Aus Officials oversee Torture.

[rand corp]

David from Canberra Wrote:

"your statement that "Australians will look back on this time and this government with great shame and embarassment" is ridiculous."

Yeah David, people in the 50's were saying the same thing about the white Australia policy and the policies that led to the stolen generation but few Australians now can look back and feel anything else but shame and embarassment.

How Australia violates human rights:

he following paragraphs about the 1951 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Refugees are from the website of the UN High Commisioner for Refugees :-

Liberty is a fundamental human right, like asylum. As a general rule, detention of asylum-seekers is not acceptable. It is particularly undesirable when those detained include the very vulnerable – children, single women, and people with special medical or psychological needs, such as torture victims. They are not criminals; they have already suffered great hardship and jailing them is wrong.

The 1951 Convention specifically bars countries from punishing people who have arrived directly from a country of persecution (or from another country where protection could not be assured), provided that they present themselves speedily to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry. Monitoring (through reporting obligations or guarantor requirements) is often a perfectly viable alternative to imprisoning asylum-seekers.

Detention is only acceptable if it is brief, absolutely necessary, and instituted after other options have been implemented. Acceptable purposes include to verify identity; to determine the elements on which the claim for asylum is based; the protection of public order; or, if necessary, in cases where refugees have destroyed documents or used fraudulent ones. Detained asylum-seekers should always be informed of their rights – including the right to challenge their imprisonment. All asylum-seekers must maintain the possibility of contacting the local UNHCR office, other agencies, and a lawyer.

The Australian government policy violates the above convention in the following ways:

* It is applied without discrimination to all unauthorised refugees including, children, single women and torture victims.
* It is neither brief or necessary. Detention of refugees can last for weeks months or even years while their application makes its way through the bureaucracy. Australia is the only country in the developed world to imprison refugees. In other countries they are generally released into the community while their application is being processed.
* Refugees in detention centres are not informed of their rights to the UNHCR, refugee support groups or legal representatives. In fact the Government has gone to extraordinary lengths to isolate them from such groups.

Detention of children

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by Australia on December 17, 1990, requires Australia to provide protection and humanitarian assistance to all children seeking refugee status, with the best interests of the child as a primary consideration. Detention should be used "only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time."

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee's (UNHCR) policy, as stated in its Refugee Children: Guidelines on Protection and Care and its Revised Guidelines on Applicable Criteria and Standards Relating to the Detention of Asylum Seekers, is that children who are asylum seekers "should not be detained." The Guidelines on Protection and Care also specify that "the refugee status determination or decision-making on the child's best interests must be made quickly, and with the appropriate special attention and procedures."

UNHCR's Guidelines on Policies and Procedures in dealing with Unaccompanied Children Seeking Asylum emphasize that unaccompanied children in particular "should not be kept in detention."

In contravention of all these guidelines and policies, unaccompanied children and children within families are being kept in detention for considerable periods of time under entirely unsuitable conditions. There is now overwhelming evidence of the harm being done to children in detention. The UNHCR has publicly reminded Australia of its obligations and expressed concern that children are being detained.
Temporary Protection Visas

The 1951 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Refugees says that countries may not discriminate between groups of refugees. Refugees should have the same economic and social rights as other foreign residents. Countries have an obligation to cooperate with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. And, for humanitarian reasons, when temporary refuge or asylum has been granted to a refugee, their spouse and dependent children should be allowed to join them.

The Australian government policy violates these requirements of the convention in the following ways:

* It discriminates between refugees who have arrived under the official government program – who are granted permanent residency and may bring their families into Australia and access settlement services, English language training and mainstream social security services including Newstart (dole) – and refugees who arrive by unauthorised means to whom it grants a three year Temporary Protection Visa under which they are ineligible for any of the foregoing services.
* It has broken off cooperation with the UNHCR due to criticism of its treatment of refugees and has consistently denied it the permission to inspect the detention centres.
* Under the Temporary Protection Visa neither the spouse nor dependent children of refugees are permitted to join them in Australia.

Information from HREOC: TVPs breach the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Temporary Protection Visas: operation and impacts demonstrates how the TVP system makes it difficult for refugees to settle in Australia.

More about TVPs on this website.
International covenants and conventions

This list of international law breaches and violations of fundamental human rights is taken from a speech by Chris Sidoti of the Human Rights Council of Australia (Refugee policy: is there a way out of this mess?, Racial Respect Seminar, Canberra, 21 February 2002)

* Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibit arbitrary detention
* Article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which require that detained persons be treated with humanity and respect for human dignity
* Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child which prohibits detention of children except as a last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time
* Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which recognise a right to take legal proceedings to challenge detention
* Article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 2 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which prohibit all discrimination on the basis of status in the enjoyment of human rights
* Article 23 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 10 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Article 18 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which protect the right of parents to found a family, the right of families to state care and support and the right of children to the care of their parents
* Article 22 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires the state to provide appropriate protection and humanitarian assistance to refugee and asylum seeker children, especially in relation to family reunion, Articles 13 and 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Article 28 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which recognise children's right to education.

In addition to this catalogue of clear violations there are questions whether other human rights obligations have been breached, especially in relation to:

* Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 37of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which prohibit torture and all cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment and
* Article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 2 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which prohibit all discrimination on the basis of religion and race in the enjoyment of human rights and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

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We have not learnt from our mistakes, we continue to violate people’s right to freedom, people’s right to free speech, and people’s right to grow-learn-experience life in a common manner, instead we are prisoners in a political pig pen.

Democracy? my arse!

[David]

just a few points.....
One, The White Australia Policy was good in some ways because it stopped rich whites from bringing in slaves from the pacific islands, which was common practice until the WAP came in. Obviously it wan't a great policy, but I would hardly look back on that era with "shame and embarrasment".
There is a difference between asylum seekers and illegal immigrants. Indeed that is the very reason why we have detention centres at all. To find out whether or not these people really are asylum seekers. Most of the more well-known cases that are pushed forward by refugee advocates are either clearly not refugees, or there is a fair bit of doubt. On the face of it it may seem unfair that children are detained too, but it would be worse to separate them from their parents.

EBB, I know it makes about as much sense replying to one of your posts as it does somebody replying to HAL, but just because your party lost doesn't mean we don't have democracy.....

[eddies bank balance]

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Just consider WHO benefits from the so-called "war on terror". WHO benefits from September 11 event and the associated paranoia? Isn't it US economy and certain companies? Who owns them?

Every war on Earth without exception has been designed by politicians who deliberately created certain provocations in order for their own people to believe that they have some "enemy" and they are under attack.

Provocations have always been common among politicians. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, British Empire, have all based their rule on creating, igniting and sustaining ethnic, religious and political conflicts, just to make people fight and argue with one another on some irrelevant matter. When people are busy fighting one another, any empire can easily squash opposition and continue their own ruthless agenda.

Could US secret service train, finance and brainwash maniacs, fanatics and drug addicts to perform "terrorist attacks"? Aren't these attacks conducted to achieve certain goals, very difficult to achieve otherwise in the modern society? Do you realize what is the US budget deficit and that no one has any plans to fix it? Isn't war a good diversion of people's attention from some real problems?

Perhaps you don't realize, but many countries today, who claim to be "civilized", operate concentration camps and have the "above-law" laws to send people there, just like Hitler, Stalin or any other totalitarian system did.

TODAY - USA, Australia and other countries operate such detention camps. People are held there without charge, without legal representation and no chance to ever get out. In these countries anyone can be "detained indefinitely" on the mere suspicion that he/she may "do something" - without any rights whatsoever. It is only a matter of time for these "above law" rules to be misused to squash any opposition, especially an intelligent one.

In the Hitler empire and Russia, such "laws" had lead to millions of intelligent people vanishing without trace, taken in the middle of the night from their family homes by "security forces". If no one does anything soon - you can be next...

[David]

lol even if we had a republic, the President would be as much of a figurehead as the GG.... the Prime Minister would still have most of the power.....