#3
Small wins for asylum seekers
Immigration minister Amanda Vanstone, who has fought for the strictest possible interpretations of the Migration Act, faced a small setback in the High Court on October 27.
An Iranian asylum seeker who has spent more than four years in detention — Amir Hossein Masoudi Javan — won the right to have documents that he says prove his refugee status tested in the Refugee Review Tribunal. This ended a long tussle between the courts and the immigration department (DIMIA).
Javan first sought asylum through the RRT in 2001. He claimed to be a close supporter of the well-known Muslim cleric Ayatollah Shirazi, an association that brought Javan under notice of the security forces in Iran. He was imprisoned and tortured in 1999 but remained an active dissident afterwards. Recent reports from Iran confirm the continued arrest, torture, disappearance and killing of dissidents.
Javan produced supporting evidence from Iran in the form of two letters, one of which he says was written by Shirazi himself. These letters arrived outside the time allowed to tender supporting documents, so the RRT refused to admit them as evidence. Vanstone fought all the way to the High Court to support the tribunal's right to ignore Javan's documents, however he will now return to the RRT for the second time to have this evidence heard.
End the 'Pacific solution'
BRISBANE — One of the first public protests since the re-election of the Coalition government was held on November 10 outside the Sheraton Hotel. Jane Halton, an architect of the federal government's border protection regime, was delivering the keynote speach at a public service function. Halton convened the People Smuggling Taskforce, which oversaw the creation of the people smuggling disruption program and coordinated efforts to stop the Tampa from reaching Australian shores.
The task force prepared the government's border protection legislation and Halton, according to the Refugee Action Collective who organised the protest, personally oversaw the initial construction of the Nauru detention centre.
The rally of some 50 people was addressed by local Murri and Socialist Alliance activist Sam Watson, who attacked the Coalition government for introducing the politics of race back onto the national agenda. Well-known refugee activist Hassan Ghulam, from the Hazara Ethnic Society, told the protest that the "Pacific solution" was an international disgrace.
Dave Riley
'Mass action to fight Howard'
Addressing 40 people at a "Combating the New World Order: Ideas for the fightback" public forum on November 3, Jody Beitzen, the Socialist Alliance's candidate for the ward of Nicholls in the November 27 Yarra local government elections, argued that mass action was crucial to defeating the re-elected Howard government agenda.
He pointed out how opinion polls show the Coalition parties do not have a mandate on a number of issues including the war in Iraq, attacks on refugees' rights and dismantling public health and education services.
Beitzen urged that the range of attacks from government be met with the strongest possible grassroots resistance. He concluded his remarks by borrowing, and adding to, the slogan used by many militant unionists: "If you don't fight, you lose. If you do fight, we win."
David Risstrom, the Greens lead Senate candidate in the federal election, confided to the forum that he was feeling particularly low as it had been confirmed on that day that Family First, on the back of Labor preferences, had beaten him to the last Victorian Senate seat.
Kevin Peoples, who recently resigned as Victorian president of Labor for Refugees, spoke of his frustration at the direction that the ALP has taken on refugee policy and many other issues. He said that despite considerable support among ALP members for a humane policy towards refugees, the ALP leadership was unresponsive to the views of the membership. He pointed to the continued rightward shift of the ALP under Mark Latham, typified, he said, by Latham's commitment to "supporting the new middle-class rather than the under-class".
Martin Iltis
From Green Left Weekly, November 17, 2004.
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