforts to try and ensure that the Australian public is as fully
protected as possible."
Mr Abbott said he had received two letters from the NSW government
concerning the screening of African refugees.
The first praised the Commonwealth for its efforts combating the spread of
disease, he said.
The second, sent a day before damming revelations hit the media, lambasted
the federal government for not doing more.
"A day before he (the NSW Health Minister John Hatzistergos) went public on
this, I got another letter basically saying the Commonwealth wasn't doing
enough," he said.
"What you are seeing (there) really smacks of a political stunt."
© 2006 AAP
http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Govt-ramping-up-African-refugee-efforts/2006/03/10/1141701678705.html
=================================================
11. Court refuses to hear appeal from British man facing deportation
=================================================
ABC ONLINE NEWS
Friday, March 10, 2006. 12:45pm (AEDT)
The High Court has rejected a special leave application from a British
citizen facing deportation after several stints in jail.
Irwin Watson arrived in Australia from Scotland as an infant in 1973 and
has lived here ever since.
During a two year stretch in jail in 2001, Watson was told his visa would
be cancelled because he had failed the character test.
But a later letter from the Immigration Department informed him that a High
Court decision had ruled out deporting British citizens who had been in
Australia since before 1973 and the department would not proceed with his
removal.
Watson's lawyers told the High Court this revoked the decision to deport
him but government lawyers have told the court there was no such power to
revoke the decision and since the original High Court decision had been
reversed he should be deported.
The High Court rejected the application, saying it was not an appropriate
case to consider the legal issues raised.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200603/s1588621.htm
=========================
12. Human rights 'council' delayed
=========================
news.com.au
From correspondents in United Nations
March 11, 2006
THE president of the UN General Assembly said overnight that he was putting
off a scheduled plenary session of the 191-member body until early next
week in order to reach consensus on his draft setting up a new human rights
council.
Jan Eliasson had initially planned to hold the plenary on Friday to discuss
the text, which has broad support among member states but is opposed by the
United States.
"I have delayed the meeting until the early part of next week in order to
enhance the chances of achieving consensus on the draft resolution," the
Swedish president of the assembly told a press conference.
His draft called for a 47-member Human Rights Council to be elected by
secret ballot by an absolute majority of the 191-member Assembly. The panel
would meet three times a year for a minimum of 10 weeks.
It would replace the current, largely discredited UN Human Rights
Commission, tarnished by the presence among its 53 member states of
notorious human rights abusers.
The United States has called Mr Eliasson's draft as unacceptable and
threatened to vote "no" if the text was not amended to fix deficiencies.
Washington, which wants a smaller body whose members would be elected by a
two-thirds majority of the General Assembly, indicated that it would prefer
a delay of months in addressing the issue.
"We hope very much that this resolution will be adopted without a vote as
is the tradition of the United Nations," Mr Eliasson said. "If there is a
vote there's always the risk that a number of amendments are being proposed
and that the draft resolution will be hard to recognise."
The assembly president cited attempts to reassure Washington that "there is
great sympathy" for some of the points it raised in the consultations,
including a demand that countries under sanctions for human rights
violations should not elected to the new rights body.
Mr Eliasson said Europeans have assured the United States that they would
not vote in favour of such countries.
"The last thing I would want to do is to see the United States put in
isolation on an issue like this," Mr Eliasson said.
He had hoped to have his draft adopted before the opening of the annual
session of the current Human Rights Commission in Geneva, initially set for
Monday.
But diplomatic sources in Geneva said the session, scheduled from Monday to
April 21, was likely to be put off by one week to await a final decision on
creation of a new rights body.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for a quick adoption of
Eliasson's resolution, warning that the plans could be "unravelled".
The European Union last week threw its support behind the Eliasson draft.
A statement published by the Austrian UN mission, Austria currently holds
the rotating EU presidency, said the EU believes the draft resolution
"meets the basic requirements for the establishment of a Human Rights Council."
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18424665-23109,00.html
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