No crime to seek asylum: Refugee zine
Malaysian 'solution' is no option
The refugee deal struck between the Australian and Malaysian governments will put vulnerable, desperate refugees in great danger. Under the agreement, the Gillard Labor government will deport to Malaysia 800 asylum seekers that arrive in Australia by boat. In return, Australia will take 4000 refugees from Malaysia over four years.
Malaysia is not a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention. Asylum seekers and refugees in Malaysia are vulnerable to abuse and violence in their homes and in public. During immigration raids, police employ violent tactics to extort money from them, or to intimidate and harass them. Women refugees and asylum seekers are often the targets of violence, including sexual violence. They have little protection against such violence, with minimal access to lawyers, medical treatment, safe houses and other support.
Furthermore, asylum seekers have no legal right to work in Malaysia. They do not receive any assistance from the government and may resort to working without authorisation just to survive. Working illegally exposes them to abuse and exploitation.
Mandatory detention is wrong
Over 1000 children are currently locked up in Australian detention centres, this figure is higher than under the Howard government. Detention centres in Australia are at breaking point, overcrowding, riots and self-harm rates have sky-rocketed. Instead of recognising the source of the problem — mandatory detention — the Labor government has chosen to punish the victims by “getting tough on asylum seekers”.
The Australian Human Rights Commission's report into the Villawood detention centre found that “In the last year there have been six deaths in detention (five of which appear to have been the result of suicide), suicide attempts, serious self-harm incidents including lip-sewing, riots, protests, fires, break-outs and the use of force against people in detention on Christmas Island by the Australian Federal Police.“
As of 11 March 2011 there were 6819 people, including 1030 children, in immigration detention in Australia – 4304 on the mainland and 2515 on Christmas Island. More than half of those people had been detained for longer than six months, and more than 750 people had been detained for longer than a year”
The 2010 Australian of the Year, Patrick McGorry, has described detention centres as “factories for producing mental illness and mental disorder.” A Lancet journal report called 'The health of people in Australian immigration detention centres' states that: “Australia is the only Convention signatory to detain illegal immigrants until deportation or visa acceptance, rather than humanely allowing community placement until immigration decisions are made.
70% of detainees reported that their mental health had worsened substantially while in detention, and there was a relationship between length of time in detention and levels of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Many are traumatised, with high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression, and about 20% have been tortured, imprisoned for political offences, or have witnessed murder of family or friends.”
Serco: making profit from misery
A private company, Serco, is being paid $756 million by the Australian government to run all of its detention centres. The workers in these centres have a profound lack of training in suicide awareness, self-harm or mental illness, and the Christmas Island and Villawood detention centres are consistently understaffed. Workers burn out and are replaced regularly. Refugee advocates have been told self-harm happens daily at the centre. ABC's 7.30 said in April that Serco workers would do “cut-downs” on their shift — of refugees trying to hang themselves — and go home with no counselling afterwards.Lateline has revealed that much of what happens day-to-day in detention centres is covered up or not recorded by Serco so that it can keep its lucrative contract with the government. There is a gross lack of transparency and accountability in the running of these centres. Lateline’s anonymous whistle-blower said guards were told to not report self-harm or physical confrontations between guards and refugees.
Refugee movement can win
There is a serious need for us to act. The refugee rights movement exploded in 2001 after then PM John Howard accused refugees of throwing their children overboard.
Refugee campaign groups sprouted in all the big cities as well as rural and regional areas. Church groups, community groups, universities and high schools, trade unions, socialist organisations and the Greens challenged the racist policies. Intense protests at Curtin, Woomera, Baxter and Villawood detention centres were accompanied by mass solidarity demonstrations in the cities.
The hard campaigning of refugee advocates and campaigners against media-fuelled racism finally began to shift public opinion. The same challenges are rising for the refugee rights movement now.
When Labor won power in 2007, public opinion had shifted on refugees so much that the incoming Labor government knew it could not get away with “business as usual”. It abolished many of Howard's more cruel policies, such as temporary protection visas and the 45-day rule, and promised to release children from detention and shorten asylum seeker processing times (neither of these promises have been fulfilled). It closed down offshore centres, such as Nauru and brought refugees there to Australia. Labor reopened Curtin detention centre in May and other inhumane facilities such as Villawood and Baxter have been filled with refugees once again. Prime Minister Julia Gillard is pushing to build a detention centre in East Timor and restart offshore processing of refugees.
Fighting these policies and campaigning against racism and for refugees is as urgent as ever.
An alternative to capitalism: Resistance’s position on refugees
Resistance is a socialist youth organisation that opposes the scapegoating of asylum seekers and migrants. Both the Liberal and Labor parties encourage Australians to blame migrants and refugees for social problems such as lack of housing, inadequate public transport and a lack of jobs, to divert attention away from the real reasons for these problems.
We demand an immediate end to mandatory detention of refugees. Australia is the only developed country in the world that detains all asylum seekers who arrive without a valid visa. We demand that asylum seekers regardless of their mode of arrival to Australia should have their claims processed while living in the community free of any discrimination. Mandatory detention is a racist policy to keep refugees and their stories hidden away from any public attention. Instead of people questioning the rationale behind their government’s invasion of countries like Afghanistan and Iraq they are encouraged to be scared about “invasion of the boat people” from those very countries.
Under capitalism, investment as well as goods and services are free to travel throughout the world, but people looking for a better life do not have this same freedom. This is because under the social and economic system we live in, profits are proritised over the wellbeing of people. Resistance is fighting for an end to the mandatory detention of refugees and for a world which is free of war and persecution, and where people’s needs are met. Only under a socialist society would be possible to have the genuine free movement of people.
What you can do
1.Get active. Join Resistance. Join a Refugee Action Collective on your campus or in your city.
2.Visit a detention centre if you live near one and speak to refugees directly. There are groups that organise regular visits to most detention centres.
3.Join a protest or organise your own. Be public in your opposition.
4.Start a RAC on your high school or uni campus
5.Talk to your friends and family about these issues.
