Senator Andrew Bartlett
Thursday, January 13, 2005
 
A gag lifts on gagging
I received this fascinating account of a woman who witnessed part of the apparent deportation of an asylum seeker out of Australia on a commercial flight. This is a part of the Govt’s asylum seeker policy that they like to keep shrouded in secrecy, so it is quite a significant account of one person’s experience. Well worth a read (regardless of what you think of the Govt’s policy) just to get a rare glimpse into a human aspect of this policy in action.

There are a growing number of reports of deportation of long-term detainees – mainly Iranian Christians, but also people from Africa. It is hard not to think that the Govt is using the media focus on the tsunami, coupled with the usual quiet Xmas period, to do as many of the controversial deportations as they can. Each situation and case is different, so it can be inaccurate to make blanket statements, but the danger of deporting Christians back to Iran is very obvious.

Once again, the deportations are being done with very little information being made available by the Govt. In some cases, there is more information available in overseas media. The link I provided above also gives some good details on some of these other matters, so if you ignored my advice in the first paragraph to go and have a look, here’s a second chance to find out more information that is hard to find elsewhere.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Thursday, January 13, 2005
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