Just How Far Is The Australian Government Willing To Go To Stem Boat People?
One of the lifeboats which the Australian government is using to turn back asylum seekers. Photo: AFP
According to the Human Rights Law Centre and the Tamil Refugee Council, on about July 14, nine adults were separated from the main group and instructed on how to navigate a lifeboat.
The group was held on Australian Customs vessel Ocean Protector for a month while Immigration Minister Scott Morrison negotiated unsuccessfully with Indian officials to take them back.
Tamil asylum seekers claim that Australian Customs officers trained them in how to skipper an orange lifeboat back to India.
A 34-year-old Tamil man told the refugee council: ''They showed us a map of Sri Lanka and India. They pointed at a city in south India called Kanyakumari. They told us that in five hours you'll see the shore. He said that at one point, all the belongings of the Tamils onboard the Ocean Protector were loaded on to six lifeboats in preparation.
In the end, the Tamils were taken to the Cocos Islands, then to the Curtin detention center in Western Australia before being flown out to Nauru late on Friday.
Hugh de Kretser, executive director of the Human Rights Law Center, said the revelation made a ''complete mockery'' of the government's claims to care for the well being of asylum seekers, he said "Secret detention on the high seas, trying to dump families in lifeboats in the ocean, secret overnight transfers, misleading the public, frustrating access to lawyers and to the courts - such behavior from the government is trashing the foundations of Australia's democracy.''
Full Article: Customs taught us to sail lifeboat back to India: Tamil refugees
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Not surprising in Australia. They don't take well to immigrants, or non whites. Ask any Aboriginal.
Assuming you are asking about accepting "refugees,"
Do you want the moral, the ethical, the religious or the common sense reasons?
Clue: We are allegedly "human beings."
Clue: The Golden Rule
And as a matter of curiosity do you ever wonder why the original occupiers (owners) of what is now the United States
Ever accepted our trespassing, thieving, murdering asses?
Not every immigrant group shares your moral values ...
Too bad they don't Petey. They could learn something from them.
Not every value is of "value" :
If you choose not to understand, then, that's the answer you'll arrive at.
Do you have doors on your home? Locks? Do you ever allow anyone in your house other than your family, friends and selected others?
Despite the locks and doors and possibly a security system, is it possible you might experience a home invasion?
I've specified "refugees," HUMAN BEINGS who may be in harms way through no fault of their own. No individual or nation can save or protect all such people in the world and no rational person expects that. But do you, do we, turn our backs on those we can help because "since we can't help everyone we shouldn't help anyone?"
But if i.e., a victim of an automobile accident or heart attack appeared on your doorstep, would you lock your door and ignore him because you don't feel, that as a human being, sometimes, under some circumstances, you might be motivated to take some "responsibility" for a fellow human being?
Yup, you read that right BF. Frickin disgusting.
That was indeed their intent. It seemed just a bit on the strange side to me too, that's why I posted the article. Is this what the Australian government has reduced itself to? What has happened to the humanitarian efforts of old??
Petey,
The Tamil are not a threat of any kind. Read about them here:
Totally.
Yeah, this is what happens.
They are still treated as second class citizens.
I'm not ay all clear on what your point is . Mine was a general one that not every group should be welcome [to counter the leftist drivel ] .
As far as the Tamil go , Australia has very strict standards for immigrants. They need to be able to contribute to the society , not merely occupy space .
I am sorry to learn you are confined to a wheelchair, RL.
As a nation, the U.S. is (analogously speaking) "hardly confined to a wheel chair." To a child escaping forced recruitment into a drug gang, rape or sex slavery, countries with the compassion and decency to provide temporary asylum, are in essence, their "911."
States and countries may have a "Right to Rule," but that "right" may be questionable if the "rule/reign" is tyrannical and inhuman -- Hitler chose to do the atrocities he did by the law-of-the-land, they were "legal;" by the standards of the civilized world they were "Crimes Against Humanity."
You are to be lauded for sponsoring families to come here legally, but a child facing death cannot wait for the paper work to clear.