Tampering with Asylum

HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT THAT AUSTRALIA'S recent policies on asylum seekers are wrong, but don't quite have the statistics to back up your views?

Or perhaps you are just seeking some thoughtful insights into the stories of asylum seekers in order to understand their plight?

Maybe you want to understand further the Government's dilemma of how to determine who is in the most need of its protection under the Refugee Convention?

If you are interested in any of these issues, Father Brennan's book provides different perspectives and thoughtful and compassionate insights into this difficult area.

Brennan provides a significant amount of factual material to inform the debate. For example, next time someone suggests to you there is a queue for asylum seekers, consider that the Australian High Commission in Islamabad in Pakistan in 2000-2001 issued only 109 humanitarian visas to Afghans fleeing persecution. Or that in 2001, Australia received only 12,400 asylum claims in comparison to 92, 000 claims over the same period in the United Kingdom.

Some of Brennan's interesting anecdotes include his conversation with Palestinian asylum seekers.

In conversations with the Palestinian Akram Ouda Mohammad Al Masri, Brennan had informed him and other Palestinian detainees that the judge hearing his case in the Federal Court, Justice Merkel, was "Jewish with a fine reputation for upholding human rights". The first question by the other Palestinians on his return to Woomera after the successful outcome of Al Masri's case was "Do you think we could get the Jewish judge?". Brennan remarked that "in the middle of the Australian desert, some of the most complex conflicts seem resolvable.

"There is hope when persons are treated with dignity and respect under the rule of law regardless of history and politics".

Father Brennan explores Australia's policies, in particular mandatory detention, by comparing them with Europe (the UK in particular), the US and Canada. He argues that the hard line adopted by the current Government will not deter those fleeing persecution, and jeopardises the whole system of dealing with refugees, especially in a world where it is already almost impossible for a refugee to lawfully flee directly to a first world country.

Instead, many developing countries already stretched to look after their own citizens, like Pakistan, Tanzania and Chad, shoulder the burden of looking after most of the world's refugees.

Some of the other areas he explores in detail are: child protection issues in detention centres, the false idea of a 'queue' to enter Australia, the harshness of the Temporary Protection Visa system, the difference between the onshore and offshore protection system, the role of courts in determining asylum claims and examining detention, and the Government's attempts to limit judicial review.

A rational look at asylum seekers Tampering with Asylum - A Universal Humanitarian Problem By Frank Brennan, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 2003.

By KIRSTY RUDDOCK posted 20 April 05

Related:

Baxter,'akin to the time in Nazi Germany'
I went to Baxter this Easter just past, and became more aware that this time is akin to the time in Nazi Germany when the concentration camps were being set up.

Asylum seeker denied medical help, court hears
An Iranian asylum seeker was denied access to psychiatric help, despite slashing himself several times inside South Australia's Baxter detention centre, the Federal Court in Adelaide has heard.

Once You've Been to Baxter You Can't Sit on the Fence
I spent this Easter in the desert. I spent this Easter protesting at Baxter detention centre to draw the world's attention to the injustice of Australia's racist and inhumane mandatory detention system and treatment of asylum seekers.

Detention Centres, Solitary Confinement
On Friday night the NSW Council for Civil Liberties awarded Sydney solicitor John Marsden honorary life membership. Julian Burnside was invited to make the speech in Marsden's honour. In the course of his speech, Burnside referred to the unregulated use of solitary confinement in Australia's immigration detention centres, criticising it as inhumane and also as unlawful.

MP urges asylum seekers' release
A federal Coalition MP has called for the release of all asylum seekers being held in immigration detention centres.

Rau ordeal a raw deal
Ms Rau spent time in a Queensland prison and a hospital before being handed to immigration authorities who kept her in detention for another four months.

Australian held in Baxter detention centre
It has been revealed an Australian resident has been locked up in Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia for the past four months. Authorities had been unable to establish her identity since she was found wandering in far north Queensland last September.

Lawyers want Baxter detainee released for treatment !
Lawyers acting for a hunger-striking detainee inside South Australia's Baxter detention centre have asked the Federal Court to order a psychiatric assessment for the man, saying he needs to be in mental health care, not detention.

Baxter protesters 'being denied water, sleep'?
One of the three Iranian men has been on the roof of the gymnasium since Sunday last week, with two others joining him on Tuesday.

Detainees urged to abandon rooftop protest!
Kathy Verran from Rural Australians for Refugees, says one of the men has since come down and has been taken into the management unit. [solitary confinement for Xmas?]

Advocates warn of detention centre riot risk
A prominent refugee advocate warns South Australia's Baxter Detention Centre is on the brink of a major riot. A protest involving about 25 male detainees broke out at the centre on Tuesday, over a new system which is delaying the process of dispensing medication to detainees.

Villawood detainees go on hunger strike
A refugee advocacy group says up to 200 detainees at the Villawood Detention Centre, in Sydney, have begun a hunger strike to draw attention to their situation ahead of the federal election.

Afghan children lose High Court battle against detention
Lawyers have lost their constitutional challenge to the detention of four children at a South Australian immigration centre. Four siblings from Afghanistan, aged between seven and 15, have been in detention since they arrived in Australia in 2001.

Australia's "GITMO" System
Australia's "GITMO" System In June 2002 on the PM program on ABC radio, PHILIP RUDDOCK is quoted as saying: "Well, let me just say, detention centres are not prisons. They are administrative detention.

Senior cleric damns Baxter as 'disgraceful'
A senior world religious figure has called on the Federal Government to scrap its mandatory detention policy after visiting the Baxter detention centre in South Australia's north.

Detention centre media ban criticised
The Howard Government has been criticised in a report by media freedom advocate Reporters Without Borders for stopping journalists covering the conditions in refugee detention centres.

Baxter detainee continues hunger strike
A detainee at the Baxter detention centre near Port Augusta in South Australia has been on a hunger strike for a week. Sri Lankan Zeldon Daggie, 23, says he has been detained since arriving in Australia four years ago.

Democrats to keep up pressure over asylum seekers
The Australian Democrats will maintain their pressure on the next federal government over Australia's treatment of asylum seekers, if the party can retain its strength in the Senate.

Don't rock the Boat Howard!
PRIME Minister John Howard today denied the children overboard affair had swayed the 2001 election? Mr Howard has spent the week defending himself against claims he had been informed that nobody in Defence believed children had been thrown overboard by asylum seekers.

Once You've Been to Baxter You Can't Sit on the Fence

A story from the Baxter 05 convergence written by the NUS National Environment Officer.

I spent this Easter in the desert. I spent this Easter protesting at Baxter detention centre to draw the world's attention to the injustice of Australia's racist and inhumane mandatory detention system and treatment of asylum seekers.

Thursday morning as I heaved my pack onto the bus outside UTS, Sydney, all I was feeling was tired. Although I'd been planning for Baxter for months now, getting posters out from NUS and trying to get new students involved, I felt so unprepared. I'd even forgotten my hat.

Most of the people on my bus, including me, had never been to Baxter before. On the TV screen at the front, as the small towns hurtled past on the 25 hour journey, we watched footage of the last Baxter convergence, in 2003, and the convergence before that at Woomera. Watching footage of the fences being pulled down was so beautiful. Even more beautiful was the fact that there had been no police there to stop it!

When we got to Adelaide and to the Uni, I wished I'd had time before we left to make some placards and banners. I had so many ideas in my head but they weren't much use there now. Marching to Amanda Vandstone's house in the hot sun with only a small group of us on the pavement through suburbia wasn't the start to the full-on weekend I'd expected, but soon we moved to the road and as we walked up the hill the momentum built.

Waiting for us were the Melbourne crew, and our numbers doubled as we started chanting in front of the lines of cops protecting the residence of one of the people responsible for perpetuating some of the worst human rights abuses in Australia.

I made a speech. It was the first time I've made a speech into a megaphone. I had written it at breakfast this morning because I'd learnt some of the scheduled speakers had pulled out. People listened and I hoped they couldn't hear my voice shaking. I wondered if the police behind me were listening too, of if they were tuning out. The media microphones and cameras pointing at me freaked me out a bit. But people afterwards told me it was a good speech, and I was quoted in The Australian which was exciting for my mum (hi mum!).

After we'd had a meeting and decided where to camp, we set the tents up and marched down to the detention centre. The lights around the perimeter fence were so bright they burned the backs of my eyes. A police helicopter flew above us with a spotlight relentlessly searching the ground for any signs of activists on covert missions, or asylum seekers lucky enough to have escaped from the fortified prison. Not that there was any chance of anyone escaping this weekend; there were as many police as protesters there, as we soon learnt.

The white wooden fence posts in front of the barbed wire electric fence were shaking that night as we drummed and sung and chanted and made as much noise as we could, trying to let those imprisoned inside know that we were here, that we were here for them, that we cared, that not all Australians were racist and willing to lock them up in the desert for the "crime" of seeking asylum and fleeing from persecution.

We stayed until exhaustion set in and our throats were sore, then marched back to the tents where I fell into a deep sleep amongst the red desert dust under a full moon and a night speckled with the stars you just can't see in the city, interrupted only by the police helicopter and its intrusive lights. Just over the hill were the asylum seekers in the hell-hole of Baxter. I didn't know if they were sleeping or awake, but I hoped they knew I was thinking of them as I fell asleep.

Saturday morning, and another 3.5 km march down to the detention centre. We wanted to walk around the whole perimeter of the centre and we carried balloons to fly over the centre so the detainees could see them. They can only see up, not outwards. Only sky. And hopefully, our coloured balloons gave them hope.

The police didn't want us to march around the perimeter. We knocked down the first fence and kept going. I was wishing I hadn't worn thongs as I found myself at the front and staring at the heavy police boots. We chanted so the detainees could hear us and to keep our own spirits up. AZadi - freeDOM - AZadi - freeDOM echoed from all of us to the beat of the drums we carried.

My own drum was just an empty water container tied over my shoulder by a scarf. It was soon lost in the police scuffle as they charged on us, marching in blue and khaki lines into our linked arms. It was scary. I was scared. It felt like a war zone. A line of us, a line of them. We began to retreat. Then the horses charged, at a trot. A row of white horses. A woman fell over and the horses kept going. She could have died. People were screaming and crying. The media just kept taking footage. My blue thong was lost in the crush but a reporter went closer to the cops than i could have, and handed it back to me. Thankyou. Small acts of kindness in a crazy situation.

We moved back and along to the front gates. Some had been arrested, some hurt, but most of us were fine. Singing and dancing and drumming and chanting outside the gates again, stopping the normal flow of the centre's regularity. Regulated torture. Rules for breaking people down. Dehumanising them. Numbers not names. We stayed until mid afternoon then headed back in the heat to the tents.

Saturday evening a small group of us headed down to the centre again bearing kites. A woman had been arrested last year for flying one but the charges had been dropped. We had made beautiful ones and hoped we could get them over the fence so the detainees could see them. The sun was setting over the desert and it was incredibly beautiful. I wished the people behind the bars could see this and be here with us now. We take our freedom for granted in Australia.

The police soon appeared when they realised we were coming with kites. One woman was flying a kite by herself when a line of about eight police marched towards her in formation. 'Run' we screamed, but she didn't. She walked towards them as if to ask what was going on, and they grabbed her. She was arrested. Some kites were seized. We headed back, only to find the rest of the camp marching towards us on the road. They'd heard we needed support and so came down. If only they'd been there half an hour before!

They continued down to the gates to hold a vigil that night. I went back to the tents to sleep. Apparantly at the gates someone got drunk and naked and played guitar to the police. Of course, that's the bit the media showed. I wish people would think about the consequences of their actions before they act; and that applies just as much to activists as it does to Amanda Vandstone and John Howard. At the camp that night we heard news from some of those at the vigil that they could hear the detainees shouting and chanting back to them through the fence.

Easter morning I woke up to the singing of one of the Aboriginal elders, the custodians of the land. I thought of all the Australians that would be going to church this morning. Teaching their 2.5 kids about the Christian values of compassion and loving thy neighbour (unless they arrive on a boat and are not white). Jesus was a middle Eastern man persecuted for his beliefs about social justice. Would he be given asylum in John Howard's Australia?

We held one last march to the detention centre that morning. Rosie and I held the banner we wanted to fly as a kite, held up with tens of helium balloons. It read Freedom; close Baxter, and then freedom written in four different languages. I wasn't very excited about the prospect of being arrested for flying a kite, but at least today I wasn't wearing thongs. Before we really knew what was happening, police lunged and burst the balloons holding up our kite-banner.

I let the string go so it could fly into the sky but it was too late; the balloons were burst and in shreds on the ground. Bright red balloons. Like kids toys. I kicked myself inside for not letting go sooner so it could have flown up above us all, a sign of hope made by Sydney Uni students. Instead, we marched on to the gates.

We amassed at the fence and made as much noise as we could. We flew kites. The police charged through the fence and over the pipeline to confiscate the kites. We kept one and I helped someone put it back together. He flew it as he was running from the police. A few hundred metres down the line, we heard shouting and saw police and police horses hurrying there. Apparantly someone tried to climb the fence.

The cops went crazy, punching one of my friends in the face, jaw and stomach; and throwing another one into a saltbush where her face was badly scratched. They held another one of my friends down over a barbed wire fence. Some more were arrested. It was horrible.

Fighting with police is not why we came. Sure, it got us media, but it was all about the violence. Most of the media were not on our side. I heard the channel 9 (or channel 7 maybe?) cameraman talking to some of the high school activists. People are tortured in there, they go crazy and they end up killing themselves, one girl was telling him. "So what?" he replied. "People top themselves all the time".

I didn't realise I was shaking until I was nearly halfway back to the campsite with my friends from Newcastle. The weekend had been so full-on. I was exhausted, emotionally and physically. Packing up all my gear was excruciatingly hard in the heat. My lips were sunburnt and starting to swell. I lost my sleeping bag and my sleeping mat in my confusion and heatstroke. I just wanted to sleep. But all my friends were around, from all over the country, and as usual, they made me feel better.

In Port Augusta we held a rally in solidarity with the local indigenous community who have experienced a lot of racism and vicious attacks. It made me think about Lake Cowal, where I spent last Easter. At that time I was with a lot of the same crew from Sydney Uni who came to Baxter, only they were in first year then and I was one of the editors of our student paper.

Now the first years are in second year and have become amazing organisers in the refugee campaign, in newly established anti-racism collective, and of course still in the environment movement. Lake Cowal is still under threat from Canadian company Barrick Gold who want to mine the sacred ephemeral lake using cyanide leaching. Asylum seekers are still treated disgustly.

But things are changing, I can tell. Every convergence, every protest, every progressive media article, every person questioning the government. We will change things for the better.

"The world shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage".

By Anna Rose 29 March 05

Related:

Detention Centres, Solitary Confinement
On Friday night the NSW Council for Civil Liberties awarded Sydney solicitor John Marsden honorary life membership. Julian Burnside was invited to make the speech in Marsden's honour. In the course of his speech, Burnside referred to the unregulated use of solitary confinement in Australia's immigration detention centres, criticising it as inhumane and also as unlawful.

MP urges asylum seekers' release
A federal Coalition MP has called for the release of all asylum seekers being held in immigration detention centres.

Rau ordeal a raw deal
Ms Rau spent time in a Queensland prison and a hospital before being handed to immigration authorities who kept her in detention for another four months.

Australian held in Baxter detention centre
It has been revealed an Australian resident has been locked up in Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia for the past four months. Authorities had been unable to establish her identity since she was found wandering in far north Queensland last September.

Lawyers want Baxter detainee released for treatment !
Lawyers acting for a hunger-striking detainee inside South Australia's Baxter detention centre have asked the Federal Court to order a psychiatric assessment for the man, saying he needs to be in mental health care, not detention.

Baxter protesters 'being denied water, sleep'?
One of the three Iranian men has been on the roof of the gymnasium since Sunday last week, with two others joining him on Tuesday.

Detainees urged to abandon rooftop protest!
Kathy Verran from Rural Australians for Refugees, says one of the men has since come down and has been taken into the management unit. [solitary confinement for Xmas?]

Advocates warn of detention centre riot risk
A prominent refugee advocate warns South Australia's Baxter Detention Centre is on the brink of a major riot. A protest involving about 25 male detainees broke out at the centre on Tuesday, over a new system which is delaying the process of dispensing medication to detainees.

Villawood detainees go on hunger strike
A refugee advocacy group says up to 200 detainees at the Villawood Detention Centre, in Sydney, have begun a hunger strike to draw attention to their situation ahead of the federal election.

Afghan children lose High Court battle against detention
Lawyers have lost their constitutional challenge to the detention of four children at a South Australian immigration centre. Four siblings from Afghanistan, aged between seven and 15, have been in detention since they arrived in Australia in 2001.

Australia's "GITMO" System
Australia's "GITMO" System In June 2002 on the PM program on ABC radio, PHILIP RUDDOCK is quoted as saying: "Well, let me just say, detention centres are not prisons. They are administrative detention.

Senior cleric damns Baxter as 'disgraceful'
A senior world religious figure has called on the Federal Government to scrap its mandatory detention policy after visiting the Baxter detention centre in South Australia's north.

Detention centre media ban criticised
The Howard Government has been criticised in a report by media freedom advocate Reporters Without Borders for stopping journalists covering the conditions in refugee detention centres.

Baxter detainee continues hunger strike
A detainee at the Baxter detention centre near Port Augusta in South Australia has been on a hunger strike for a week. Sri Lankan Zeldon Daggie, 23, says he has been detained since arriving in Australia four years ago.

Democrats to keep up pressure over asylum seekers
The Australian Democrats will maintain their pressure on the next federal government over Australia's treatment of asylum seekers, if the party can retain its strength in the Senate.

Refugee protests expected to move to Sydney

Refugee advocates look set to protest in Sydney this Easter instead of the Baxter detention centre near Port Augusta in South Australia's north.

For the past couple of years large-scale protests have taken place at Woomera in 2002, then at Baxter last year.

Elicia Savvas was involved in last year's protest and says this year they want to take their message closer to the Prime Minister.

"There was a general consensus after the protest last year and following on through email discussion lists was that the protest would move to Kirribilli in Sydney this year," he said.

By Howard Out and Free Refugee 6 April 04

Related:

Baxter detainees' drug use 'not monitored'
The Australian Democrats say detainees at the Baxter detention centre in South Australia are being given high levels of psychotropic medication without adequate monitoring.

Legal action considered to return asylum seeker
The Australian lawyer for an asylum seeker stranded in an airport transit lounge in South Africa says she is looking at court proceedings to bring him back to Australia.

Santa Clause is coming to Baxter
On the 1st day of Christmas 'We give you the gift of peace'.
On the 2nd day of Christmas 'We give you the gift of Joy'.
On the 3rd day of Christmas 'We give you the gift of love'.
On the 4th day of Christmas 'We give you the gift of hope'.
On the 5th day of Christmas 'We give you the gift of faith'.

Ombudsman launches Port Hedland riot inquiry
The investigation comes at the request of the incoming Labor party president, Carmen Lawrence. Soon after the riot at the Western Australian detention centre about two weeks ago, Dr Lawrence released a statement alleging guards had beaten a 14-year-old boy and used a cattle prod on another.

Nauru staff 'fear children are next'?
The group representing the asylum seekers on Nauru has denied women and children have joined the strike and says they have not been asked to take part. [In other words "A" typical fear-mongering by Vanstone like kids overboard to gain some political leveraged!]

More asylum seekers join hunger strike
More asylum seekers in mandatory detention on the island of Nauru have joined a hunger strike to protest against the Federal Government refusing them refugee status. There are concerns that some of the hunger strikers may suffer serious injury or death from dehydration.

Australian Govt human rights record 'worsening'
Community groups have given the Federal Government five out of ten for its record on human rights this year. A national review conducted by groups including the Australian Council of Trade Unions and churches has concluded Australia's record on human rights has deteriorated.

Downer out of touch: Archbishop Carnley
Anglican Archbishop Peter Carnley has called on Alexander Downer to lift his game, saying the Foreign Minister has put Australia into a "difficult position internationally".

JUSTICE KIRBY: JUDICIAL ACTIVISM
Kirby's insight is decent, last week Justice Kirby threw at the Federal Government's barrister, the Solicitor-General David Bennett QC, in a ground-breaking case heard in the High Court, testing for the first time Australia's Mandatory Immigration Detention Scheme.

Howard Govt: Absolute vacuum on Compassion, Reality and Justice
The Northern Territory's Labor Senator, Trish Crossin, says the Federal Government showed no compassion for asylum seekers when it excised Melville Island from Australia's migration zone earlier this month.

Refugee policy, here is a new project: Burnside
The idea is to have thousands of Australian citizens writing to federal parliamentarians asking very simple, but hard, questions about the key aspects of refugee policy. I have devised a letter writing kit for this purpose. I attach a copy. It contains instructions which, are, I hope, fairly clear.

New A-G Ruddock has no regard for the independence of courts
As immigration Minister Ruddock's respect fell short of human rights when he tried to stop appeals introducing the Pacific Solution which means if an illegal immigrant is picked up in Australian waters by our navey they are sent elsewhere for processing. If their application for asylum is rejected they can be deported without legal appeal in Australia.

Judge renews child detainee release call
A Family Court judge, for a second time, has appealed to Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock to address the issue of children in detention.

Ruddock to challenge Family Court ruling
Ruddock said it is unfortunate the Full Court of the Family Court made the decision. He said a successful High Court challenge could see the children returned to detention.

Children in Baxter Detention Centre: Tell me a fable...
Opponents vow to fight yesterday's Family Court ruling against the release of five children from South Australia's Baxter detention centre has strengthened the resolve of groups fighting the Federal Government's policy of detaining child asylum seekers.

Where did you say you reside Mr Carr?
New South Wales Premier Bob Carr says a protest outside Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock's Sydney home should have been called off for moral reasons. Mr Carr says people who want to protest against the Federal Government's immigration policies should do it in Sydney's CBD, not outside Mr Ruddock's home.

Three protesters tricked outside Ruddock's house
Protest organisers have been critical of police actions at a pro-refugee rally near Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock's Sydney home.

Australia: Child detention, tell me a fable...
Democrat's leader Andrew Bartlett wants all children in immigration detention centres released, in the wake of the Family Court refusal to put a stay on one of its landmark rulings.

Amnesty calls for release of children from detention centres
Human rights group Amnesty International is pressuring the Federal Government to immediately release children from detention centres in the wake of the latest report on detainee children.

Child detainees 'living in a nightmare', report finds
A report being released today documents disturbing evidence about mental health for children in detention centres. The report is a joint work by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, NSW University and NSW psychiatrists.

Demonstrators prepared for Baxter protest
Thousands of demonstrators will converged at Port Augusta in preparation for this weekend's expected protest at the Baxter detention centre.

Guantanamo escape may be justified: Kirby

Justice Kirby . . . queries what "lawful punishment" means...

If a cell in Guantanamo Bay, the American prison holding two Australians captured in the war on terrorism [The Coalition of the Killing's resource wars in the Middle East], had a broken toilet, was full of vermin, rats and cockroaches, and bread was the only food, would a detainee not be justified in law to try to escape?

This was the question Justice Michael Kirby threw at the Federal Government's barrister, the Solicitor-General David Bennett QC, in a ground-breaking case heard in the High Court yesterday, testing for the first time Australia's mandatory immigration detention scheme.

The hearing involved three separate cases.

In one, asylum seekers who escaped from the Woomera detention centre claimed as their defence that conditions were so bad their detention was invalid.

The Solicitor-General argued that if conditions were bad in prison, a person had the right to seek remedies in either tort or criminal law; but no matter how bad the conditions, it did not make the detention itself illegal.

His argument divided the bench. Justice Kirby said he had seen prisons in Cambodia which were so bad that if he were detained in one he would "feel duty-bound, as a human being, to remove myself from it".

"If you say that if conditions fall below those standards, which are standards of human dignity, are so awful that they do not then respond to the word in an Australian statute - 'prison', 'detention', 'punishment' - then a person is not in prison, detention or punishment but in a vermin-infested cell and therefore entitled to walk away from it, because that is not the lawful punishment for which Australian law provides," Justice Kirby said.

However, some of his brother judges took a different view.

Justice Michael McHugh said imprisonment did not become unlawful "because the person is bashed every day by jailers". [?]

Justice Kirby cautioned him to "keep an open mind" and said: "A point would be reached where, if there is violence, that is not punishment, that is not the lawful punishment that a court of law in Australia has provided."

The second case testing the legitimacy of immigration detention concerns Iraqi-born Abbas Al-Khafaji, whom the Government acknowledges is a refugee but denies him a visa, saying he could seek asylum in Syria.

The man was released from detention by the Federal Court after three years because, although he had been asked to be deported, the Government had been unable to find a country willing to accept him.

The third case involves a stateless Palestinian whose refugee application has been refused. He too has asked to be deported, without success.

Justice Ian Callinan also clashed with Justice Kirby over his comments about Australia's obligations to asylum seekers found not to be refugees.

Justice Callinan suggested that in relation to people found not to be refugees, "then possibly none of the [Refugee] Convention provisions at all apply to them".

Justice Kirby retorted: "Surely you cannot just lock them [up] forever because they do not happen to meet the requirements of the convention."

"I am not suggesting that," Justice Callinan replied. "It may be that if they do not have any status as refugees, then they may be dealt with in a different way entirely from the way in which the convention requires them to be dealt with."

By Cynthia Banham 13 November 03

Related:

Guantanamo Bay treatment: Limbo
Former federal judges, diplomats, military officials and human rights advocates in the United States have urged the Supreme Court to review the cases of detainees [scapegoats for the Coalition of the Killing's resource wars in the Middle East], being held without charge at Guantanamo Bay in the name of terrorism.

Judge renews child detainee release call
A Family Court judge, for a second time, has appealed to Immigration Minister, war criminal, Philip Ruddock to address the issue of children in detention.

Signs of the Times: Aggressive Scepticism
If anyone has known a schizophrenic then you may also know that it is because of some sound or picture that invaded their thoughts which sent them mad. So possibly, any invasion of my time with self, a time to integrate past experiences could send someone mad. However if there is no interference with our own thoughts and ideas we sometimes choose to write down our conclusions and share our ideas with others socially.

Civil Liabilities: Howard's diversity? I had a dream?
The war criminal, Prime Minister, John Howard, who only yesterday was claiming he was showing diversity has stepped up pressure on the states to support plans to increase the war criminal, Federal Attorney-General's powers to ban terrorist organisations, [scapegoats and patsies for the Coalition of the Killing's illegal and degrading resource wars in the Middle East.]

Ruddock to challenge Family Court ruling
Ruddock said it is unfortunate the Full Court of the Family Court made the decision. He said a successful High Court challenge could see the children returned to detention.

Children in Baxter Detention Centre: Tell me a fable...
Opponents vow to fight yesterday's Family Court ruling against the release of five children from South Australia's Baxter detention centre has strengthened the resolve of groups fighting the Federal Government's policy of detaining child asylum seekers.

Where did you say you reside Mr Carr?
New South Wales Premier Bob Carr says a protest outside Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock's Sydney home should have been called off for moral reasons. Mr Carr says people who want to protest against the Federal Government's immigration policies should do it in Sydney's CBD, not outside Mr Ruddock's home.

Three protesters tricked outside Ruddock's house
Protest organisers have been critical of police actions at a pro-refugee rally near Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock's Sydney home.

Australia: Child detention, tell me a fable...
Democrat's leader Andrew Bartlett wants all children in immigration detention centres released, in the wake of the Family Court refusal to put a stay on one of its landmark rulings.

Amnesty calls for release of children from detention centres
Human rights group Amnesty International is pressuring the Federal Government to immediately release children from detention centres in the wake of the latest report on detainee children.

Child detainees 'living in a nightmare', report finds
A report being released today documents disturbing evidence about mental health for children in detention centres. The report is a joint work by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, NSW University and NSW psychiatrists.

Demonstrators prepared for Baxter protest
Thousands of demonstrators will converged at Port Augusta in preparation for this weekend's expected protest at the Baxter detention centre.

Masked group aids escape

ABOUT five people wearing balaclavas have helped asylum seekers escape from the Woomera detention centre, attacking and injuring two security officers. Port Augusta police inspector James Blandford said four or five people had helped six detainees break out from the South Australian complex about 1.15am (ACDT).

They then fled in two cars to McDonalds?

By Beyond Bars 3 Feb 03

The Great Australian Bite
When the Government stands by terrorism kits amid criticism and is issuing fridge door terror kit's, at $15m a 'waste' according to the critics? Perhaps critics who never went to war yet? And when masked groups are helping asylum seekers to escape and our Nuclear protesters are being arrested. Then where having our blood sucked out!