Last Friday is being talked about as the day from hell at the Melbourne-based Asylum Seeker Resource Centre. Afterwards, CEO Kon Karapanagiotidis sent the following letter to volunteers:
I want to take a moment to share with you my last Friday to give you a human face to what this government is doing to asylum seekers with the indifference and lack of compassion it has shown so far. I still hold onto hope but at the moment I can’t erase last Friday….
I and two other ASRC lawyers, Maria and Sam spent the entire day telling 19 families that the Minister had said no to their case and that for most they now had to face going home.
I can still hear the weeping of one young woman from Ethiopia after hearing the news of her rejection. Having fled being trafficked and raped, the news left her sobbing so loudly that she started wailing and screaming. It pierced the walls and stopped us all. It took an hour just for the tears to stop. What comfort could I give her?
I think of the young man from Bangladesh who upon hearing the news, was stony silent but he did not need to say anything, because his face said it all, it had broken into a thousand pieces of grief and wept quietly, his numbness a resignation to hope all lost…
All day long this continued…We tried to explain to our 63 year old Grandmother of six (all grand children in Australia) why the government wanted to send her back to East Timor away from her 3 Australian citizen children and leave her to fend for herself destitute and homeless…but we were lost for words…
We sat with the father from Sri Lanka who is married to an Australian and has a child with her and tried to explain why this government wants to break up his family and send him home. We could find no reason.
We told another young man from China who has arrest warrant out for him and faces torture if returned to China for his human rights beliefs, that this government is sending him back to this fate…
The father of one of our families who has been here 11 years rang a counsellor on the weekend (after we broke the news to him on Friday) threatening to throw himself off a bridge because the thought of return was too much to bear.
Next week, we face yet another 8 people whom we must tell that they must return. I am already thinking about one father who has already tried killing himself, that I must give the news to this week and have to somehow convince him to stay strong for his 2 kids who need their dad. I worry for the young man from India who faces torture if he returns simply because he is gay.
We will continue to fight the good fight for those in danger, and for those who may seek to kill themselves rather than face return and for those whose families are on the line.
But as I sit tonight at 8.39pm writing to you, I ask myself why do our people have to suffer so needlessly, so unjustly, so immorally, simply because they want freedom?
In Labor I thought that perhaps we had a chance on a 180 degree turn on our treatment of asylum seekers. It seems not. So far this government has not stirred my heart and I despair as each new day dawns and I see nothing new under the sun, let alone under this government of illusion and no substance. I wrote to the P.M. as suggested and I hope many others will. Our humanity is on trial here.
I wait with baited breath for the final Garnault report to see how our Kev manipulates the situation so as to keep the status quo alive and well.
So how did it come to pass that the Immigration Dept (whatever they are called now) became so callous and that whatever reviews and court cases these people have been through became worse than deaf to their plight?
Wasn’t Labour going to fix the mess in the immigration system? Let’s lock St Kevin in a room with these people for an afternoon & see how hard his heart is.
This is a deplorable situation and surely these decisions cannot all be attributed to the public servants who remain in the Immigration Department as a legacy from the Howard Government. I would like to see Crikey, or some other liberal-minded body, organise a petition to Minister Chris Evans demanding that a more humane attitude be taken towards such applicants. It is especially disturbing to think that people who have lived many years in Australia, contributing to the welfare of their families and to the general community, could be forced back to countries where they face poverty, persecution or isolation from all family and friends.
Like other respondents, one of the main reasons I was delighted to see the change of government, giving me hope for the first time in years, was an expectation of a better deal for asylum seekers. Kon’s letter to the volunteers should also be sent to Mr Andrews and Mr Rudd to help them see beyond the numbers.
Looks as if we have swaped one rotten, bible bashing mongrel for another one.