Young put case against child detention
12 March 2004, Canberra Times
By David McLennan
Sayed Reza Moosawi has come a long way to tell Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone about the plight of refugees. Sayed, 17, spent 11 days on a leaky boat, often thinking he would die, to get to Australia. He was just 14 at the time and fleeing Afghanistan in the hands of people smugglers. ''Since then I have not had contact with my family and I do not know really what is going on in Afghanistan, where they live in Afghanistan, are they alive or dead,'' he said. Eighteen-year-old Zahra Shafaq said life in Australia was much better than in her homeland of Afghanistan, where she lost some of her best friends to war. ''I had to wake up every morning from the noise of bombardment and rockets and the cries of my people,'' she said.
They came to Canberra with six other young people yesterday as part of Chilout, which campaigns to get children out of detention centres, to deliver a petition from 5000 young people supporting their cause to Democrats Leader Andrew Bartlett and Labor backbencher Tanya Plibersek. They also took their case directly to Senator Vanstone, but did not think she had answered their questions. They hoped their stories would resonate with her after they left. When Sayed lost his older brother, his father decided it was time to get him out of his homeland. ''The extremist groups persecuted everybody, the warlords change the country into a blood battle,'' he said. ''There was no peace at all and my life was in danger. My father sent me out with the hope to get me to safety, security and a future.'' He spent two months in a detention centre, which was ''not a good place to keep children'', with no teachers and lots of noise. ''Luckily I have now been given permanent residence. But I feel for those who are on temporary visas, because their lives are tortured by uncertainty and fear. I beg the Australian Government to end the system of temporary visas,'' he said. Senator Vanstone said the meeting went well. ''They are nice kids.''