Government policy that imposes ever harsher measures to "protect our borders" from desperate refugees doesn't just increase suffering, it kills.
The people-smuggling disruption program that Australia was central to establishing in Indonesia has routinely placed the lives of asylum seekers in danger in an attempt to put people smugglers out of business.
SIEV-X which some hypothesise may have been deliberately sabotaged before its voyage in October 2001 managed to reach international waters before it sank, drowning 353 asylum seekers. There are still many unanswered questions about Canberra's precise role in, and knowledge of, this voyage.
But it not just leaky boats that kill asylum seekers. On February 3, 2003, teacher and physiotherapist Dr Habibullah Wahedy committed suicide in the South Australian town of Murray Bridge, hanging himself from powerlines. He had just received a letter from the immigration department offering him $2000 for "voluntary" repatriation. His temporary visa was due to expire on April 11. There was another suicide attempt in the same town at the beginning of February, using the same methods. It was thwarted only by chance when a carload of friends saw him as they passed by, and helped him down from the power lines.
According to Dr Nicholas Procter, a specialist in mental health who has spent time working with some of the 50 Afghans on temporary protection visas in Murray Bridge, the uncertainty of such visas make life a living hell for refugees, and many of them have a suicide plan. Most take anti-depressants and sleeping pills.
Australia is a signatory to the refugee convention and the convention against torture, both of which forbid the return of asylum seekers who risk torture or death in their country of origin. In a flagrant violation of this obligation, the Coalition government argues that it is not responsible for the fate of asylum seekers not found to be refugees under Australia's assessment procedures.
Colombian asylum seeker Alvaro Moralez was deported from Australia in May 2002 and killed three weeks later. In June, Pakistani teenager Ahad Bilal was deported after the Refugee Review Tribunal rejected him as a liar, and was murdered two months later. Mohammed Mussa Nazari was murdered in August last year, reportedly by members of the Taliban.
The Australian government bears full responsibility for these deaths, along with the deaths and suffering of the many other asylum seekers that we never hear about who are returned to a similar fate.<|> From Green Left Weekly, March 3, 2004.
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