This morning The Australian reports that the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has completed its assessment of the 78 asylum-seekers on the Oceanic Viking and designated all of them as genuine refugees.
This year the AFP and Indonesian police have stopped, arrested and detained 1998 people who were attempting to come to Australia by boat. Most of these men, women, children and unaccompanied children are now in prisons and detention centres across the Indonesian archipelago in conditions ranging from acceptable to appalling.
The UNHCR has assessed 640 of the cases in Indonesia and found them to be refugees requiring protection. They are going slow on the others because they are unable to get countries, including Australia, to resettle the refugees. This leaves more than 2000 people effectively warehoused in Indonesia.
They are fed and watered and housed like cattle, in the words of one 14-year-old Iraqi girl. Australia pays IOM to do this. The government has so far revealed no policy on what is to happen to the people piling up in Indonesia.
Last year Australia settled 35 people from Indonesia. At this rate there is a 40-year queue for refugees hoping to settle in Australia.
We the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre have found 70 children without parents or relatives locked up in Indonesia prisons. There are others with whom we have not established contact. They are mainly Hazara kids who have been smuggled out to save their lives.
One 17-year-old boy was sent after his father was “slaughtered” by the Taliban for refusing to hand over his 15-year-old daughter to a 50-year-old Taliban leader. His five brothers are missing, his mother and two sisters travelled by donkey and on foot across the mountains to Quetta after the attack.
The village elders advised them to run and now the family is separated with the young boy locked up in an Indonesian prison. He has a sister living in Australia who would sponsor him but her application, like hundreds of others from family members, sits in the bottom draw of the immigration department.
Another 14-year-old had his entire family killed by the Taliban because they were Christians. Quetta, the traditional bolthole for Hazaras, is no longer safe. Afghans who have returned after visiting their families tell us that they saw Hazaras gunned down in the street.
This is contributing to the outflow of Hazaras to Indonesia.
This footage filmed on a mobile phone in the Makassar rudenim (detention centre) two weeks ago illustrates the difficulties faced by refugees. The man on the floor with no pants on has been returned to the detention centre and beaten. He escaped with four others after paying a bribe to the deputy director of the rudenim which allowed him to do so. They gave the escapees an hours grace and then went out after them:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPe6xixok8A[/youtube]
The four men were caught, beaten and bashed. The reason that this man has no pants is because the Indonesian guards know that the only place left for the detainees to hide what little money they have is in their underwear. As a consequence the guards pull their trousers and underpants off searching for money.
These poor quality photos show swelling, cuts and bruises left by the beatings. In other centres we have reports that after people escape the remaining detainees are bashed as a warning for them not to make a similar attempt:
Conditions in these many prisons and detention centres vary enormously from sympathetic to brutal. Corruption is rife as poorly paid guards see the detainees as an income source until they are run out of what little money they had and are then trapped. IOM are required to visit the detainees and then notify UNHCR staff. Most recent escapes have occurred following failure of UNHCR staff to return as promised.
After registration by UNHCR, they promise to return to interview detainees. This may take months, as will the decision and letter assessing them as refugees in need of protection. In the past people would then be released to hostels, however we understand Indonesia has now been pressured to keep them locked up to stop possible boat expeditions.
In the community they have no right to work or school for the children or movement but they are fed and watered while they wait.
Some have now been living in this warehoused state for nine years and still counting.
And there is not a law in the world that gives us the right to do this. Under the refugee convention any return to a place of danger by any agent of the country involved is considered refoulement. Not an if or a but about it.
The Tamils “rescued” but really intercepted and illegally returned to Indonesia were refouled under the convention and the Australian media are so frigging useless they didn’t get that point even though I sent all of them details of the law as it was happening. The unions all got it right in the beginning but were reviled by Rudd and co. for telling the truth. One hopes the spineless little coward will apologise to them for his abuse.
The media in this country seem to be largely unaware that the refugee convention has been given force in the migration act and that makes it perfectly legal to arrive and claim asylum. There is no allocation or queue for this part of the program because it cannot be regulated no matter how paranoic the DIC’s get or how stupid the politicians are.
It is not border security, the convention is totally silent on border security, detention and other things we do, like punishing people who give refugees a ride by calling it people smuggling.
But not one person has been smuggled. They all come in the open, throw themselves at the authorities and beg for help.
So we jail them all. The difference is that the so called evil doers who give the refugees a ride are given lawyers, a prison sentence and then they go home.
The refugees just get banged up without charges or trials, without lawyers and with almost no legal rights.
Like the Moti case exposed today for the crock it always was, we are bribing the neighbours to do what we can’t be bothered doing.
QUESTION TAKEN ON NOTICE
SUPPLEMENTARY BUDGET ESTIMATES HEARING: 20 OCTOBER 2009
IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP PORTFOLIO
(80) Program 2.1: Refugee and Humanitarian Assistance
Senator Fierravanti-Wells asked:
In relation to the number of places allocated to non-UNHCR-registered asylum
seekers, please provide a breakdown including:
a. the number of places allocated to unauthorised arrivals by boat;
b. the number of places allocated to unauthorised arrivals by air;
c. the number of places allocated to persons who had arrived on a valid visa and
then sought asylum;
d. the number of places allocated to over-stayers who subsequently claimed
asylum.
Answer:
Allocations, targets, or limits are not made in relation to Protection visas for asylum
seekers. If all the criteria for a Protection visa are met, the visa will be granted and no
distinction within the Program is made regarding the lawful status or arrival means of
the applicant.
Visas granted to asylum seekers in Australia are counted towards the Special
Humanitarian component of the Humanitarian Program. In 2008–09, 2497
humanitarian visas were granted to persons in Australia which were counted toward
the overall humanitarian program outcome of 13 507 visas.
This is the first time the DIC’s have admitted the truth to anyone. Thank heavens Connie is completely ignorant.
I am appauled by our treatment of asylum seekers. I cant believe we let both Howard and now Rudd get away with this crime against humanity. The ignorant masses stay ignorant. The media don’t inform, they just entertain. News is hardly ever really found. I am grateful for Crikey for raising these issues. But it breaks my heart to read these kind of stories.
How can we turn the public’s opinion on this? How can we wake the nation up to the inhumanity of our policies? Apparantly most people think Rudd is not tough enough! My god! What do they want us to do? Send the navy in to blow these folk out of the water? Kill the families fleeing here? No… it is time for some insightful thinking and real answers: how do we get the mainstream population understanding this problem? And seeing it for what it really is?
Why isn’t this sort of information availabe or discussed in the mainstream media? I’m sure it may impact on some peoples’ views. Then again, people are so insualr and racist they’d probably ignore it anyway as leftist crap. People are hell bent on using any excuse to justify their existing positions on this matter and no matter what evidence is placed before them, one cannot make another compassionate when they are incapable of feeling any empathy at all. But thanks for posting this it’s so important!