REFUGEE ACTIVISTS DEMAND A ROYAL COMMISSION AT DIMIA DEMONSTRATION : Melbourne Indymedia

A protest action, to be held outside DIMIA’s Melbourne office tomorrow will highlight the case of Australian woman Vivian Alvarez who was wrongly deported to the Philippines four years ago and only recently discovered, and that of an Ahwaz Iranian asylum seeker, currently facing forcible deportation.

Lauren Ireland, from the Refugee Action Collective said the Australian Government has acted with absolute incompetence and sheer cruelty in both instances.

“The 27 year-old Ahwazi Arab man, who was snatched from Baxter Detention Centre by 15 DIMIA officials, is facing deportation to a country where his people have been victim of persecution and ethnic cleansing for the last 80 years,” she said.

“He has already been put through five years of hell inside Baxter and as ABC’s PM program revealed on Tuesday evening, was denied proper psychiatric care, despite requests by medical specialists stretching back two years.”

She said revelations about another Australian citizen, treated as an ‘illegal’, like Cornelia Rau, were proof the government were both clueless and careless in matters of deportation.

“Just two days ago, Minister of Immigration, Amanda Vanstone was claiming her department was unable to locate Australian citizen Vivian Alvarez, who had been wrongly deported to her country of birth, the Phillipines four years ago.”

“She was soon found and identified in the very same place she had been dumped and was being cared for in a hospice for the dying, run by an Australian priest,” said Ms Ireland. “Alvarez was stripped of her human rights and then simply forgotten about.”

Refugee advocates will be calling for an immediate end to all deportations and a Royal Commission into immigration detention when they converge on DIMIA’s Melbourne office tomorrow

For further information or comment, contact
Lauren Ireland 0401 635 072.

Where: DIMIA (Casselden Place, 2 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne VIC 3000)
When: Friday, May 13, 12.30-2pm
Speakers: Maria Selga, Phillipine Concerns Centre of Australia
Pamela Curr, Asylum Seekers Resource Centre

PAY THE PIPER
Vivian Solon´s extraordinary story is a vivid reminder of what happens when over zealous bureaucrats, aided and abetted by government policy and a pliant fourth estate, are able to deport people without judicial overview. Vivian Solon was born in the Philippines; she had been in Australia for 18 years, had 2 children in Australia and had become an Australian citizen. She was troubled by mental illness and failed personal relationships.

In 2001 she was involved in a motor vehicle accident, sustained head injuries and was admitted to Lismore hospital. A short time later this, obviously distressed, woman was handed over to immigration authorities. They took only 3 days to deport her. She was taken to the airport in a wheelchair and without too much fanfare was dumped in Manila. Two years ago, the Immigration authorities realised their mistake but did nothing to rectify the problem. Her family in Australia did not know she had been deported and assumed she had met foul play, her children were put into foster care and she disappeared from sight in the Philippines. If this story had happened to an Australian anywhere else in the world, it would have created a storm in this country.

The treatment of asylum seekers is a black page in this country´s history. Day after day, another story about the indifference and brutality meted out to asylum seekers by the Howard government, becomes public knowledge. Efforts that have been made by well intentional people to change government policy on this issue have fallen on deaf ears. The government continues to enjoy majority support for policies that indefinitely incarcerate children and adults in the most inhumane conditions because they have had the audacity to seek asylum. Faced with a government that refuses to modify its position on asylum seekers and an indifferent public, it´s time that international assistance is sought to rectify this intolerable situation.

It´s time that Australians who are concerned about the gross systematic government and legal sanctioned abuse of asylum seeker´s human rights, took their concerns to the international arena. It´s time that calls were made for overseas visitors to boycott Australia and the international community to boycott Australian products until legislative changes are made that stop treating asylum seekers as criminals who can be indefinitely detained behind barbed wire because they are seeking refuge in this country.

An effective boycott of Australian exports and an effective boycott by overseas visitors would force the government and those Australians who continue to support these policies to rapidly reassess their attitudes towards asylum seekers.