Sarah Stephen
The May 31 Australian's editorial, titled "Rau and Alvarez cases not race-based", launched a vicious attack on "opportunists who want to exploit these two dreadful incidents as examples of a racist government's racist policies".
The editorial declared that "this has nothing to do with the government's border protection policy". The two women, it argues, were the victims of "official apathy, bureaucratic bungling, perhaps even administrative inefficiencies caused by our federal system".
The Murdoch family's national mouthpiece couldn't be more wrong. It's precisely because of the government's border protection policy that Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez Solon were treated as they were. That policy is based on punishing and dehumanising suspected illegal immigrants, and it has bred a culture in the immigration department (DIMIA) of suspicion toward them and contempt for their human rights.
This was further exemplified by the fact — revealed on May 26 — that, despite knowing in 2003 that DIMIA had unlawfully deported Alvarez, no formal request from the Australian government was made to Philippines government to find her.
As if to undermine the Murdoch press's argument that the treatment of Rau and Alvarez was an aberration, immigration minister Amanda Vanstone announced on May 24 that she had referred another 201 cases of possible unlawful detention for investigation by the Palmer inquiry. This is a breathtaking number of "bungles".
One of these cases came to light on May 18, when the ABC reported that an Australian citizen of Chinese background, publicly known only as "Howard", was held in the Villawood detention centre for three days in 2002, despite telling officials that his passport was at home. Even a certified copy of his passport sent by fax wasn't sufficient; he was freed only after a lawyer took his passport to DIMIA.
Howard's lawyer, Nick McNally, told ABC TV's Lateline program on May 18 that "even though there was proof of identity, there was perhaps a presumption or a default position that he was an unlawful non-citizen and until he could prove otherwise they were going to detain" him.
McNally added that perhaps "everybody in Australia who was either not born here or who doesn't appear Australian needs to carry their passport around, even if they're a citizen, just to prove at any given point in time that they are who they say they are".
Refugee advocates are calling for all deportations to cease as there is a complete lack of confidence in DIMIA's ability to know who they are deporting, much less the safety and security of those deported.
From Green Left Weekly, June 1, 2005.
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