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Asylum seekers who flee their homes face the worst sort of lottery. Surviving their initial escape from danger, surviving the boat journey, getting a Temporary Protection Visa or being exiled to Manus or Nauru. It’s all a matter of chance, with little to do with justice or fairness. We give here a number of these outcomes that have been meted by Australia.
RRAN communicates daily with dozens of asylum seekers trapped in Australia’s detention centres both onshore and offshore. These men and women reach out to keep us informed about what abuses and transgressions are occurring. Often they do this in secret and at great risk to themselves. We need your help to keep the communication channels open.
With the new and even more unfair ‘fast-track’ processing, the government is going to be attempting to deport more and more refugees back to situations where their lives and safety are at risk.With the policy of boat force-backs we know that they have no compunction about returning people to directly to countries they have fled from and indeed straight back into the arms of their persecutors. All without any semblance of assessing these people’s claims for asylum.
We know that our government does not blink in the face of the rape of women and children on Nauru, or when staff murder refugees in detention on Manus Island.
We can be sure that they will not hesitate to return people to circumstances where it’s likely that they are tortured or killed. Indeed this has happened in the past.
If you want to help resist this, sign up for our anti-deportation SMS alert list. You will occasionally receive SMS messages calling for anti-deportation action. This often takes the form of handing out flyers at the airport or conducting protests to highlight the plight of a person slated for deportation.
ASRC submission to the Parliamentary Expert Panel
Republished from http://www.asrc.org.au/media/documents/asrc-submission-expert-panel.pdf (see this file for citations).
In the spirit of the Parliament and Senate’s expressed wish to act to save lives and prevent further deaths at sea as a first priority, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) outlines this emergency plan of action offering an alternative to asylum seekers risking their lives in dangerous boat journeys to Australia. These plans are written in the spirit of Australia’s signed commitment to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the Related 1967 Protocol (Refugee Convention) and acknowledging that it is both impossible and impractical to hermetically seal our borders. Australia as an island continent has more control than most but human determination to seek survival will render complete control unachievable. These plans acknowledge the right of people fleeing war, genocide or the threat of imprisonment because of political or religious beliefs, to seek protection.
Measures to save lives
These five actions will have an immediate effect in saving lives through strategic action as well as by sending a message to refugees and asylum seekers that dangerous boat journeys are no longer necessary and that resettlement can be achieved by waiting.
“Thank you I hope he will be alive. I will come very soon. I have no other choice.” Text message from Indonesia from a man whose friend was missing from a boat in June 2012.
Measures likely to put lives at risk
Longer term measures to save lives
Pamela Curr and Jana Favero – Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) July 6th, 2012.