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The acid test: Australian journalists must ask what agenda they serve. It’s been a big week for the Australian media.
We’ve published a picture supposedly of a terrorism suspect that was actually, not. We’ve presented front page stories full of unsourced and misleading or just plain wrong information about a horrific confrontation between a messed up, radicalised, dangerous Melbourne teenager and counter-terrorism police. At the same time, as the ABC broadcaster Mark Colvin noted on Friday, the Australian Senate passed arguably the most significant restraints on press freedom in this country outside of wartime.
Refugees And Asylum Seekers. Australia should not return a person to a place where there’s a 50/50 chance they’ll be killed. News Australia should not return a person to a place where there’s a 50/50 chance they’ll be killed 12 August 2014 Proposed amendments to the Migration Act would significantly increase the risk of people being returned to persecution, the HRLC has said in a submission to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee.
The Committee is conducting an inquiry into changes which would increase the risk threshold asylum seekers have to meet before being eligible for Australia’s protection under important human rights treaties. HRLC Director of Legal Advocacy, Daniel Webb, explained that a person is currently eligible for Australia’s protection under these treaties if there is a “real risk” they’ll face significant harm on return. HRC27_HRLC_oralstatement_ATSI_overimprisonment_Sep2014.pdf. UN alerted to Australia’s over-imprisonment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. News UN alerted to Australia’s over-imprisonment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples 18 September 2014 The United Nation’s Human Rights Council – the world’s peak human rights body – has been alerted to Australia’s rapidly increasing imprisonment rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Www.indigenousjustice.gov.au/briefs/brief014.pdf. Loss signals lessons yet to be learnt on custody deaths. Andrew Kaldor writes 'Are We Paying Too Much To Stop The Boats?' OPINION: This is a longer version of an article which first appeared in the Australian Financial Review, 'Visas will cut refugee costs', 15 September 2014 Are We Paying Too Much To Stop The Boats?
By Andrew Kaldor One of the claims that some commentators like to make about Australia’s asylum seeker policy is that it saves money. It’s got to be cheaper to stop the boats than to have people coming to our shores that way to seek refuge. Right? Wrong. By the Audit Commission’s reckoning, Australia now spends the same as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) spends on its entire global refugee and displaced persons operations.
The UNHCR is responsible for helping and protecting some 50 million displaced persons around the world, including 11.6 million refugees. Compare that with the $3.3 billion Australia spent in 2013-14 on the detention and processing of boat arrivals. Next year, the Department of Immigration’s budget is about $2.9 billion for that operation. Resources and information relating to asylum seekers and refugees in Australia. Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law. New UN human rights chief attacks Australia over asylum seeker rights 'violations' Australia's treatment of asylum seekers at facilities like Manus Island has been condemned by the United Nations.
Asylum seeker death: Family's organ donation wish unable to be granted Exclusive. Australia wants to resettle refugees on remote island, Cambodian opposition leader says. Up to 1000 refugees may be sent to live on a remote Cambodian island.
Photo: Angela Wylie Australia has considered sending up to 1000 refugees to live on a remote island off the coast of impoverished Cambodia under a controversial resettlement agreement,, according to an opposition leader in Phnom Penh. Australian officials have visited several sites to accommodate the refugees now on Nauru, including land in Preah Sihanouk province, far from the Cambodian capital where there are few schools, hospitals or other essential services, according to the Phnom Penh Post. Some islands in the province are owned by wealthy Cambodians connected to key government figures. Map of the area in Cambodia where refugees could be sent. Resettled refugees say they are desperate and living 'like animals in the jungle' on Nauru. Depressed: Single men on Nauru have threatened suicide to protest their treatment.
Photo: Angela Wylie Refugees' mental anguish in Australia's 'Guantanamo' Refugees' mental anguish in Australia's 'Guantanamo' Inmates at Melbourne immigration transit accommodation in Broadmeadows on Sunday.
(Digitally altered image) Photo: Joe Armao At least one in four refugees locked in indefinite detention on the basis of secret ASIO findings has attempted or threatened suicide, a new analysis has revealed. Several of the 44 refugees have now been incarcerated more than five years without charge in Melbourne and Sydney, and none are allowed to know the detail of the secret assessments used to justify their detention. The heavy psychological toll has led to extraordinary rates of depression, anxiety and self-harm, including one man repeatedly beating his head with a toilet door.
Detainees at the centre in Broadmeadows. Four countries that treat asylum seekers better than Australia. Facilities at the Manus Island Regional Processing Facility, used for the detention of asylum seekers that arrive by boat.
Photo: Getty Images There’s a bedtime story that Australians like to tell about themselves. ‘We’re a democratic country’, we coo, ‘compassionate, open and with a strong tradition of human rights’. To show how true this story is we compare ourselves with other countries. Unlike China, our government is open to public scrutiny. The Leader in Refugee Decision Support. The war on asylum seekers. The current dispute with Indonesia over border incursions by the Australian Navy is symptomatic of a deeper problem — the militarisation of political discourse.
Von Clausewitz famously claimed that 'war is politics by other means': in other words, that military force is employed in service of political ends. In Australia, as elsewhere in the West, this is being taken to an extreme not previously seen outside authoritarian societies. It is true that the Westminster tradition of politics has always viewed the deployment of the armed forces as a matter for the executive (with the governor-general being head of the military). Nevertheless, there were two clear understandings underpinning this tradition. The first was that military actions were international, involving other states. In a perverse twist, refugees — themselves often the victims of war — are now an enemy to be fought with all the might of the nation's armed forces. Comments Comments should be short, respectful and on topic. How Did We Let This Terror Happen?
They say a frog, placed in a saucepan of cold water, can be slowly boiled to death, as long as the water temperature is raised slowly enough. The boiled frog metaphor, like its age-old cousin, the slippery slope, has long been used to describe processes of gradual but dangerous change. The idea is that the slow ratchet of distasteful change can eventually lead a person or a nation to a state of affairs unimaginable at the starting point. News. Urgent independent review needed into another asylum seeker tragedy. Amnesty International today expressed deep concern at reports that a 24 year old asylum seeker, Hamid Kehazaei, is brain dead in a Brisbane hospital after contracting septicaemia at Australia’s detention centre on Manus Island. “We express our deep sympathy to the family and friends of Mr Kehazaei. Refugee Council of Australia.
Manus Island whistleblower describes 'filthy' conditions inside detention centre. Updated A former detention centre guard says he is not surprised an asylum seeker has died from an infection he caught at Manus Island because he witnessed filthy living conditions inside the facility. Hamid Kehazaei cut his foot at the detention centre about three weeks ago, developed septicaemia and was sent to Brisbane's Mater hospital. The 24-year-old suffered a heart attack, and was later declared brain dead.
His family in Iran made the harrowing decision to switch off their son's life support late Friday. Former Manus Island detention centre employee Beau Mitchell has told the ABC he is not surprised at Mr Kehazaei's plight after recording evidence of poor hygiene inside. "There's no air conditioning, the beds are extremely close together. Lawyer for family of deceased Iranian asylum seeker Hamid Kehazaei says there is possibility of Government negligence. Updated The family of deceased Iranian asylum seeker Hamid Kehazaei have enlisted the help of a lawyer to investigate whether they have a case of negligence against the Australian Government.
The family's lawyer indicated that there may have been at least three critical points where other actions could have been taken that may have saved Mr Kehazaei's life. The 24-year-old cut his foot at the Manus Island detention centre about three weeks ago, developed septicaemia as a result and died due to complications late yesterday. Lawyer Ruth Hudson will be representing the family and believes there are obvious signs of negligence. "This wasn't a fatal injury until the Government made it so," she told the ABC's AM program.
Ms Hudson said the family, who are seeking "justice for Hamid", were given very little information about the treatment or events prior to Mr Kehazaei's transfer to the Mater Hospital in Brisbane. Scott Morrison rejects negligence claim over brain dead asylum seeker Hamid Kehazaei. Detention healthcare tossed overboard - The Drum. Updated The plight of an asylum seeker who died from preventable septicaemia is so moving because it is so blithely routine in a surreal system, writes Chris Rau. The story of Hamid Kehazaei - who is brain dead in Brisbane's Mater Hospital after a cut to the foot at Manus Island detention centre was left untreated - was both utterly avoidable and utterly inevitable. The 24-year-old Iranian asylum seeker is the most recent, tragic face of the "collateral damage" in a bipartisan policy which has culminated this past year in fatal riots, medical malfeasance, at least two dead babies, alleged rapes in detention centres, and skyrocketing mental health conditions.
Successive governments have repeatedly cried crocodile tears about people-smuggler-driven deaths at sea while cynically denying asylum seekers who do make it into their care the very basics of human existence which governments can control. All in the name of deterrence. Scott Morrison clashes with Human Rights Commission head amid defence of child detention on Christmas Island. Updated. Iraqi Christians, Yazidi refugees fleeing Islamic State for Australia may miss out on visas.
Updated. Christmas Island class action: Maurice Blackburn Lawyers to sue Immigration Dept over treatment of asylum seekers. Federal backbencher Andrew Broad supports work rights for asylum seekers. Posted Federal Government backbencher Andrew Broad has spoken out against the Coalition policy to deny most asylum seekers who are on bridging visas the right to work. Pacific Islanders reject 'climate refugee' status, want to 'migrate with dignity', SIDS conference hears.
Asylum seekers on Manus Island sent to isolation units: leaked report. Hindmarsh Shire plan to help boost Karen refugees intake. Former Vietnam refugee Hieu Van Le set to be installed as governor of South Australia. Pop up 'refugee embassy' makes debut. Scott Morrison proposes releasing asylum seekers onto Australian mainland under TPV plan. Are asylum seekers who arrive by boat illegal immigrants?
Refugee Council of Australia. A Human Rights Guide to Australia's Counter-Terrorism Laws. President reports on Abdellatif v Commonwealth (Department of Immigration and Border Protection) Detention shame: children, mothers self-harming - The Drum. Topic - The Drum. 140912_RWZ100.pdf.