Category: Australia

Furor over Australia/Malaysia immigrant swap

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Australia will take 4000 processed ‘legitimate’ refugees and in exchange Malaysia will take 800 boat people.  The theory is to discourage all those asylum seekers from getting in boats and heading for Australia.  Human Rights Watch objects calling Malaysia a “dumping ground.”

From Aljazeera (be sure to see the photo of demonstrators in Malaysia):

Australia and Malaysia have signed a deal to send 800 asylum seekers in Australia to Malaysia in exchange for the resettlement of 4,000 refugees.

The 4,000 refugees are to be resettled in Australia over a four year period, with that country bearing the cost of their transfer and settlement.

Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s interior minister, and Chris Bowen, Australia’s immigration minister, formally signed the deal at a Kuala Lumpur hotel on Monday.

The 800 asylum seekers sent to Malaysia will be placed in a “holding centre” for six week before being allowed into the community, Hussein said.

From midnight on Monday, the next 800 asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat will not be processed there, but will be transferred to Malaysia, Julia Gillard, the Australian prime minister said.

The government said they would receive no preferential treatment in the processing of their claims or arrangements for resettlement.

‘Dumping ground’

Ahead of the signing, Brendan O’Connor, Australian’s interior minister, said the deal represents “an historic and innovative approach” to undermining the people-smugglers’ business model.

“We want to treat people fairly,” he told ABC Television, but refused to confirm a report that those shipped to Malaysia would be allowed to work.

However, the deal has drawn criticism because Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN convention on refugees.

“Australia is using Malaysia as a dumping ground for boat people it does not want and in the process walking away from its commitments to follow the 1951 Refugees Convention,” Phil Robertson, the deputy director at the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, said.

I’ve mentioned Malaysia a bunch.  Here in 2009 we had a report on how badly this Muslim country treats its co-religionists who seek shelter there.

Australia: Iranian-born human trafficker to stand trial

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

He was deported from Indonesia to stand trial for the deaths of asylum seekers.  This article in The Australian made me wonder if we are finding and prosecuting any human traffickers who are bringing Somali Muslims to our southern border.

The Australian:

An alleged people smuggling mastermind has been arrested and charged over last year’s Christmas Island asylum boat tragedy in which at least 30 people were killed.

Australian man Ali Khorram Haydarkhani – who is also known as Ali Hamid – was arrested by Australian Federal Police at Sydney airport this morning after being deported from Indonesia.

[….]

The Iranian-born Mr Haydarkhani, 40, will face up to 20 years imprisonment for at least four of the offences and will be tried in Western Australia.

Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor said the accused man was deported from Indonesia because his visa had expired.

Mr O’Connor said Australia had put in a request for the alleged voyage organiser – who was detained in January – to be extradited to Australia.

World Socialists love this stuff—illegal immigrants protesting in Australia

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Australia continues to see riots and disruptions at increasingly overloaded detention centers as supposed asylum seekers riot for more rights.

From World Socialist Web Site:

Protests continue in Australian immigration detention centres against the Gillard Labor government’s regressive policies that have led to the dramatic increase in long-term detainees and rising levels of mental illness and self-harm incidents among asylum seekers.

Three refugees are maintaining their rooftop demonstration at the Villawood detention centre in Sydney’s western suburbs. The men—Iranian Majid Parhizkar, 24, and two stateless Kurds, Amir Morad, 22, and Mehdi Darabi, 24—have not eaten for 10 days. Police are denying them access to food in an attempt to starve them off the roof and have rejected their calls for immunity from prosecution over the protest.

On Monday, about 100 teenage detainees were involved in an angry demonstration at the Broadmeadows detention centre in Melbourne. The facility holds boys under the age of 18. The protest reportedly erupted because one of the teenagers, who had turned 18, was transferred to the nearby Maribyrnong facility for adult males.

Also on Monday, eight men began a rooftop demonstration at the offshore processing facility on Christmas Island, a remote outpost in the Indian Ocean.

Ho hum, read it all.

See refugee riots causing government crackdown, here.

For dreamers who think somehow Australia is not having the same problems with immigration as Europe and the US are having, see our Australia category here.

Endnote:  Just a reminder that Antonio Guterres the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is a Socialist, here.

Australian: All immigrants are not the same (duh!)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is an overly long piece by Greg Sheridan, foreign affairs correspondent for The Australian explaining how the realization has dawned on him that Australian multiculturalism is failing for one primary reason—Muslim immigrants.

I found myself annoyed as if I was reading the confessions of a liberal who got mugged.  However, it seems Sheridan isn’t liberal in the George Soros sort of way.    I was further annoyed by his assumption (that he gets from the mainstream media) that America is successfully assimilating its immigrants—Not!

Anyway, here is a bit of Sheridan’s ‘How I lost faith in multiculturalism‘ from The Australian:

IN 1993, my family and I moved into Belmore in southwest Sydney. It is the next suburb to Lakemba. When I first moved there I loved it.

We bought a house just behind Belmore Sports Ground, in those days the home of my beloved Bulldogs rugby league team. Transport was great, 20 minutes to the city in the train, 20 minutes to the airport.

On the other side of Belmore, away from Lakemba, there were lots of Chinese, plenty of Koreans, growing numbers of Indians, and on the Lakemba side lots of Lebanese and other Arabs.

That was an attraction, too. I like Middle Eastern food. I like Middle Eastern people. The suburb still had the remnants of its once big Greek community and a commanding Greek Orthodox church.

But in the nearly 15 years we lived there the suburb changed, and much for the worse.

Three dynamics interacted in a noxious fashion: the growth of a macho, misogynist culture among young men that often found expression in extremely violent crime; a pervasive atmosphere of anti-social behaviour in the streets; and the simultaneous growth of Islamist extremism and jihadi culture.

This is my story, our story and the story of a failed policy.

Gee, I realized after spending time in Europe that the problem wasn’t European multiculturalism that went awry (or never existed in the first place) but it was the large Muslim population most of whom are not like us and have no interest in assimilating.

So this must, logically, lead to one extremely inconvenient, politically incorrect and desperately fraught question. Could it be that the main difference between Europe, with its seething immigration problems, and the US, Canada and Australia, with their success, is not actually a difference based on some footling interpretation of multiculturalism?

There is one other variable that is consistent with the results. The US, Canada and Australia have far smaller Muslim migrant communities as a percentage of their total populations than do most of the troubled nations of Europe. Could this be the explanation?

All immigrants are not the same:

No one in Europe, 25 years ago, thought they would be in the mess they’re in today.

Australia has been a successful immigration country. But the truth is not all immigrants are the same. And it may be much easier than people think to turn success into failure.

So, now what the hell will Australia, or Canada, or for that matter the US, do to stop the inevitable?   After all, the writing is on the wall and it’s unfortunate that those who might have led us—‘intellectuals’ of all stripes—can’t see it (or, like Sheridan, are seeing it too late).

Australia: Iranian, former illegal alien seeks damages for stress while in detention

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In the US, they come across our borders by land, but in Australia they come by the boatload as we have reported many times previously (see our Australia category).  They are illegal aliens seeking asylum status.  Although this article doesn’t say how this particular fellow arrived in Australia, we know he was placed in detention.

Now, however he is free and an Australian citizen yet he is seeking compensation for pain and suffering!  That’s not sitting well with real “victims” advocacy groups.

From the Herald Sun:

AN Iranian refugee who was detained after arriving in Australia has launched legal action for pain and suffering.

Siavash Mossavian, 32, spent four years and five months in detention before being released in April 2005, the Herald Sun reported.

He was granted a temporary protection visa and, later, citizenship.

But he alleges the Government breached its duty to him during his time in detention, resulting in physical, psychological and psychiatric harm.

In documents filed in the Victorian Supreme Court, lawyers for Mr Mossavian say these injuries include post-traumatic stress disorder, a major depressive disorder, anxiety, suicidal tendencies, and pain and suffering.

“….they throw dirt in our faces.”

Crime Victims Support Association president Noel McNamara said people who suffered a total disability as a result of crime were not adequately compensated, and it was ridiculous that someone should seek damages over their time in a detention centre.

“It’s a great cheek. We have a habit of pandering to these people,” he said.

“We welcome them, do the best we can by them, and they throw dirt in our faces.”

We are infidels after all.

Endnote:  Be sure to see the related story where “refugees” set fire to the detention center on Christmas Island, here.