The Australians that make us proud...The Sarwari's in Launceston
Tears were streaming down my face as I read "Home at last: Refugee returns to a hero's welcome" (Launceston Examiner, 16th April 2003). Exactly four months ago I first heard Mohib Sarwari's name, as I was travelling in a car with Marion Le. Her hands-free phone rang with the news of the family's TPV being cancelled and their re-detention. I remember telling the story to a local refugee meeting that evening. A concerned citizen rang a friend in Launceston to get more details. "Tasmanians for Refugees" were also meeting at that very moment and trying to work out what the hell had happened - why had this family been snatched from the bosom of their community?
Within days the picture began to emerge of a family wrongfully targeted by DIMIA"s "Pakistani Paranoia." The Refugee Advocacy Service of South Australia seemed to believe this family were innocent of the allegations being loudly put out against them and were looking for a migration agent prepared to take up the case. I begged Marion Le to take them as clients. So began a commitment that would take her not only into the snow-clad mountains of Afghanistan but into the darker areas of the psyche of a Department that has become so jaundiced against asylum seekers, that they seem prepared to "stop at nothing" to defame and demoralise some of the most vulnerable, but most dignified people on our planet.
For four months I have watched from the sidelines and helped in any way I could. I have been shocked at how difficult it has been to clear the name of anyone the Department has decided to target. The Department seems to be like a giant spider, who once they have their prey, bound up tightly in a web of their own construction, they are reluctant to ever release them.
Everything the Sarwaris said Marion would find in Afghanistan was there, their village, their home, their family, and their loved ones. Their village is not named on any official maps, but Marion followed hand written maps and travelled for days through dangerous territory, past Taliban checkpoints. She travelled with an interpreter and two local guides, who took them across country that had no roads, travelling instead up through a dry river system.
The little village was tucked away at the foot of a mountain. It lies in the shadow of active Taliban and Al Qaida. They have recently re-emerged and re-grouped and have begun persecuting the local village people again. Foreign soldiers and international aid workers have now been killed in the areas that Marion travelled through. Since she returned, MSF (Doctors Without Borders) has withdrawn from Afghanistan because it is sick of the UN's lie that Afghanistan is now "safe". It is not safe!
Mohib's village may not have been on published maps, but it was held dear within the hearts of the Sarwari family. If Marion had not travelled there, with her modern recording equipment it would be simply the Sarwari family's words against DIMIA's that the village even existed. And guess who's geographical expertise and credibility would have been given primacy? No prizes for guessing who's evidence, or who's story would have been the one that was "given the benefit of the doubt."
When I watched Marion's video footage of her walking towards Mohib's house at the end of the village and looking up at the view of snowy mountains that seemed to rise from the edge of his garden wall, she said, (on video, but almost to herself) "Why would you leave such a beautiful place if you were not in danger?" Why indeed, would a loving family set off across the planet, leaving everything they owned, if not to preserve their very lives and those of their children?
The Sarwari village may not be on any maps, but now Marion has recorded it's GPS position so she can prove it exists. Further to this, Marion has proved that this one family are who they said they are. But how many other Afghan/Hazara families have never made it out of detention, were never even given a TPV because DIMIA has either wrongly decided they are Pakistanis, or wrongly believed that Afghanistan is now safe and therefore Australia does not owe them protection obligations? How many other TPV holders who are in the community now, are about to have similar accusations levelled at them, are about to have their meagre level of freedom and safety snatched away?
How many people in detention are wrongfully detained? Not that detention is not wrong in itself, it is, but even within the current system, how many of those the Minister says have "been found NOT to be refugees and therefore have no legal right to remain in Australia" are actually like Mohib Sarwari and his family. The Sarwaris were subjected to an appalling case of mistaken identity, a mistake on the part of the Department. And although they were innocent of any crime they were rounded up like cattle and taken to Baxter.
Further to this, they were vilified in the media, on the basis of misinformation, the source of which, according to a journalist and a politician, was DIMIA itself. Can you believe that DIMIA would stoop to putting about unproven allegations, and incorrect personal details about a refugee family, despite the constraints of the Privacy Act? Well you had better believe it, because it appears that is what they did to the Sarwaris.
The dedication and the love of the Launceston community and the skill, experience and commitment of Marion Le has won the release of the Sarwaris, but what of the others? How many other people languish in detention who, even under our present appalling processing system, have no reason to still be held. No reason, except they have had no protection against the prejudices of the Departmental decision makers or the proclaimed bias our Government has against onshore applications for asylum.
Congratulations to the Launceston community and congratulations to Marion Le. To the Sarwari family - I am so sorry that your lives have once again been disrupted by the machinations of those who have power, but not the humanity to manage their power.