Iranian Refugees in Australia

[Violet_Crumble]

In Australia we have our own "Evan Prison", where we keep, for the rest of their lives if need be, a considerable number of Iranians.

For the rest of their lives, I say, because according to assertions by DIMIA, the Australian Immigration Department and John Howard’s government, it has a secret Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Iranian government. It refuses to reveal its contents to us, including to Senate committees. Any claims before the courts that the Iranians should be released following the Al Masri ruling, will fail because DIMIA and the Immigration Minister will tout it has an MOU with Iran for the purposes of deporting Iranians by force, if need be. They can use chemical restraints (doping by injection), physical restraints (hand-cuffing) and blind-folding - and while forced deportations are not part of the MOU, according to former immigration minister Phillip Ruddock, it doesn't matter because before the Iranians board the last trajectory on the flight home, any blindfolds and the cloths that cover the handcuffs, can come off, and the flexicuffs can be taken away (source).

Most of the Iranians are now almost "out-processed" without further hope of getting a successful visa to live as refugees in Australian society. Several still have 417's (a request for personal intervention by the Immigration Minister to grant a visa) in process to the Immigration Minister's office.

It's remarkable how silent the Australian media have been about addressing this form of Australian-made torture. The Iranians are just sitting there, in detention, every single minute of every single day being tortured with the grim prospect that any day someone can walk up to them and ask them to come to the detention centre's Managers' office - where they will be grabbed, told that they are about to be deported to Iran, and put in "the Management Unit" to contemplate their prospect during the following night until their plane leaves for Iran the next morning. They also know that under the terms of the MOU, Australian Immigration authorities have agreed to "information sharing" - that means that their file extracts travel with them on the plane to Iran, to be handed to the Iranian authorities on their arrival at Tehran airport; who then, in turn, can identify whether they were good former members of Iranian society who ran away (an imprisonable offence) - or political dissenters.

The Iranians came to Australia to seek asylum. They came from a country that locks up its political dissidents. They came from a country that has more than 70 forms of torture under its Sharia Laws to make sure the population does not dissent. The just released Human Rights Watch Report "Like the Dead in Their Coffins" - confirms that the trend to quell dissent Iran is worsening to levels that cause serious concern.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=30&ItemID=5867

[the Kelly Gang]

1. thanks violet crumble..I never knew this. We have been treating

asylum seekers cruelly for a long time now.
I hear the Baktari kids are going to sue the UK government for refusing them refuge..good on 'em !

I hate the way the Oz press has demonised these people..I have friends in Griffith who have become very fond of some Iraqis who were allowed to go and work there whilst claiming asylum..in fact the whole town has sort of adopted them..wereas beforehand they really were all scared of them coming !

[Djinn]

2. I can't help wonder how many Australians will claim

to future generations that they didn't know how badly we treat refugees or that they didn't supoprt it - can only hope I'm still around to quote a few choice surveys and talkback calls and call them LIARS