News Archive for 2003
Please visit our news archive for older news items and our press releases.
Asylum detention rethink - UK
GOVERNMENTS tend not to go in for mea culpas. But last night's announcement by the Home Office that it is to change how it deals with the children of detained asylum-seekers is probably as close as to a ministerial admission of wrongdoing as it is possible to come. [...]
From now on, ministerial authorisation will be required for a child to be detained for any longer than 28 days. A senior Home Office official will have oversight of all children to ensure there are no administrative delays which might extend their detention.
Ex-judge in 'detention' at Bondi Beach
Former Federal Court judge Marcus Einfeld has become a "detainee" in a barbed wire cage at Sydney's Bondi Beach. He and other prominent Australians are taking turns in the cage in protest against the mandatory detention of asylum seekers, especially children. Australian Idol host James Mathison is holding the keys while Justice Einfeld, Senator Kerry Nettle, artists, authors and community leaders go into voluntary detention. Democrats Senator Aden Ridgeway had also planned to go behind the barbed wire but was called away at short notice because of a family illness.
Iranians fear forced removal
The High Court yesterday rejected a last-ditch bid by an Iranian asylum seeker to stay in Australia, in a move that refugee advocates say will condemn more than 100 other Iranians to forcible repatriation.
Latham repeats call for release of children in detention
Federal Opposition Leader Mark Latham has repeated his call for the release of all children in Australian immigration detention centres before Christmas.
Nauru asylum seekers on 'freedom or death' hunger strike
Calls for TPVs to be scrapped
"The TPV regime should be recognised as a purely punitive policy affecting a vulnerable and traumatised population and should be abolished," Monash researcher Dr Sharon Pickering said.
Matter of form angers judge
A Federal Court judge said yesterday he was astonished that lawyers representing the Immigration Department could claim that an application for asylum was valid only if the applicant requested the form used by the department.
Medal protest at child detention
Gerry Burns returns Member of the Order of Australia Medal.
"I feel there would be an element of near hypocrisy if, having received an award from my country for services to children, I were to retain that award in the light of what our country continues to do to a most vulnerable group of children," he said.
Fears for girl as parents face deportation
Ofa Filimoehala was born in Australia and became an Australian citizen on her birthday last month. Her parents, who lived in Brisbane for 15 years after overstaying their tourist visas, have been in detention at Villawood since March. Ofa and her two-year-old brother were removed from Villawood to an aunt's care hours before Ofa's birthday, as it is illegal to detain a citizen in immigration detention.
PM rejects Christmas release for children
Ms Roxon said [...] "Whatever the community might think about these children's parents, no one believes it is the fault of individual children." But Mr Howard said their detention was the consequence of a decision taken by their parents or guardians to travel illegally to Australia, rather than entering the country in an "orthodox fashion". [...] He said the Government had a program on the mainland to release children and their mothers who participated voluntarily in alternative detention.
Travel back in time to 3rd December 2002...
What has the government done for unaccompanied minors and families in detention since the statement below in Parliament, by the then Minister Ruddock? Excerpt from Hansard 3rd December 2002:
Some time ago I requested my department to develop further flexible detention arrangements to cater for detainees with special needs, such as women and children. These arrangements build on the success of the Woomera residential housing trial for those families with children. These detention arrangements enable individual needs to be addressed while maintaining the effective controls that immigration detention provides. Guidelines for these arrangements have been issued, and I am going to table them today for the information of members.
Those flexible detention arrangements build on processes which were put in place earlier this year when most unaccompanied minors at the Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre were removed to alternative places of detention, including foster care, under special arrangements with the South Australian child welfare agency. Formal guidelines for unaccompanied minors have now been developed at my request, which should ensure that, except in exceptional circumstances, all unaccompanied minors in detention will be moved quickly to an alternative place of detention.
Last year on 3rd December 2002 we read in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Under its new policy, details of which have been obtained by the Herald, housing projects such as the one in Woomera will be the "preferred model" for women and children asylum seekers. The policy - agreed to by cabinet and expected to be referred to in Parliament by the Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, this week - stipulates that women and children likely to spend extended periods in detention, and single women and unaccompanied children, should have the option of living in the residential properties rather than detention centres. Fathers would still be kept in detention but could visit their wives and children, and even stay overnight.
Labor calls on Government MPs to get kids out of detention
Finally, freedom and love restored
"Today, I am really missing my wife," said Mr Sammaki in Adelaide, his eyes brimming momentarily with tears. Mr Sammaki found it unbelievable that Sara, a tiny, exquisite girl who was a baby when he left Indonesia, and Safdar, 8, a more serious boy, were with him forever. "No more separating or living far away from each other," he said.
$40m legal bill to fight asylum seekers
Confidential documents reveal the Federal Government spent almost $1 million a week on lawyers last year fighting to keep asylum seekers and their children behind bars. The lawyers were also paid to advise the Howard Government on how to chop parts of Australia from the migration zone to stop boat people claiming asylum. Immigration Department documents reveal it went to great lengths to hide legal costs which have exploded by almost 250 per cent in a year. Unlike every other taxpayer-funded body, the department did not include the cost of its consultancies in its annual report or website.
From sinking boat to stable life: 'Don't send us back'
Yesterday a delegation of the visa holders, along with some of their Australian employers and supporters such as the Mayor of Young, John Walker, along with a handful of parliamentarians from all sides of politics, made an emotional plea to the Government to review its asylum policy and allow the refugees to stay.
Four years on, Pacific Solution father can hug his girl
An Afghan refugee family separated for four years by Australia's hardline refugee policy was reunited in New Zealand yesterday.
Court bid to free Bakhtiyari baby
South Australian human rights lawyer Jeremy Moore confirmed that a High Court bid to keep baby Mazhar Bakhtiyari out of detention would begin in Melbourne next week. A writ was lodged on Thursday seeking the baby's release on the ground that the Federal Government had no power to detain children born in Australia.
The only hope is to lock up Pauline again
Detention centres have become de facto mental asylums. They have literally turned people crazy. They achieved what Saddam Hussein, the Taliban and the fanatical Iranian mullahs failed to do to the resourceful people who escaped their regimes. Port Hedland, Woomera, Baxter broke people's spirit and warped their minds.
But we need Hanson to tell their story. For all her deficiencies, Hanson has shown herself capable of transformation, and able to communicate the nub of a simple idea to her adoring fans.
Journey out of darkness
Ali "was just one of the best workers we ever had, an amazing guy with a great work ethic and a will to learn". More than two years after his wife and daughter were sent to Nauru, Ali is within reach of seeing and touching his family for the first time since he fled Afghanistan in 1999.
Turning Kurds away breached obligations: lawyers
Kurds did seek asylum: Vanstone
The Federal Government has been forced to concede that 14 Turkish boat people who reached Melville Island tried to claim asylum in Australia before being towed away.[...]The Department of Defence said the men had said they wanted to stay in Australia, pointed to the word "refugee" in a dictionary and claimed to be Kurdish refugees. Australian Federal Police officers, supervised by immigration officers, said all six people it interviewed said that they wanted to become Australian citizens.
Detention until death 'possible'
Mr Bennett argued it was legitimate to detain asylum seekers even when deportation was delayed for a long time because circumstances could change. He said, for example, it was possible a Palestinian state might one day be formed. Justice Michael McHugh said it was therefore possible someone could be kept in detention for the rest of their life if they could only be released by a visa or deportation.
Downer calls for more detail on Kurds
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said there were doubts about what the men said to Australian authorities, and said he had asked the defence officials who towed the men to international waters for clarification.[...]Mr Downer said the matter was legally irrelevant as the island had been excised from Australia's migration zone.
Lone Manus detainee in Federal Court bid
A Melbourne lawyer is taking Federal Court action in a bid to end the detention of an asylum seeker held on his own since July at the Australian-run immigration processing centre on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island.
More bad judgement on asylum seekers
�Pretending that a boat hasn�t really made it to Australia is an Alice in Wonderland approach. But in a real world, grown up countries have fair and fast systems for working out who needs protection�, said Howard Glenn, National Director of A Just Australia.
Note: Read also Frank Brennan's National Press club speech on Tampering with Asylum
NZ to reunite Pacific Solution families
New Zealand will reunite three families separated for more than two years under the Howard Government's hardline Pacific Solution to unauthorised boat arrivals.This follows a plea from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, reflecting deep concerns for the mental and physical health of the families. [...] The UNHCR representative in Australia, Michel Gabaudan, said New Zealand was approached because the three cases were considered the most urgent. He urged the Howard Government to now reunite the other five families by allowing the wives and children to leave Nauru and join their husbands, who have been recognised as refugees in Australia.
It�s time � release all children and their families from immigration detention
"The government�s decision to permit Sammaki to bring his two Indonesian children (Sarah, aged 4 and Safdar aged 8) to Australia demonstrates that compassion is an indispensable component when dealing with migration and refugee issues," said Dr Ozdowski.
�It is clear it is time for the government to extend this compassion to the remaining 96 children in Australian immigration detention [1] (excluding Nauru) by releasing them and their families into the community.�
Sammaki family to be reunited at last
Senator Vanstone said Mr Sammaki was not entitled to a refugee visa and she supported decisions to repeatedly deny the children tourist visas to visit their father on the grounds that they would not return to Bali. But she said the children were "unwitting victims" of the Bali tragedy and granted Mr Sammaki a visa on humanitarian grounds. "It is in the national interest to demonstrate that Australia is a compassionate country, that we do have a humanitarian intake," she said.Senator Vanstone said Mr Howard and her colleagues were "very supportive" of the decision.
Bali children allowed visas
The two Indonesian children who were pictured with the Prime Minister, John Howard, at the Bali memorial service will be allowed to live in Australia. In a surprising backflip, the Federal Government yesterday freed the children's father, Ibrahim Sammaki, an Iranian, from detention and gave him permanent residency. The decision means Mr Sammaki can sponsor his two children, Sara, 4, and Sabdar, 8, whose mother was killed in the Bali bombings. Mr Sammaki had been in detention since 2001 and had his claim for refugee status turned down. He was let out of Baxter detention centre in South Australia yesterday afternoon.
Asylum boat moored in 'operational' limbo
Asylum boat sails into fresh refugee furore
A boat carrying suspected Kurdish asylum seekers was towed 20 kilometres from Melville Island, north of Darwin, by the navy yesterday, with debate raging about its passengers' right to claim refugee status.
North Coast Refugee Support Worker Hits Back at Vanstone.....
"How can Australia continue to ignore�cases such as Baby Salima who is now suffering mental and physical retardation as a direct result of her restricted development?"
Children's detention case closer to hearing
Lawyers, led by refugee advocate Eric Vadarlis, are attempting to prove that the detention of four Afghani children in the Baxter detention centre is unconstitutional. If the application is successful, Mr Vadarlis said outside court yesterday, all child detainees on the Australian mainland will need to be released.
North Coast Refugee Support Worker Hits Back at Vanstone.....
"How can Australia continue to ignore�cases such as Baby Salima who is now suffering mental and physical retardation as a direct result of her restricted development?"
Child refugee's family seeks damages
Zahraa Badraie said her stepson, who is now aged eight, had been permanently harmed by his time in detention. "He is very changed and it is very hard for us . . . He needs us all the time," she said.
Mrs Badraie indicated that the legal action also aimed to highlight the plight of other child detainees. With his wife acting as translator, Mr Badraie said his family loved Australia but the kindness of its people had not been reflected in the Government's immigration policies.
Vanstone grants visa to let teenager finish school year
Opposition calls for release of detained children
News of the latest child to be born in immigration detention has been met by a renewed call from the Federal Opposition for the release of all children from detention.
"Appropriately, children should not be in detention, they shouldn't need the courts to tell them that, they shouldn't need the UNHCR to tell them that - it's the right thing to do and the Government should get them out." [Shadow Immigration Minister, Nicola Roxon]
Iraqi refugee family ends roof top protest
Ban and Abdullah Hussein Kadem were on the roof to protest against the way the Federal Government has treated their family.
"Two other family members are being held in Perth detention centre and it was the removal of one of those family members, the eldest son, who's got mental health problems caused by detention, that triggered this protest."
An angel and an act of 'kindness' save Afghan
The plight of Qadir Fedayee, 18, was revealed early last year when the South Australian Public Advocate, John Harley, obtained a Supreme Court injunction preventing Mr Ruddock from returning him to Woomera after treatment for depression - the first time Mr Ruddock's detention authority was overruled.
Almost two years later, Mr Ruddock has given Mr Fedayee a permanent visa that offers full citizenship and the right to stay in Australia forever. He is one of a handful of detainees from Woomera rejected as refugees but allowed to stay for humanitarian reasons.
Double refugee intake: church head
"It surely falls short of civilised and humane standards of behaviour to talk of people disparagingly as 'illegals' and 'queue jumpers' particularly when, under international agreements, any person may seek asylum in another country," [Anglican Archbishop Peter Carnley] said.
"The mandatory detention of refugees and asylum seekers, including innocent children, for extended periods of time... (has) stirred anguished concern not only among church people but among many others."
Bacon brands decision to deport teenager cruel
Tasmania's Premier Jim Bacon has branded the decision to refuse a 17-year-old student from El Salvador a visa a cruel legacy of the former Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock.
Ruth Cruz has been living with her sister in Hobart for three years and is currently studying for her year 11 exams.
Australia to deport 'orphan' teen
Ruth Cruz Mendoza, 17, faces deportation to her home country although her mother is dead and her father apparently cannot be found. [...]
Meanwhile incoming minister Amanda Vanstone has been formally asked to intervene to let two children whose mother was killed in the Bali bombing come to Australia to be reunited with their father who is in detention.
Free children from immigration detention: Archbishop
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Perth, Barry Hickey, has called on the Federal Government to release all young children from immigration detention centres, along with their parents or carers so they can live in a normal community setting.
He says it is sad that recent court decisions have forced the reluctant release of some children from the Baxter detention centre when he says common humanity should have been reason enough.
Archbishop Hickey says he does not understand why the Federal Government is continuing to fight the release of children from detention.
PM poses with Bali victims but still they can't come here
Asked by Labor leader Simon Crean during question time if, as a "special act of compassion", he would allow the children to visit their father, Mr Howard said he would discuss it with the Immigration Minister, Senator Amanda Vanstone.
Hopes higher for children's visas
Supporters of two children stranded in Bali after their mother died in last year's bombings believe the chances of visiting their father at Baxter detention centre have been bolstered after being photographed with Prime Minister John Howard at the weekend.
Liberal raps detention
"The committee is concerned at the slow rate of progress for alternative arrangements for women and children," Mr Baird said. Under the program, women and their children live in supervised housing near a detention centre.
High Court will accept Government stand: Ruddock
Mr Ruddock said the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Australia has ratified, but not passed into domestic law, was "a document that's expressed in very general terms - the application of it can mean different things to different people".
Refugee treatment the world's harshest: Ozdowski
Australia's treatment of refugees in detention centres was the harshest in the world, federal human rights commissioner Sev Ozdowski said today.
Dr Ozdowski said the billion dollar system removed basic liberties from refugees, resulting in levels of despair unseen in detention camps elsewhere.
Vanstone to continue tough line on asylum seekers
Immigration: Ruddock's secret report
A damning review of outbreaks and riots in detention centres previously operated by Australasian Correctional Management (ACM) has revealed big problems with the way the centres were run and managed.
Detention centre cover-up
The Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, is covering up the poor
performance of Australasian Correctional Management (ACM) when it managed six of Australia's immigration detention centres from February 1998 to December 2002. Also covering up the poor performance is the Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (Dimia), which is acting in the commercial interests of ACM despite continuing revelations about the poor performance of the company.
Bribes part of deportee policy: claim
Interim report of the Edmund Rice Centre into the process and aftermath of deportations of asylum seekers
AUSTRALIA TALKS BACK on Children in Detention 2 October
The topic of tonight�s 'Australia Talks Back' is Children In Detention.
Listen On-line by visiting http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/austback/
High Court warned on child detainees
High Court Justice Michael McHugh said it was one thing to say that adults who arrived unlawfully should be detained for the purposes of deportation or organising visas. "It's another thing to say a child who is brought into a country unlawfully can be imprisoned because the first duty of the sovereign, to use the old terminology, is to take care of that child," Justice McHugh said.
High Court invites child detention pleas
Conventions don't apply to detainees, court told
International conventions relating to children in detention did not apply to Australia's migration act, the High Court was told today.
Solicitor-General of Australia David Bennett, QC, said [international conventions were] "not a relevant consideration of this legislation".
Allegations over false passports
A Catholic human rights group says it will give Federal Police and government investigators evidence that immigration officials urged asylum seekers to get false passports so they could be deported.
Consider this baby's plight, judge asks Ruddock
Staff at the Baxter detention centre confirmed the mother, Mrs A-M, whose identity cannot be revealed, has left her room just once this year.
She began to wail when a psychologist from the South Australian Family and Youth Services entered her room to assess her last month. Baby S, born in detention and now just over a year old, was on the verge of crying but then settled and became calm.
The baby, fed a diet of custard in a sunless environment where the curtains are perpetually closed, has underformed legs and poor musculature.
Judge urges Ruddock: free mute detainee's children
Justice Richard Chisholm said in a judgement yesterday he did not have the power to release either the family of five or, alternatively, just the three young children into the community.
But he said if he did have the power he would have ordered that they be let out of Baxter detention centre. It was "abundantly clear that the children will remain at serious risk unless they are in some fashion released into the community".
Detainee fears handover to PNG
Stateless refugee Aladdin Sisalem yesterday appealed to the Australian and New Guinea governments to urgently find a third country prepared to grant him asylum.
Chappelli goes in to bat for courage of refugees
Mr Chappell said he had always taken pride in Australia, but after visiting Baxter he said "it is not a very comfortable feeling when you have to apologise for your country".
Deane supports Church's right to speak on politics
In a roomful of clerics and human rights workers, Sir William received a round of applause when he said: "By any acceptable measure of Christian morality, we Australians are losing our way in so far as our treatment of refugees or asylum seekers is concerned."
Haunted life in the suburban heart
The slow and painful deterioration of a six-year-old boy has been documented in a leading medical journal.[...]
At the Children's Hospital at Westmead, they did what they could. On his first visit, he stayed at the hospital for six days and they got him talking and eating again. But it was not long enough for him to be cured of his nightmares or bed-wetting. When everyone thought it seemed safe, he left hospital. But in less than a week he was back.
Senate move on visa law
The Australian Democrats will move to disallow a recent government regulation that expands the temporary protection visa system to cover asylum seekers who arrive in Australia lawfully, usually on a tourist visa, and then seek refuge.
Tampa refugees on Australian soil
Deported Iranian missing: Amnesty
Tampa refugees head for Australia
Their arrival comes nearly two years after Prime Minister John Howard, in the lead-up to the last election, declared refugees from the Tampa would never set foot on Australian soil.
But last month, Mr Ruddock said almost 50 asylum seekers on Nauru, who arrived on various boats in 2001 and had been found to be legitimate refugees, would be invited to apply for temporary protection visas.
Ruddock to restrict permanent visas
Only a handful of asylum seekers who arrive in Australia and claim refugee status will ever receive a permanent visa under changes announced by Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock.
Ruddock attacks Family Court
Mr Ruddock publicly criticised an order by the full bench of the Family Court on Monday to release five siblings from the Baxter detention centre in South Australia and said he would appeal against the decision.
The forgotten man of Manus Island
While the applications of just over 1000 other asylum seekers have been processed at the Lombrum facility on the Papua New Guinea island, Mr Sisalem's plight appears to have been deemed too complicated.
Neither the Australian nor the PNG governments want to take responsibility for him.
Two years after the Tampa, the figures tell two stories
To the calls from such groups as Amnesty International to reunite the women and children on Nauru with husbands and fathers in Australia, Mr Ruddock is unsympathetic. Because most TPV-holders in Australia came alone, he says it would set a precedent for helping them reunite with family members around the world. When - and if - the men have their TPVs turned into permanent residency, they can apply for the women and children to join them, but not before.
Children freed after years behind the wire
The Family Court has freed five young siblings detained for 32 months in immigration centres, saying they had been exposed to violence and other inappropriate behaviour. [...] A spokesman for Mr Ruddock said the power of the Family Court to release the children was still to be decided by the High Court of Australia. Mr Ruddock appealed to the High Court in June against the Family Court finding that the indefinite detention of children was unlawful. That will be heard on September 30.
Ruddock's officers free families
Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock yesterday refused to confirm that he had ordered the release of a family that until Thursday he fought through the courts to keep in detention. The family of five was unexpectedly freed yesterday from the Baxter detention centre in Port Augusta and the Woomera Housing Project after a Family Court judge on Thursday said that they were in urgent need of release. Justice Richard Chisholm found he did not have the power to release them, but asked Mr Ruddock to give compassionate consideration to "the urgent needs of this unfortunate family".
Lengthy detention of children wrong, says study
IT is wrong to hold children in detention except for very short periods, according to the first full prison inspectorate report into Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre. The report, published today, calls for the detention of children to be an exceptional course, for no more than a few days, and recommends independent assessment of their welfare needs.
Asylum centres 'not for children'
The report adds to concern about the detention of children. The long-term detention of children in immigration removal centres should stop, the chief inspector of prisons has said. Anne Owers' call is made in a report on the Dungavel detention centre in Lanarkshire, the only such centre in Britain where children are regularly held for long periods.
Court blow for asylum policy
The High Court of Australia today effectively ruled indefinite mandatory detention was unlawful, delivering a blow to the federal government's policy of detaining asylum seekers. The Full Court of the High Court, in rejecting the government's appeal against the al Masri ruling that curbed the government's powers to detain asylum seekers, also criticised the application as Mr Akram al Masri had already returned home.
ChilOut at the Sydney City to Surf
Look around. Is this really Australia?
The Family Court had ruled that it had the power to set the children free, on the grounds that their detention was unlawful. But the Federal Government, via the terminally tragic figure of its Immigration Minister, wants to overturn that ruling. It wants to keep the kids locked up, like the rest of the 100-odd children who are still behind razor wire and, in some cases, have been for years.
Gas used on detainee trying to stop fight, hearing told
Ruddock belted again in Family Court round two
Family court frees detained children
The full bench of the court dismissed the application by Mr Ruddock for a stay on last month's ruling that detaining children indefinitely for immigration purposes was illegal. The three Family Court judges, however, agreed to grant Mr Ruddock a 95b certificate under the Family Law Act which will allow the minister to make a High Court appeal without first applying for leave to do so.
World Refugee Day speeches
Costello speaks out on children in detention
Nobody liked to see children in detention but the alternative was separating youngsters from their families, federal Treasurer Peter Costello said today.
[Contact Costello to tell him there is an alternative: release the families.]
Eight immigration detainees have died in past five years
On-line poll results
A SMH web site poll (20 June 2003) asked Should children be released now [from immigration detention centres]? The results were 73% in favour of releasing them. There was also a poll on www.skynews.com.au. The results were 62% against the release of children. This is an example of the attitudes we are working to change.
Ruddock to appeal against 'flawed' child detention ruling
"I would have thought that when you have children who are locked up, who haven't committed any offence, it is highly appropriate the Family Court should have the capacity to say whether detention has become unlawful," he said. [Julian Burnside, QC]
Australian Democrats leader Andrew Bartlett said the Government was now going to spend thousands of taxpayers' dollars trying to keep innocent children locked up. "This is how far they will go," he said. "They will use children to try to win political points, they will do everything possible to keep children in a terrible, harmful environment."
Meanwhile, the Democrats and Labor have indicated they will oppose the Government's proposed legislation to prevent courts from ordering the temporary release of detainees who are appealing decisions or have no prospect of returning home.
Children should not be locked up
The lack of compassion of the Howard Government on this issue shames us all. The detention policy has failed the country and caused needless suffering to children and adults. The Family Court has acted properly and used the law creatively to protect the human rights of innocents.
Detention of children challenged
The Family Court has mounted a major challenge to the detention of children under Australian immigration laws and claimed the right to order their release.Detaining children under such laws is probably illegal, the court ruled yesterday in a decision that could affect 108 children now in custody.
Court strikes fresh blow at detention policy
The Human Rights Commissioner, Dr Sev Ozdowski, said the Government should "simply accept" the decision and immediately release all children being held in detention.
Judge orders refugees review
Dozens of Iranians may not now be deported from Australia after the Federal Court delivered a damning assessment of the Refugee Review Tribunal and its failure to investigate claims of persecution made by an Iranian family of the Sabian Mandaean faith.
Persecuted at home - and in Australia
Father Monaghan told the tribunal in a written submission that in July 2001 it had been impossible for Mandaeans to get access to showers and ablution blocks in the main [Woomera] compound because of the aggression of hostile Muslims. "The threats were backed up with action," he said.
Family finally able to call Australia home
10-year fight ends in joy for asylum seekers
After a decade-long battle to stay in Australia, most of Melbourne's 1500-strong community of East Timorese asylum seekers are expected to be granted permanent residency by the Federal Government.
Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock yesterday said he would intervene now to grant 379 East Timorese permanent visas as long as they passed health and character checks.
A journey back into the arms of her persecutors
Even though Leila is eight months pregnant, she has been told by immigration officials that any day now she might be handcuffed and flown with her husband back to Iran to be handed over to the Islamic Government from which she fled three years ago.
Iraqi family separation a punishment: lawyer
The Kadems arrived by boat from Indonesia in 1999 and were interned. They ended up in Maribyrnong detention centre but were separated two years ago when Abdul Kadem was sent to Perth to face charges of facilitating asylum seekers' entry into Australia by translating meetings in Indonesia.
His wife, Ban, and their six children were released 18 months ago on psychological grounds. They are now destitute in Melbourne on a bridging visa that denies them employment and all federal support, including Medicare and social security benefits.
Iranian faces expulsion, children stranded
An Iranian detainee whose motherless children have been stranded for months in Bali now faces immediate removal to Iran as the Federal Government moves to expel 85 failed Iranian asylum seekers. [...] All attempts by supporters of the family to reunite the children with their father, who is being held at South Australia's Baxter detention centre, have been rejected. The Government refused repeated requests for Haries, 7, and Sarah, 4, to visit their father, who has been listed for removal after failing to secure refugee status in Australia.
Australia's castaways are happier to call NZ home
Smoke signals last days of Woomera centre
Infidels in their own land lose faith in foreign justice
At present, there are 18 Sabian Mandaean families, including 22 children, in detention centres across Australia. Many recently received letters from the Department of Immigration, telling them they had 28 days to either accept a repatriation package to return to Iran or be deported anyway.
Refugee group fights deportations
Minors stay locked up in detention
More than 100 children remain in Australia's detention centres, almost six months after Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock instructed his department to give priority to getting women and children into alternative accommodation.Woomera - a time to reflect
Woomera a jackpot for US company
Detention centre paid penalties to Government
Privatised detention in dock after Woomera claims
Abuse claims can't be ignored: Crean
Woomera's closure negates inquiry calls: Govt
Calls for inquiry into Woomera centre
Detention centre in child abuse scandal
ACM accused of profiteering, mismanagement over Woomera camp
Managers of the now defunct Woomera detention centre ignored warnings of a mass breakout, covered up child sexual abuse and lied to the government to boost its profits, according to allegation aired last night. The damning allegations come from former staff at the notorious centre in the South Australian desert which closed earlier this year.
Woomera videos reveal desperate conditions
About Woomera
Debbie Whitmont penetrates the secrecy that has shrouded the Woomera detention centre, revealing its traumatic impact on both staff and detainees.
Reuniting refugees eases father's pain
Mr Deegan wants permission to bring two children of an Indonesian victim of the attack to Australia, not least so they can be reunited with their father, an asylum seeker in the Baxter Detention Centre.
Nauru camps "psychiatrist's nightmare": doctor
According to the Government, most of the detainees are in good physical and mental health. But Dr Maarten Dormaar, the former head psychiatrist at the two Nauru detention camps, tells a very different story. Late last year he quit his job, unable to continue working in what he described as "a psychiatrist's nightmare".
Mental illness curse for young asylum seekers
The children had displayed little evidence of psychiatric illness before their arrival in Australia, said Mr Steel. After two years in detention however, all children interviewed were assessed to have at least one psychiatric disorder and most were diagnosed with multiple disorders, he said. "The symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder experienced by the children were almost exclusively related to experiences of trauma in detention," Mr Steel said.
Read Zachary Steel's paper: RANZCP10-14May2003 Paper.doc
Children in detention suffer a 'living nightmare': study
A living nightmare - that is how life for children inside detention is being described. The first systematic study of mental health inside detention has found a tenfold increase in psychiatric illness among children. Regular suicide attempts, violence between guards and detainees, verbal abuse, room searches and solitary confinement are just some of the traumas experienced by children. The study also records a shameful world first for Australia - the highest levels of mental illness among children ever recorded in modern medical literature.
Read Zachary Steel's paper: RANZCP10-14May2003 Paper.doc
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to be replaced
Eva Cox's "Submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee: Inquiry into the provisions of the Australian Human Rights Commission Legislation Bill 2003" 24th April 2003. HREOCSenateSubmission.doc
Margaret Reynold's Press Release "Downgrading of HREOC criticised in Geneva", 14 April 2003. ReynoldsRelease14Apr03.doc
'Tampa' case still making waves
Noor Ali Akbari and Ali Jan Mohsini, who fled Afghanistan in the rickety craft that later sank in the Indian Ocean, have since been resettled in Norway. They immediately wanted to meet Rinnan when they arrived in Oslo three weeks ago.
Kids in Detention Watch April 2003
"The Minister for Immigration, Phillip Ruddock, said in December last year that the Government would transfer more children into alternate detention arrangements. So far the Minister has not honoured his commitment and the Woomera Residential Housing Project remains at less than capacity, while the number of children at Baxter steadily increases."
[Note: ChilOut does not support the Woomera Housing Project. We want whole familes to be living within the community close to all facilites they need for the well-being and development.]
Court deals new rebuff to asylum seeker policy
Wife killed in Bali, now asylum seeker loses visa fight
Iranian Ebrahim Sammaki was distressed at the government's rejection of visitor visas for his children Safda, seven, and Sara, three, lawyer Danny Hyams said. His Indonesian wife, Endang, was visiting a Bali lawyer to discuss Mr Sammaki's refugee application when the bombs went off last October.
Ruddock warns detainees face solitary over Easter
The terrifying sadness of Baxter
With no traffic between compounds allowed and all doors within the camp operated automatically from a central control station, it�s altogether a destroying, pressure cooker environment.
Bali bombing victims still in limbo
Their father is being held in the Baxter Detention Centre after a failed attempt to enter Australia as an illegal immigrant, their mother is dead as a result of the Bali bombing.The children are being cared for by a charity that paid to extricate them from the dangerous situation they were living in after their mother died. Their carers say they're desperate to see their father, but the Australian Government has refused to grant them visitor visas.
Court cannot help detainees
The Federal Court has ruled that it is powerless to end the detention of a group of Iraqi asylum seekers who have spent nearly four years in Australian migration centres. Justice Arthur Emmett said that as "unfortunate though it may be from a humanitarian point of view" the law was clear. The Migration Act allowed the Government to keep failed asylum seekers in detention indefinitely, as long "as the detention is for the purpose, ultimately, of securing the removal of the unlawful non-citizen".
Sure, we'll save Iraqis - if they remain in Iraq
In the hubbub of war it can be forgotten that the Howard Government has 152 Iraqis locked up in detention centres. And while the Government wages war with its mortal enemy, it subjects a further 4000 Iraqis, found to be genuine refugees, to the miserable and uncertain life of "temporary protection".
Ruddock 'bluff' to force Iranians out
Mr Ruddock's spokesman said deportations would be done case-by-case so Iran could determine if the detainees were Iranian nationals. But he said Iran would accept all those found to be nationals "whether they're pink-skinned, green haired, seven-foot-three, two-foot-six, 37 stone - it doesn't matter". "If they don't believe it's going to happen, well, watch this space," he said.
Detained doctor returns to work
After a long circular journey that took him to Sydney's Villawood immigration detention centre, Afghan doctor Shah Mohammed Rahim is back working among his own people.
Dr Rahim, 42, fled his native Jalalabad to neighbouring Pakistan and took the people-smuggling route to Australia four years ago after falling foul of the Taliban for opposing hand amputation for thieves. After ditching his false travel documents on arrival at Sydney Airport, he was taken straight to Villawood, where he spent three years while his pleas for refugee status were rejected. Last May Dr Rahim became the first of Australia's rejected Afghan asylum seekers to be escorted home.
Court knocks back costs
A federal magistrate has refused to award the Federal Government court costs in two refugee cases on the grounds that they were being wrongly used to punish and deter Afghan asylum-seekers.
No respite for child detainees
New figures on children in detention show the Federal Government has made only "cosmetic changes" despite promised improvements, according to a refugee activist group.
The last moments of a fearful refugee
"It was mental illness induced by the dreadful stress and strain of an educated man coming to Australia filled with hope, being locked up behind razor wire for six months, then being released without security for the future," Father Tony said.
SIEV-X.com February 2003
New evidence has emerged regarding the drowning of 353 asylum seekers on board the boat known as SIEV-X in October 2001.
Row erupts over Iraqi stowaway
Australia had breached its international legal obligations by refusing to allow an Iraqi stowaway who had been locked in a ship's paint locker for a month to seek asylum, refugee advocates said yesterday.
120 children detained behind the razor wire
Children held in Australian immigration detention camps spend an average of 15 months behind the razor wire. One child was detained for more than five years, Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock told Parliament.
One family's rocky road
A slight Iranian woman was wrestling her cheap "pram" carrying her disabled son over a rocky path, the wheels catching on the stones around the Curtin detention centre.
The pram was not designed for the task and barely able to contain the 13-year-old with cerebral palsy. Unable to walk or attend to his needs, including going to the toilet, the boy was totally dependent for his day-to-day existence on his mother and two brothers. For almost two years they fed him, lifted him in and out of bed and took him for outings around the compound at the most remote detention centre in Australia.
Living life neither here nor there
An Iranian family of four, suffering serious mental problems caused by prolonged detention at Woomera, is refused community release by immigration officials despite the pleas of a psychologist and a doctor from the Women and Children's Hospital in Adelaide.
Out of desperation, the doctor writes to Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock urging his intervention. "This family cannot be treated in the detention environment. They are now at very high risk of suicide, particularly the father and daughters," he wrote. The letter is not acted on.
5 Star Beat Up
Penberthy's regurgitation of the Department's line was greeted with disbelief inside the detention centres. 'The media all the time saying we are in five star accommodation�.I am talking with officer. "Where is Foxtel? Where is internet access? Where is swimming pool?" ACM officer agree. It is all bullshit.
Our Common Responsibility - The impact of a new war on Iraqi children
Iraqi children are already badly traumatized by 12 years of economic sanctions. With war looming, Iraqi children are fearful, anxious and depressed. Many have nightmares. And 40 percent do not think that life is worth living.
Does Tony Blair have any idea what the flies are like that feed off the dead?
On the road to Basra, ITV was filming wild dogs as they tore at the corpses of the Iraqi dead. [...] "Just for the record," the cameraman said to me. Of course. Because ITV would never show such footage. The things we see - the filth and obscenity of corpses - cannot be shown. First because it is not "appropriate" to depict such reality on breakfast-time TV. Second because, if what we saw was shown on television, no one would ever again agree to support a war.
Carr comes to the aid asylum kids
Australia was not criticised for its treatment of asylum seekers by the UK and countries throughout Asia, NSW Premier Bob Carr said. But something still had to be done about the indefinite mandatory detention of young children, Mr Carr said.