![]() ![]() Open the borders! More than half of refugees to Australia are fleeing war or persecution in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka and Iran. It’s also sexist: 80 percent of refugees are women and children. The dehumanisation of asylum-seekers is, above all, deeply racist, as almost all are people of colour. They may be women escaping sexual violence LGBTI people fleeing gender-based persecution people fleeing political persecution, seeking to be reunited with their loved ones, or wanting safety for their children. This clandestine activity maintains the human faces of asylum seekers, who may be escaping the horrors of imperialist wars or poverty and environmental devastation. Private planes are flying refugees, including pregnant women and unaccompanied children, to Nauru and Manus.įortunately, activists leak information through refugee and human rights organisations, and via Twitter. Asylum seekers arriving by boat are now termed “illegal maritime arrivals,” and “detainees” are “transferred” to “processing centres.” The public is no longer officially informed of boat arrivals. The newly elected Coalition was not to be beaten on inhumane refugee policy. LGBTI refugees sent to PNG, where homosexuality is treated as a crime, face more persecution and likely imprisonment. The lack of facilities and health risks are highly dangerous, not to mention the isolation and utter despair. Refugees are now sent straight to Nauru or PNG’s Manus Island, where they could remain for the rest of their lives. In July 2013, incumbent Prime Minister Rudd announced that no one arriving by boat would be allowed into Australia, spending 30 million tax dollars to advertise this policy. In true imperialist style, it also strong-armed Australia’s poor, semi-colonial neighbours, Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Nauru, to provide land for detention camps to house people seeking refuge. The previous government had already gone so far as to change territorial borders to avoid obligatory international conventions on refugee asylum. ![]() ![]() The hottest electoral battle raged over who would enact the basest refugee policy. ![]() An election on September 14 brought the reactionary Coalition of the Liberal and National Parties to power. This in a country that takes far fewer refugees than many other states.įortress Australia. The government’s stated aim is to prevent refugees from claiming asylum here. According to UNICEF, the infant mortality rate is 40 times that of Australia. The heat reaches 50º C (122º F), and there is no specialist care. In October this year, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection transferred detained pregnant refugees to the impoverished Pacific island of Nauru to live in communal tents with no running water. Incarcerated by an Australian Labor Party government, Ranjini and her sons, including a third born in January, remain in indefinite detention. The spy agency gives no reasons and no appeals. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) had deemed her a security risk. Two years later, she and her two young boys were abruptly placed in detention by immigration authorities. In 2010, Ranjini, a Tamil mother fleeing genocide in Sri Lanka, won refugee status in Australia and settled in Melbourne. ![]()
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