In early February there was a flurry of media coverage about 25-year-old Palestinian Aladdin Sisalem — the lone asylum seeker detained in the Australian-financed Manus Island detention centre.
It was revealed by the February 11 Melbourne Age that the federal Coalition government had spent $1.3 million on keeping one man in detention since last July. Subsequent expressions of outrage at this in other newspapers and in radio and TV reports led immigration minister Amanda Vanstone to defend this expenditure of public money.
Vanstone argued that the Manus Island camp was an important deterrent to people smugglers, and the government would continue to pay for its maintenance even if there was no-one detained there.
The story of Sisalem's detention has received a steady increase in publicity since it was first revealed by Green Left Weekly in August. The government continues to lie about Sisalem's case, denying that Australia has any responsibility for him, or that he made a claim for asylum in Australia. The increased media coverage, however, puts Canberra in a more and more awkward position.
At a Federal Court direction hearing on December 8, Justice Peter Gray expressed astonishment at the government's argument that Sisalem had not made a valid application because he did not request a specific application form while still on Australian territory.
Sisalem reached Thursday Island in December 2002.
Julian Burnside, QC, acting for Sisalem, told the court that to require people to ask for a specific form raises the possibility that immigration department officials could deny asylum seekers entry to Australia simply by changing the name of the application form and ruling that they had asked for the wrong form.
Gray ordered the two parties undertake mediation. The first session was held on December 24 which, along with a second round on February 13, failed to make any progress in resolving Sisalem's situation.
At the end of January, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees finally confirmed that Sisalem was considered to be a refugee, which opens the way for the UNHCR to more easily find a country willing to resettle him.
However, a dangerous turn of events took place on February 18, when Sisalem received a letter from the PNG government which relaxed his detention in the Lombrum camp. He can now come and go from the camp, going anywhere on Manus Island that he pleases, as long as he doesn't leave the island.
This is of deep concern to Sisalem, because he is aware that if he is released fully from detention, he will lose his chance of being resettled in a third country, or brought to Australia to have his claim properly assessed. With its convenient timing, it is impossible to believe that the Australian government has not had a hand in this turn of events.
From Green Left Weekly, February 25, 2004.
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