November 20, 2009 – 11:52 am
Another reminder of how genuine refugees are treated in our region
In amongst all the media and political frenzy regarding the Tamil asylum seekers http://www.blacktownsun.com.au/news/world/world/general/indonesia-backs-down-on-merak-boat-people/1681997.aspx refusing to get off some boats in Indonesia, a much greater and more problematic stand-off has been occurring in Thailand.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/11/2009111845646765272.html
160 Hmong people, originally from Laos, have been kept in a detention [...]
October 26, 2009 – 12:50 am
The future direction of a major aspect of Australia’s asylum seeker policy is in the balance right now, with potentially very significant future impacts for many refugees, as well as for regional relations and the treatment of people moving through the region.
The Labor government made some significant changes on coming to office. Most important was [...]
October 19, 2009 – 12:07 am
While the halting of a boatload of Tamil asylum seekers in Indonesia continues to get plenty of coverage, here is a small sample of other experiences asylum seekers are going through elsewhere on the globe:
In Greece – 200 unaccompanied children in detention:
More than 850 people – including 200 unaccompanied children – are being held [...]
September 8, 2009 – 9:47 am
In December last year, a report from the federal Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Migration unanimously recommended that “as a priority, the Australian Government introduce legislation to repeal the liability of immigration detention costs.” That is, the law which raises a debt against people in immigration detention to cover the cost of their detention. Legislation [...]
The irrational obsession with pulling out all stops to prevent asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australia is placing our country at risk of being party to human rights abuses on refugees much worse than those of the Howard era.
This week , the federal government is taking the unusual step of having the Prime Minister [...]
I had an article published in the main Crikey e-newsletter today, outlining some of the trends, facts and government responses to the well over 40 million refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced and stateless people around the world.
It seems likely the issue of asylum seeker boat arrivals will once again be moving closer to the political [...]
It is often asserted that the refugees arriving in boats to Australia could safely stay in countries such as Malaysia that they pass through on the way. Before giving credence to such an idea, it is worth examining some of the evidence.
The Chapter on Malaysia from the most recent World Report of Human Rights Watch states:
As [...]
It might make political sense, but there is very little economic sense or social benefits from spending more money to detain and warehouse refugees than we would in resettling them and gaining the benefit of their productive participation in the Australian economy and community.
April 14, 2009 – 12:46 pm
The Torres News – newspaper for the Torres Strait and the Northern Peninsula Areas of Cape York – has a piece on their website (and the front page of their dead tree version) about the recent arrival of fifty Tamil asylum seekers in the region.
They raise the curious question of “why the vessel and its occupants [...]
