Our shame
Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison are claiming success for stopping
the boats. The media are saying job well done. Coalition supporters
are pointing to the scoreboard.Well here is the forgotten side of the Coalition’s scoreboard.
In December 2012, Coalition Shadow Immigration spokesman, Scott
Morrison, questioned the Federal Government paying for the flights of
the bereaved from Christmas Island to Sydney to attend the funerals of
their families.
On the 27th of September 2013 a boat carrying Lebanese,
Iranian, Iraqi & African asylum seekers sank off Java en route to
Australia. Reports varied about the number of people on board between
63 and 125. Thirty-six people were confirmed drowned, including a
number of children, though news reports suggested the death toll may
have been 70.
On December 9 2013 a boat carrying 30 Iranian and ethnic Rohingya
asylum seekers sank off the coast of Java, bound for Australia. There
were three deaths including one two year old child.
On February 5 2014 Rezene Mebrahta Engeda, a 30 year old Eritrean man
drowned himself in the Maribyrnong River, Victoria upon notice of a
failed asylum application and letter to attend a meeting with DIBP where
he assumed he would be told of his pending deportation to Eritrea.
On February 13 2014 a 27 year old Indian man hung himself in
Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Centre. He had been detained since
January 2014 for overstaying his student visa. Victorian Police are
investigating his death.
February 17 2014 Reza Barati, a 24 year old Iranian man, died of head
injuries on the way to Lorengau hospital in PNG following protests at
the Manus Island Immigration Detention Centre. The detention centre had
come under fire by PNG police following protesting by detainees,
resulting in the injury of 77 others, 12 seriously.
On June 1 2014 Leo Seemanpillai, a 29 year old Sri Lankan man died as
a result of self immolation, suffering burns to 90% of his body. He had
been living in community detention on a bridging visa awaiting the
outcome of his refugee claim.
On September 3 2014 Hamid Kehazaei was declared brain dead after
contracting cellulitis in remote Manus Island Immigration Detention
Centre.
Pregnant asylum seekers will give birth in Nauru for the first time
since 2004 under the Abbott government’s ”no exemptions” approach to
offshore detention.
Of six pregnant women transferred from detention on Manus Island in
Papua New Guinea by Labor earlier in the year, three miscarried.
In June 2014, two sixteen year old Vietnamese boys were abducted from
their community house in Adelaide when they returned home after school,
and taken to Wickham Point detention centre, built on a site that would
have housed gas workers instead, except it had been deemed unfit for
human habitation due to severe mosquito and midge infestations. The pair
have remained in the high-security facility ever since. They had done
nothing wrong. The letter handed to them at the time said “The Minister
for Immigration and Border Protection has made a decision that your
residence determination is no longer in the public interest.” Fifteen
other children have run away for fear it will also happen to them. They
have not been heard from since.
This was around the same time that Morrison turned over one boatload
of Tamil asylum seekers to the Sri Lankan Navy and kept another boatload
imprisoned on the high seas for over a month.
I cannot express my shame that this is lauded as a success. What have we become?
No comments:
Post a Comment