Day: January 17, 2014

Australia apologizes for breaching Indonesian waters to push back migrants, but….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….we are going to continue to turn boats away from our shores, said Immigration Minister Morrison!

I wasn’t planning on writing a second post on Australia today (see first one here), but when I saw this photo, I wanted you to see it!

What the heck is this—a strategy session with a white ‘community organizer’ where Somali men, at a hotel in Indonesia, plan their next attempt to break into Australia!

If they want asylum, ask for it in Indonesia, a safe Muslim country!  International law requires legitimate asylum seekers to ask for asylum in the first safe country they reach!

This is the caption published with the photo: “Somali immigrants gather at a hotel where Indonesian authorities have billeted asylum seekers hoping to reach Australia. (AFP/JEMS)”

Here is the story that accompanies the photo, from Reuters:

SYDNEY — Australia’s government on Friday acknowledged its navy breached Indonesian territorial sovereignty several times as part of its controversial operations to stop boats carrying would-be asylum seekers from entering Australian waters.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said he had been informed earlier this week about the “inadvertent breaches” and immediately informed the Indonesian navy.

Lieutenant General Angus Campbell, the officer in charge of “Operation Sovereign Borders,” said the breaches occurred on multiple days but declined to provide further details.

“We deeply regret these events and have offered an apology,” Morrison told reporters. “However the Australian government remains committed to continuing to implement the policies to stop the boats.”

Most of those they are pushing back are from:  Afghanistan, Darfur, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria.

There is more.

Australia continues plans to keep illegal migrants off-shore amid the usual complaints

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The complaints, of course, mostly come from the humanitarian industrial complex and its henchmen at the UN.

Boat people attempting to get into Australia hit record high numbers in 2012.
http://www.mole.my/content/boat-people-coming-australia-hits-record

We haven’t written much about Australia lately, but most Australians were so angered by those migrants arriving on boats and demanding asylum that they voted for a get-tough policy represented by Tony Abbott in the elections last year.

Here is some recent news, from the Irish Independent (that obviously leans left on immigration):

Australia will shut four mainland immigration detention centres, the government said on today, as it pushes ahead with controversial policies to turn back refugee boats and detain asylum seekers in remote centres offshore.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said in a statement the decision to shutter the facilities, which are run by British outsourcing company Serco Group Plc, would save at least A$88.8 million ($80.41 million) a year.

“These sites are remote, relatively small and expensive,” Morrison’s statement said. “These facilities were never envisaged as being permanent and due to the rationalisation of the immigration detention network they are no longer required.”

Australia’s conservative government routinely does not answer questions about its immigration policy, which was a central plank of its election victory last year, saying it does not comment on “operational matters”.

The number of would-be refugees reaching Australia pales in comparison with other countries but it remains a polarising political issue that also stokes tensions with neighbour Indonesia over border policies criticised by the United Nations.

Tuesday’s announcement comes amid growing scrutiny of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s asylum seeker policies.   [Of course opinion lines like this are in here to bias the reader!—ed]

The government has refused to confirm widespread reports that the Australian Navy has started implementing a controversial policy of returning intercepted vessels carrying asylum seekers to Indonesia.

Guess where most of the illegal migrants are coming from?

Most of those held in offshore centres have fled conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Darfur, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria.

I’ll betcha even those coming from Darfur are Muslims!

Thanks to our visitors from Australia which consistently number second or third behind the US in visitor stats.  This is our 121st post in our Australia category.

Defense rests without calling a witness in Utah refugee murder trial

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Final arguments will be today.

US State Department brings diversity to Utah. Esar Met at trial in Salt Lake City.
http://www.capitalbay.com/news/454208-hser-ner-moo-burmese-girl-7-killed-in-utah-died-a-painful-death.html

For new readers, see our previous posts on the trial of Burmese Muslim, Esar Met, who is accused of murdering a 7-year-old Burmese Karen Christian girl in the apartment building where both were resettled by the US State Department and its Utah contractors.

Apparently, the defense could find no one to testify on Met’s behalf.  Gee, no one from the State Department could come and attest to his character and say how they had chosen a sane and decent man to give a new life to in America?

From the The Salt Lake Tribune:

Only one man knows where Esar Met was when a 7-year-old girl took her last breath.

Was he standing over her, as prosecutors have alleged, having brutally assaulted and slain Hser Ner Moo in the basement of his South Salt Lake home?

Or was he somewhere else, as defense attorneys have said? Gone to a bus, perhaps, attempting to navigate unfamiliar routes to the home of his aunt and uncle in Cottonwood Heights.

Only Met can answer these questions.

But on the eighth day of his trial, Met declined to testify in his own defense.

Speaking through a Burmese interpreter Thursday, Met invoked his right to remain silent, telling an 11-person jury he would not take the stand to answer to the charges against him: first-degree felony child kidnapping and aggravated murder.

Defense attorneys rested their case before 3rd District Judge Judith Atherton without calling a single witness.

If found guilty, there is no death penalty for Met because he couldn’t understand English, he would likely spend the rest of his life being cared for by the taxpayers of “welcoming” Utah.  A lesson in diversity for prison guards? Halal food?  Special prayer times?