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Extract from the former Justice Marcus Einfeld's Jessie Street Memorial Address. The full speech is on the ABC Radio National Background Briefing webpage, 2 June 2001:
"In any civilised country, freedom from arbitrary detention is a fundamental human right derived from the common law. Yet successive Australian governments have detained for long periods of time, up to five years and more, asylum seekers who have arrived in this country without papers, having fled terror, persecution, hunger and other human rights violations in their homelands. Some detention centres in this country suffer overcrowding, a lack of natural light and recreation facilities, and have completely inadequate sanitary conditions. As our own human rights commissioners found, they are quite primitive, and not at all suitable for the lengthy detention of people who have committed no crime. I just cannot believe that the Minister has recently likened them to many Australian homes. And of course they are mostly sited thousands of miles from civilisation so as to add loneliness and isolation from relatives and support groups to the compulsory detention itself.
Currently some 407 children under the age of eighteen face this very horror. Fifty or so of them are facing it alone. Some have spent, and more will spend, the years from aged zero to five or three to eight or six to eleven in compulsory detention without having committed a single offence. Both the United Nations Human Rights Committee and our own Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission have condemned the Australian legislation as breaching fundamental human rights which it undoubtedly does. Unfortunately, such criticism has been brushed aside as bleeding heart stuff, not worthy of serious consideration. It is well recognised, and I of course accept, that States have the exclusive competence to regulate entry to their territory and to determine which non-citizens may remain. Immigration policy is an expression of sovereignty of the nation-state over its territory. However, refugees and those seeking asylum are not illegal migrants, a fact that various national authorities seem to have forgotten and the media, as a general statement, have never taken the trouble to understand. It is entirely in accordance with Australian and international law that people may seek refuge in this country from actual or threatened persecution of one kind or another either by invasion from foreigners in their own country or as is often the case, perpetrated or permitted by people including the authorities of their own country.
Like 133 other signatory states to the 1951 Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees, Australia is obliged under international law incorporated into domestic law by a voluntary decision of the Australian parliament, to provide sanctuary to refugees. Australia was in fact one of the original drafters of the Geneva Convention, and on the 22nd of January 1954, became its sixth signatory.
These obligations came about because of the international community's concern for the protection of people who have left or remain out of their countries involuntarily. Guidelines issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees state that detention should be avoided, only in exceptional circumstances is a State entitled to temporarily detain an asylum seeker and detention should never be automatic, prolonged or imposed as a penalty or deterrent to others; it should certainly not be indiscriminate. Yet Australian legislation deprives all persons detained of the right to apply for and obtain release pending determination of their status, a right generally known as habeas corpus that has been provided for more than 400 years throughout the common law world, including to murderers, rapists and drug runners. If the case for the detention of asylum seekers is so good, why are our governments so unwilling to subject their detention to judicial scrutiny?
To detain such people without justifiable cause is bad enough in itself, especially as we do so quite indiscriminately of how young or old, sick or in need of special concern they are. But to detain for more than a few hours or days people who flee impossible persecution and unimaginable horrors, have risked their lives and perhaps paid all the money they had and more, to reach Australia in leaky river craft over thousands of kilometres of dangerous and unfriendly seas, is completely inhumane and without justification.
To detain children who may have lost their parents in the course of their journey is even worse. Yet we are doing it on this very day. And we are now the only developed country in the world which practices indiscriminate, indeterminate, incommunicado detention of asylum seekers. Alone of all the countries in the world, including Canada, the United States and the various nations of Europe, we have indiscriminately detained all of them, the elderly, the children, the sick and the pregnant at a cost, by the way, of around $50,000 per person per year while the Catholic Archbishop of Perth was offering free accommodation for all of them in Catholic homes while the review process ground on.
Faced with the fact that Australian law permits an application for refugee asylum by anyone claiming to be qualified, some have taken to describe the illegality committed by these people as arriving without papers. But if you are fleeing your own government because it is persecuting you, or will not protect you from the persecution of others in your homeland, obtaining papers from them is a nonsense, and Australia has no office to apply to for authorisation in most of the countries concerned. And if you are only a child following your parents ill-fated lead, how can detention possibly be just?
Some say that these people jumped the queue. Refugees do not form queues, they escape persecution and possibly death or starvation for themselves and their children, they do not fix or regulate the times for their terror. Yet apparently to deter applications for refugee status by people to whom we owe solemn, voluntarily undertaken legal obligations, we have introduced harsh laws with financial penalties that operate regardless of the merits of the individual cases concerned. These laws ignore the fact that people who leave countries in haste and fear will not be able to take their money and papers with them if they had any in the first place.
In reply to my debunking of the queue jumping argument over the years, the authorities have tried to argue that people they agree are refugees, who arrive without authorisation displace others who have gone through years of forms, interviews and waiting. The answer to that spurious response is twofold: first, Australia has an obligation to all refugees, not just some. Second, who is to say that a person arriving on our doorstep without papers or by other informal means is less likely to have suffered or be likely to suffer persecution than one living under someone's protection overseas whom the bureaucrats have taken years to process in procrastination and delay? The bureaucrats didn't think it was urgent for them to come, but the people who arrived here came with a sense of urgency because there was nowhere else to go, and even if there was a queue, the mixing of the onshore and offshore applications mean that there is no guarantee that an applicant would be admitted upon reaching the head of the queue.
Unlike the laws that apply to the worst of criminals, the Migration Act also enacts that asylum seekers have no right to legal advice or even to be informed about their right to apply for refugee status. The practical effect of this legislation is that even if detainees express grave fears about returning to their homeland, their failure to express in actual English words of which many have little or no knowledge, a desire to seek refugee status has in a number of documented instances meant that decisions are being made to deport without giving people concerned the opportunity to apply for protection. This practice is in defiance of Australian and international law.
And the final thing I want to say about this is this: from recent political propaganda in this country you would think that Australia had been swamped by boat people. It may interest you to know that since 1989 only just over 10,000 boat people have arrived on Australia's shores without visas, not the tens of thousands a year the preachers of doom and racial prejudice would have us believe. And we have given refugee status or entry on other humanitarian grounds, to nearly 2,000 of the 10,000, meaning that we have held and paid for all these people in detention for up to five and six years, without charge, trial or bail, and eventually found twenty per cent of them innocent of even the technical offence of arriving in our country without appropriate documentation. Many more would have been allowed to stay if the review system had not been manicured and skewed to encourage or predetermine refusals. Moreover, contrary to the scare campaign and playing to people's fears that we are being invaded by boatloads of gangsters from the Middle East, it should be recorded that of the recent arrivals of Afghans, Kuwaitis and Iraqis from Iran and elsewhere in the region, more than ninety per cent have been granted refugee status by the Department itself, or by the Refugee Review Tribunal. So much for the so-called invasion by criminal elements. So much for the absurd advertising campaigns, (a video of which I have on my mantlepiece at home) to remind me that characterise Australia as the land of snakes, sharks, man-eating crocodiles and killer spiders; that's what they're telling the world. It is amazing that somehow our Olympic visitors escaped unscathed. How do we ourselves survive? If we had a land border with a country of oppression as happens to Germany and Austria and many of the countries of Europe, our problem would be thousands of times worse. Our protection is our geography, not draconian laws or advertising slogans.
My questions are simply these: What have people fleeing persecution and the risk of injury, torture or death done to deserve this unconscionable treatment? If there are some cheats amongst the people seeking asylum in Australia, what crime have the rest committed to warrant the Australian parliament and its members from the two major political groupings taking leave of their senses? What are the crimes of the children and the elderly? The nicest answer is the opinion polls, which on this subject, like all such important humanitarian matters, leaders should lead, not follow.
In short, we continue to deny large numbers of people the very equal opportunity to a fair chance in life which we Australians like to call a fair go for all, which is not to say that Australia is not a wonderful country, I would say the best in the world, and that we are not generally a kind and generous people. It is just that we are not as good as we say or think we are. Indeed, while this situation persists, we are engaged in an empty, untruthful boast about our supposedly superior standards."
Should you wish to speak to us please call 0422 085 222 or email your comments to: fairgo2000@yahoo.com.au
"Action is my domain, It's not what I say but what I do that matters."
*****Mohandas Gandhi*****
"All violence is evil, but a time may come when you have to decide between two evils - oppression or a violent overthrow of the oppressive regime. When the honor of God is at stake, we will disobey iniquitous and unjust laws."
*****Desmond Tutu*****
"There is not a white man in this country who can say he never benefited from being white."
*****Thurgood Marshall*****
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Broadcast: 19/07/01
LATELINE
Late night news & current affairs
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
LOCATION: abc.net.au > Lateline > Archives
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/s332554.htm
Escape from Villawood
It's the kind of remarkable escapade that would not be out of place in a war -- a group of prisoners, working under the very noses of their guards, digging a tunnel to escape to the outside world. But this great escape, if we can call it that, happened early today at Sydney's Villawood detention centre and the 23 who got away, all asylum seekers from a variety of Middle-Eastern and African backgrounds, remain at large tonight.
---------
Compere: Mark Bannerman
Reporter: Nick Grimm
NICK GRIMM: Villawood Detention Centre today, following the escape of 23 detainees in the early hours of the morning.
According to reports from inside the camp, other detainees were dragged from from their beds and forced to wait in the cold while guards searched for the missing men.
Today, it refocused attention on conditions inside Australia's detention centres.
MAQSOOD ALKABIR ALSHAMS, JUSTICE FOR REFUGEES: People cannot bear any more the psychological torture and trauma they face in the detention centres.
NICK GRIMM: The search of the camp revealed a tunnel leading from a demountable building used as a mosque.
The escapees had dug their way to a drain and crawled to freedom.
PHILIP RUDDOCK, IMMIGRATION MINISTER (ON THE '7:30 REPORT', THIS EVENING) What we have is a situation where we've got a group of people who are here unlawfully.
They're failed.
They're not asylum seekers.
They're not refugees.
MAXINE MCKEW: So they've been right through the system.
They're about to be deported.
PHILIP RUDDOCK: In some cases they were ready to be deported within the next fortnight.
NICK GRIMM: The escape, a desperate measure by desperate men, according to a clinical psychologist who has studied the mental deterioration of detainees who can wait months and years for their cases to be determined.
DR ZACHARY STEELE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Whether they're ultimately found to be refugees or not, their subjective belief is that, if they do get forcibly repatriated to their country, they do face very severe threat so people under those kind of conditions do desperate acts.
NICK GRIMM: Maqsood Alkabir Alshams, is a Bangladeshi journalist and a former Villawood inmate.
He fears those who remain in the camp will now face even stricter supervision with the Immigration Minister saying today the escapees had abused the religious freedoms they had been given.
MAQSOOD ALKABIR ALSHAMS: I mean it is inhuman and it is unbearable for any human being and ultimately they might have decide today get freedom and get a human life.
NICK GRIMM: So, once those detainees gained their freedom this morning, once they were outside Villawood, can you guess at what their next move may have been?
MAQSOOD ALKABIR ALSHAMS: They might be moving to another country and try to gain protection in other places.
They have no future in Australia, so definitely they will try to get out of this place somewhere else and start a new life.
NICK GRIMM: Mr Alshams says other former detainees have succeeded in being granted asylum by other countries after being rejected by Australia.
Nick Grimm, Lateline.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Sydney's refugee action collective will is about to stage a rally to highlight what it calls the "inhumane treatment" of refugees in Australian detention centres. As allegations of poor living conditions continue, Greg Wilesmith record one asylum-seeker's story of life on the inside. Compere: Tony Jones
LATELINE
Late night news & current affairs
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
Broadcast: 22/09/00In Detention
Reporter: Greg WilesmithTONY JONES: Sydney's Refugee Action Collective is holding a rally tomorrow to highlight what it says is the "inhumane treatment" of refugees in Australian detention centres.
As allegations of mistreatment and poor living conditions continue, Greg Wilesmith filed this report detailing one asylum-seeker's account of life inside a detention centre.
GREG WILESMITH: Parramatta Town Hall -- an asylum-seeker describes the 475 days he endured at Sydney's Villawood Detention Centre. Maqsood is a Bangladeshi journalist.
MAQSOOD, JOURNALIST: People are being kept in such an inhuman manner where there is no food, no proper food, no proper medication and the behaviour of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs officials are cruel, inhuman.
GREG WILESMITH: Maqsood was incarcerated in the high-security Stage 1 section of Villawood.
Well-educated, with professional qualifications, he'd originally come to Australia on business, but overstayed his visa. He then sought to be reclassified as a refugee, claiming if he was deported to Bangladesh he would face political persecution or violence by agents of the government.
Maqsood's refugee application was denied. He appealed and in November, a further appeal will be heard by the full bench of the Federal Court.
His case, though, raises questions about the wisdom of the Government detaining refugees.
GRAHAM THOM, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: Amnesty's primary concern is with the mandatory and automatic detention of all asylum seekers.
It is in breach of our international obligations and it should be halted. The Government should be looking for alternatives.
GREG WILESMITH: Currently released on a bridging visa, Maqsood faces another problem -- how to meet the Immigration Department's demand that he pay $63,000 for his detention at Villawood.
MAQSOOD: Detainees sleeps on the floors, there is no place to step on the floor. I mean, beds, beds and mattress and mattress. There are limited bathrooms and toilets and 150 detainees compelled to use all these facilities.
It was absolutely unbelievable for me, having travelled 47 countries of the world that in Australia, in a country like Australia, there could be a place like this.
GREG WILESMITH: Maqsood's bill works out at about $135 a day and for that, he alleges, violence against detainees is relatively common.
The Ombudsman's investigation into brutality at Villawood and other detention centres will be handed to the Federal Government within a few weeks.
Serious allegations are also being raised about the management of the Woomera centre in South Australia, which was the scene of a violent break-out last month.
Lateline Video
Greg Wilesmith reports on conditions inside immigration detention centres.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Man's $63,000 bill 'for his own torture'
Date: 05/11/2000
By FRANK WALKER, Chief Reporter
The Immigration Department has demanded $63,753 from an asylum seeker for the cost of keeping him locked up in Villawood detention centre for 16 months. Maqsood Alshams has been told to pay the money - it works out at $973 a week - or he could be locked up again or thrown out of Australia.
But the Federal Government only let Mr Maqsood out of Villawood on condition he does not work or get welfare payments.
Mr Maqsood, 35, is living on charity while he fights in the courts for refugee status.
The Government rejected his offer to pay the bill at $10 a month and demanded an immediate payment of $2,000.
An Immigration Department letter said: "After full and careful consideration of your offer, the Secretary is unable to accept...[as] it does not provide for the discharge of the debt in a reasonable period of time."
Mr Maqsood said: "They are demanding I pay for my own torture.
"I am being intimidated because I have spoken out about the terrible conditions in Villawood."
Mr Maqsood said he had given evidence last year to a Senate committee about conditions in Villawood.
"Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock is trying to silence me by giving me a bill he knows I cannot pay," he said.
Mr Maqsood, a Bangladeshi journalist, overstayed his 1997 working visa and was arrested in January last year.
His refugee application has been rejected by several courts and he is appealing to a full bench of the Federal Court.
He claims his life would be in danger if he returned to Bangladesh because of his activities against the Awami League government.
Refugee Action Collective spokesman Ian Rintoul said it was outrageous to charge asylum seekers for their detention.
A spokesman for Mr Ruddock said all illegal migrants could be billed $139 a day for the cost of their detention.
He denied Mr Maqsood had been picked out because he spoke out against conditions in Villawood.
What $973 a week buys
Rent on a three-bedroom unit with views in Bellevue Hill. Rent on a three-bedroom Birchgrove terrace. Rent on a two-bedroom city unit overlooking the harbour. Cook Islands holiday (flight included). Share 33-bed Villawood dormitory, three meals a day, recreation in concrete square. The Sun-Herald
The following quotations are collected from two judgemants of the Federal Court of Australia. Ref: "C v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs" dated 22 November 2000 and 2 December 1999
1. "Having closely read the transcript of the proceeding it is easy to understand why the appellant felt that he was not given a fair hearing. Here we are not only referring to the aggressive manner in which the Tribunal member conducted the examination. He was unnecessarily and, if we may say so, unpardonably rude and offensive as well. It is hard to see why the respondent should have his costs in a case where the appellant was provoked by the Tribunal to saying: "Enough of Australia, sir. This is not a country to give me protection."
2. "The duty and jurisdiction of the court to review administrative action do not go beyond the declaration and enforcing of the law which determines the limits and governs the exercise of the repository's power. If, in so doing, the court avoids administrative injustice or error, so be it; but the court has no jurisdiction simply to cure administrative injustice or error. The merits of administrative action, to the extent that they can be distinguished from legality, are for the repository of the relevant power and, subject to political control, for the repository alone."
"ILLUSTRATION OF COMPASSION"
"The rally also heard Meredith Burgmann, the NSW Upper House member, claim that the previous day she had attended a forum on women and ethnicity. She heard a migrant woman talk about her experience with sexual assault. At the time the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Philip Ruddock, was seated next to Ms Burgmann. When the speaker said she didn't know where to go when she was raped, Mr Ruddock said, "go home." The audience were outraged, athough not totally surprised by the Minister's response."
Honi Soit, Wednesday November 1, 2000 (WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY)
JOKE OF THE YEAR 2000!!!
I wouldn't put up with racist policies, says Ruddock
[SMH Home | Text-only index] Date: 21/12/2000By Debra Jopson
The Federal Government had never implemented any policies that were "racially based", the Minister for Immigration said yesterday after being given the Aboriginal Affairs portfolio in a Cabinet reshuffle.
"The Prime Minister understands ... I would not be involved in the implementation of policies that are racist," said Mr Ruddock. "It's a point of principle. It's a position I've taken all along. I've never been asked to implement any racist policies."
Mr Ruddock will retain Immigration, Multicultural Affairs and Reconciliation when he replaces Senator Herron as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.
UNITED AGAINST RACISM
Aussie rules bring despair to refugees. We have to change these rules. Let's be united and fight against racism around the world.
Detention centres have a disturbing record in Australia, the only developed country to detain all asylum seekers on entry.
Coalition for Justice for Refugees brings together over 42 mainstream human rights advocacy organisations from all over the nation to further promote human rights in the current global context. We advocate through Justice for Refugees; research through the Global Concerns Research Centre; and communicate through the Ausnews Global Network everyday to over 90,000 concerned citizens worldwide. We believe we are not living in a fair world but we work hard everyday to build a fairer world for all. We are all volunteers, not employees. We work for passion, not for payment. We made Australia's invisible detention centres visible to the broader world. Our allies are the activists, students, academics, journalists, lawyers, parliamentarians and people from all walks of life. We hate neither Labor nor the Liberals, but we hate their lack of compassion and reluctance to respect human rights. Diversity and Unity are our basic principles. The Coalition was remarkably successful in achieving its goal last year. In 2002 we believe that further advocacy, campaigning and community education nationwide will create a majority in favour of justice for refugees and succeed in reversing the present inhuman government policy. Should you wish to invite a speaker or organise an activity, or join the Coalition, please contact the Coalition on
Mobile: 0401 396 460,
Email: Ausnews@telstra.com or
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We welcome your donations and assistance to the Coalition for Justice for Refugees to help in our advocacy, campaign and resettlements of the recently released refugee families.
Contact Address:
---------------
Coalition for Justice for Refugees
http://www.angelfire.com/film/ausnews
C/- Edmund Rice Centre
for Justice and Community Education
90 Underwood Road,
Homebush NSW 2140, AUSTRALIA
Telephone: 02 9764 1330
Facsimile: 02 9764 1743
Mobile: 0422 085 222
http://www.erc.org.au/issues/text/se01.htm
COALITION AND ITS ALLIES ARE
PROUD SUPPORTERS OF THE
Australians for Just Refugee Programs
Inc (AfJRP)
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OUR ONGOING ACTIVITIES ARE ENDORSED BY:
Australians for Just Refugee Programs Inc (AfJRP), Rt Hon Malcolm Fraser AC, Phillip Adams AO, Greg Barns, Professor Margaret Reynolds, Edmund Rice Centre (ERC), Coalition for Justice for Refugees, Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), Ausnews Global Network, Global Concerns Research Centre, Aborigines for Refugees, Justice for Refugees, Rights Campaign for Asylum Seekers, Rural Australians for Refugees, Chilout, Australians Against Racism, South Australians for Justice for Asylum Seekers, Fair Go for Asylum Seekers, SAAAS, Spare Rooms For Refugees, MSC Justice and Peace Office, Labor for Refugees NSW, SEARCH Foundation, International Volunteers for Peace, National Union of Students NSW, Martha Ansara (Filmmaker), WILPF, PLP and APC, Dr Yolande Lucire, Sisters of the Good Samaritan (SJCC), Hospitaller Order of St John of God, Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (JPIC Australia), NetAct, Catholic Mission, Australians for Native Tittle and Reconciliation (ANTaR), Australian Catholic Social Justice Council (ACSJC), Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney (Justice Office), Conference of Leaders of Religious Institutes (NSW), Sisters of Charity Advocacy Network, Australian Catholic University (School of Education), The Lingiari Foundation (Inc), United Nations Association of Australia, Wayside Chapel, Uniting Church in Australia, Jews for Refugees, Bruce Childs (Former Senator), Rev Ray Richmond & Alison Lyssa; Co-Convenor of the Palm Sunday Rally Committee 2002 and concerned and compassionate Australians.
Address to the Show Mercy Event,
Sydney Town Hall, 21st April 2002
Maqsood Alshams
Coalition for Justice for Refugees
Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and
Community Education
My name is Maqsood Alshams; I am an Asylum Seeker from Bangladesh and a full-time volunteer for the "Coalition for Justice for Refugees and Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education". The organisations I am involved with are not politically aligned but are totally committed in the matters of Public Interest, Social Justice and Human Rights for all in Australia and worldwide. I am well known as the "Sun Herald’s 63,000 Dollar Man" discovered in September 2000 through social enquires and investigative journalism of Australia. After I tell you a bit about my basic backgrounds I will explain about my $63,000 manhood.
In mid 1995, I was working as the Regional Director and Acting Bureau Chief of a potentially important news wire service, which was patronised by the then Government of Bangladesh, and also worked as their adviser. I was forced to leave my country fearing safety of my life due to death threats and armed attacks on me by my political opponents. Violence in politics is a common problem in the third world countries like Bangladesh.
Due to my active and significant political role with opposition political parties for the last 20 years in Bangladesh, I fear for my safety there and this prompted me to seek Protection in Australia afterwards. Nevertheless, I was not aware that Australia’s Refugee and Humanitarian Program is somewhat politically motivated and discriminatory against race or colour. Although there are compassionate officers working in the Department of Immigration, their voices do not have any effect in the whole racist political and bureaucratic atmosphere. As a whole the Immigration System has virtually broken down and is irretrievably and strongly confined by the Red Tape Bureaucracy within a longstanding discriminatory culture.
I can say that for sure because of the way my case is being dealt with. I have had an opportunity to look into the criteria defined by the Department to get a job as a Refugee Case Officer. Applicants are not required to be an expert on Refugee Law and on the Refugee Determination Process and not necessarily required to be a Graduate in related fields of study from a recognised University. The cruel fact is that these officers are involved in deciding the most sensitive question of every individual Asylum Seekers’ life and death, and the length of arbitrary imprisonment in the various medium security prisons. I’ve been detained for sixteen months in such an arbitrary incarceration in the suburb of Villawood in Sydney. Over the period of time every morning I woke up with a feeling that I am punished of committing no crime. I am being separated because I have asked you the Australian people to save my life from obvious persecution due to my race, religion, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. As signatory of the 1951 Convention relating to the Refugee Status Australia have promised to save people from such situation!
The harsh reality is that those unfortunate Asylum Seekers’ have no rights, and none of the Australian Courts have the jurisdiction to intervene into those arbitrary decisions and prolonged detentions. The Court can only review on the point of whether any legal or procedural error has been made by the "Second Stage Review Body called ‘Refugee Review Tribunal’ RRT". As you may well be aware, the RRT is under the complete control and influence of the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. It is not expected that they would deliver any fair judgement in the course of investigation of Individual Refugee Claims.
In my personal experience of appearing before the RRT, I found that the concerned member (who is empowered to decide whether I am a refugee or not) acted in a prejudiced manner with preconceived ideas and concepts based on the influence of DIMA and Departmental files. Members’ minds are not open for persuasion based on the evidence of the case. I perceived it to be a "Court of Ali-baba Regime" - I was told the Australian expression is "Kangaroo Court" - which acts on the wish and will of the emperor.
I have had an opportunity to attend RRT hearing three times over six months. At the second occasion the concerned member rudely attacked Amnesty International Australia and its National Refugee Coordinator, asking why they should write letters to RRT outlining their concerns on behalf of individual Asylum Seekers. At the first and third occasions I was wondering and getting confused about whether I am being interviewed by a "DIMA Compliance Officer" regarding my Passport and Visa, or by a respected "Member of RRT" to determine as to whether I’m a Refugee or not, according to the Convention definition.
Ultimately the RRT member rejected my appeal after eight months and upon my Appeal to the High Court of Australia the Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock has conceded that he could not defend the decision by Member Jack Hoysted of the Refugee Review Tribunal in the High Court. I’ve argued that the perceived bias, and denial of natural justice, in the RRT had rendered the refusal of my refugee visa is invalid. On 12 October 2001, Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock consented to the orders, which overturned the RRT’s decision, and sent it back for re-determination "according to law". But if you ask me is there any law in this country to deal justly and humanly with the people who are seeking refuge in this country; my answer is NO… I’m not sure as to whether I’m going to get justice as the current member clearly said on my last hearing "this (RRT) is not a place to seek justice". I am still waiting for my answer!
After fifteen and half months of continuous incarceration, mistreatment, harassment and intimidation by DIMA and ACM officers when I mentioned to a senior DIMA officer that I will organise a press conference from the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre over the phone with the journalists worldwide, only then they release me on a Bridging Visa on condition that I should not work, I should not go for any formal study and no entitlement to any social security benefit or medical care. In other words Mr Ruddock wants to see that asylum seekers should die in the community without food or medical treatment. But the condition of the Visa does not say that I can not speak-out for my rights or I can not inform and educate the Australian people and to tell them how racist some Australian politicians are! When I’ve started doing so, in September 2000 I received a dubious award of my efforts when Immigration Department sent me the bill of $63,000 for their hospitality for sixteen months in Villawood with a deadline to pay within a fortnight despite the fact that I have no source of income. And that’s why I’m known as $63,000 man in Australia and worldwide.
Dear Australian People, you may have read these kind of news-reports and now I urge you to judge for yourself what you need to do to bring justice for refugees and to save this $63,000 man from political and administrative injustices often committed to the 'Nobody's People - those who have come across the seas'. Thank you.
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