‘My children died so that John Howard could win an election’
Tuesday August 08th 2006, 2:00 pm

pull the other one, Mandy

After months of captivity in DIMIA immigration detention on Christmas Island and Nauru, a group of Hazara asylum seekers, including young children, were forcibly repatriated to Afghanistan. Nine of them are reported to have been murdered, just as they had predicted they would be if returned to Afghanistan.

The SMH reports:

In one harrowing account, a Hazara Afghan deported after 16 months on Christmas Island and Nauru – despite his pleas that he and his family would be killed – lost his two children, aged six and nine. A grenade was dropped on their house four months after they returned to Afghanistan.

My children died so that John Howard could win an election,” Abdul is quoted as telling the Edmund Rice Centre, which has spent the past three years interviewing more than 80 rejected asylum seekers in 18 countries. It has released its findings to coincide with the Government’s migration bill, which has divided the Coalition. The bill would ensure all asylum seekers landing on the mainland were processed offshore, out of reach of Australia’s legal system.

Abdul, 31, whose surname cannot be released because he fears for his safety, now lives illegally in Pakistan. He told the researchers: “We got caught up in Australian politics. It was easy for the Australian Government after September 11 to say that the people fleeing from the Taliban were the Taliban.”

All that aside, the deaths of innocent children, despite being directly attributable to the Howard Government’s xenophobic policies on asylum seekers, won’t be near enough to see Amanda Vanstone or John Howard resign.

Before any Howard government minister is held to account, we may have to wait until they are caught on video killing a few babies with their own bare hands.

-weez


4 Comments so far
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I wonder how she sleeps at night.

Comment by Tasmiya 08.09.06 @ 9:00 am

I’m not sure Vanstone does sleep. She’d need all night to think of the next bullshit way to cover the cockups and the massive human damage of xenophobic Howard Gubmint migration policies.

Comment by weez 08.09.06 @ 9:12 am

Vanstone’s pissing on the investigatory work of the Edmund Rice Centre is a stupid move on her and the Tories part. The Catholic Church in Australia (once known as ‘the Irish Church in Australia’!) may not be as glamorous or as ‘incentivationally’ exciting as the ‘aspirationally’ focused Hillsong, but it has many more adherents, few of whom appreciate her or her Government’s ruthlessly cavalier approach to human rights.

…Especially when it takes the form of crass denial.

Comment by @ndy 08.10.06 @ 5:25 pm

AUSTRALIA HAS AN OVERSEAS SPOUSE QUOTA FIXED AT 30,000 A YEAR
—————————————
PHILIP RUDDOCK is now Australia’s Attorney General.Philip Ruddock is also known as the “Walking Cadaver.”
—————————
The following is an article from the “Sydney Morning Herald”September, 17th, 1996.
“MIGRANT LAW MAY SEPARATE MARRIED COUPLES
The Government will cap and kill applications by Australians to bring their overseas spouses into Australia a move which would see long-term separations of married couples unless the Opposition allows through the Senate tough new measures to curb applications.
The Minister for Immigration, Mr Ruddock,said the draconian move,allowable under present law but never used in relation to spouses, would help curb huge increases in applications for spouses, some of which were shams, but others ‘a fraud on Australians’.
Under present practise,applications for offshore spouses to come are allowed regardless of the quota set.Mr Ruddock wants to enforce his quota by a cap and queue regulation, making applicants after the qouta is reached to wait, possibly for months, until heading the queue for next years intake.
But in the face of Labor opposition in the Senate, he threatened to use his general cap and kill power to terminate applications made post-qouta.This would force Australians to apply again next year on equal terms with next year’s applicants, causing indefinite separations.
Mr Ruddock’s threat, which contradicts the Coalition’s strong pro-family rhetoric but is part of a clampdown on migration numbers,was denounced by Labor’s immigration spokeman, Mr Duncan Kerr, as social engineering.
The Opposition last week knocked off in the Senate one of several changes to regulations to tighten elegibility for ‘preferential family’ migration,available to spouses and aged parents.Mr Kerr told the Herald Labor would also disallow Mr Ruddock’s ‘cap and queue’ regulation.
Mr Ruddock told the Herald that if people who had already applied were allowed in,the progam would overstep this year’s 36,700 quota by about 13,000.Rather than allow an overshoot, he would use his general power under current law to cap and kill,unless Labor stopped trying to micro-manage his immigration program by disallowing regulations in the Senate.
Mr Kerr said that ‘Australians have always exercised their own choice on who they’ll marry,and I don’t believe any red-blooded Australian will allow the Government to force couples to queue up to live together.Now he’s saying if he can’t queue them he’ll cut them off.
‘If you meet and marry in January,thats OK,but if you’re a December bride or groom you mightn’t be able to get your spouse in for years.’
Mr Ruddock said he did not regard cap and terminate as the best outcome, but if it is necessary I will be applying it.
He said Labor had maintained a steady 37,000 quota for four years,before lifting it last year to 50,000.Many people had reported partners ‘walking out the door as soon as they arrive in Australia.’ ‘The fraud is being occasioned on Australians by people seeking to migrate,’ he said.
Mr Kerr blamed the increase on the wash-up of the Tiananmen Square massacre,under which Labor granted 40,000 Chinese people refugee status.But Mr Ruddock said there rises in applications accross the board, and the percentage increase was as great in England.”
——————————
JOHN HOWARD-The Lying Rodent.John Howard wants free trade but not the free movement of people.He thinks Australias biggest assets are its sheep, coal and uranium not people.He says he has the final solution to our problems “Too many people.”
——————————
The Blacklist
“Philip Ruddock gazetted regulations when he was Australia’s immigration minister[number S241 of 1997] to stop visitors from many countries coming to Australia and among them is Poland.[Israel is also on the list as well as the following countries-Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Egypt, Fiji, Greece, Hungary, India, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Macedonia, Mauritius, Nauru, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Samoa, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tonga, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Vietnam and Yugoslavia].”
More at
http://nowhiteaustralia.blogspot.com/
And
http://www.country-liberal-party.com/pages/Let-Them-Drown.html
And
http://www.country-liberal-party.com/pages/LetThemLand.htm
And
http://www.country-liberal-party.com/pages/Child-abuse.htm

Comment by blogggit 08.25.06 @ 7:46 pm



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