Australia’s tough asylum policy
For
most people, Australia is known to be a multi-cultural country. Numbers prove
them right: There are about 50, 000 permanent migrants, mainly from Britain and
New Zealand, every year, but also from Asia and other European States. Since
1945 there were 5,9 million people who migrated to Australia. Nearly every
fourth Australian citizen was born in a different country. There are also over
500,000 people who came to Australia as legal refugees during the last 50 years.
Australia has always been fairly generous to recognised refugees who want to
live in the Australian community, with providing thousands of resettlement
places each year. This way Australia seems to be a multi-cultural nation, which
makes it so interesting to all the people visiting Australia each year.
But
there is also a different side to the medal. Australia’s Government is famous
to be very strict to illegal immigrants. This is one of the reasons it got
re-elected last year. Prime Minister John Howard says that releasing detainees
to live in the community would only encourage more illegal immigrants to come to
Australia.
This
is why the Australian Government decided to put the illegal immigrants into
detention camps, until their cases are assessed. The problem with this is, that
it may take months or even years until the cases are finalized. For this time the
refugees have to stay in these detention centres, which are often very isolated.
Like
the detention centre in Woomera, South Australia. It is located in the
Australian desert, far away from everything. This is why the refugees of this
camp and four others throughout Australia decided to refuse to eat for 15 days.
The, mainly Afghan, immigrants were protesting against the conditions in the
detention centre. They said it was too isolated and it would take too long for
their cases to be processed. They also accused the Government for being kept
like “animals in a cage”. The
refugees were striking for better conditions in the centre, more than 200 of
them were refusing to eat, 35 sew their lips together and nine teenagers
threatened to kill themselves by swallowing dangerous substances.
The
Australian Government refuses to back down from its policy, they think it is
safe now for the Afghan refugees to go back to Afghanistan. But the Afghanis do
not think it is safe to do so at the moment. They say that ethnic minorities in
Afghanistan are still persecuted, although the Taliban are gone. The Prime
Minister says that the Afghanis who are going back would help to rebuild the
country, with the financial help of the Australian Government. But the Afghanis
think that the money will be of no use when they are shot in Afghanistan.
As
the Australian Government is not changing their attitude towards their asylum
policy, there will only be an end to this crisis when Afghanistan is a safe
place to live for all the Afghan
refugees all over the world.
by inga froehlich