Deported in the Dead of Night : Melbourne Indymedia

Ali and Roqia Bakhtiari and their six children are being deported to Pakistan, after failing in legal bids over four years to secure refugee status in Australia. The family claims to be from Afghanistan with documentation that the Government has chosen to ignore.

Project SafeCom's Jack Smit commented, that "this game-in-the-dark, probably the final round of playing around with the lives and wellbeing of the Bakhtiary family is not just adding to the multiple layers of trauma Mr Howard, Mr Ruddock and Minister Vanstone have inflicted on this family, it will be something that will haunt the government for a long time - and so it should."

"The evidence the government has used to paint the Bakhtiaris as a Pakistani plumber's family is unbelievably flimsy, and it remains to be seen whether the Pakistani authorities will let them into the country at all. It is not the first time that "deportees" come bouncing back to Australia after having been sent all over the world by immigration authorities."

"And, even while the family may be able to enter Pakistan, the claims peddled in the Australian media by the Minister as well as the former Minister about suspected 'lies' of Mr Bakhtiari, are just that - spurious claims, and in addition they bear no relation to the fact that they are and were genuine refugees, because they are Hazaras, a point nobody disputes, while Minister Vanstone has happily peddledthe accusation in the media, to defend herself, that the family are not refugees."

Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, in a gloating tone said the Bakhtiari family should be relieved they have finally left Australia.

"I think when any anguish from either side of a discussion, argument,

battle, call it whatever you want comes to an end, there has to be a certain sense of relief, and I hope the Bakhtiari family are feeling that." she said.

"In one sense, the question of whether Mrs Bakhtiari was born in Afghanistan or spent a lot time there is irrelevant, the point is they are Pakistani and can go back to Pakistan," she said.

But if the familly is from Afghanistan, the government may be guilty of refoulement.

"The timing of the family's departure was determined by the availability of the charter aircraft and transfer arrangements en route," she said. More likely is that refugee and asylum seeker advocates made it very difficult and undesirable to move the familly during normal working hours using standard airports and airlines.

Amanda Vanstone had the power to grant this family a temporary visa on compassionate grounds. She, and her Government, chose instead, at Christmas time when christians are supposed to act with compassion, to deport them in the middle of the night to Pakistan to face an uncertain future.