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De verdad me parece que es ademas de una gran decision .. es admirable quienes han salido de su pais natal y han logrado establecerse, pese a todos los inconvenientes..
Yo soy una de las personas que se quiere ir, pero creo que aun me falta el ultimo empujon…
Asi que muy pronto yo sere una de las GRANDES AFORTUNADAS de poder realizar un Sueño que te da cuesta pero que no es imposible..Australia’s shame, Howard’s shame, Ruddock’s shame»,
These people are not terrorists, they are not criminals, they are not the soldiers who have fought … in an opposition army,» .
«Many have been in detention for a long, long time.
Eleven unaccompanied Afghani minors were maintaining that they would try to kill themselves by jumping into razor wire if they were not put into foster care while their asylum claims are processed. They gave a deadline of 5pm today
The official number of hunger strikers rose to 259, despite assurances from Mr Ruddock that numbers would decline. Lawyers for the detainees claimed that 376 were refusing food.
The remaining 11, aged from 14 to 17, are Afghanis who are all also on a hunger strike. They have been in the centre for between six and 12 months. Lawyers say up to four have already been granted temporary visas but are still being held.(?????????)
The children, who work as cleaners and gardeners for the centre guards for $6 a day, according to lawyer Robert McDonald,( SHAME, !!!)
He also said the official numbers of hunger strikers at Woomera had risen by 91 yesterday to 259, although lawyers for the detainees say there are 376. The numbers with their lips sewn had risen to 46 from 35. The spokesman said two detainees had tried to hurt themselves overnight at Woomera and three at Curtin. Four detainees at Curtin remained on hunger strike. All detainees at Maribyrnong were taking food.
Medical sources said the shortage arose after the professional association representing psychiatrists advised its members not to work at the facility. They said that other psychology experts had left mid-way through their contracts because of the stress of working with detainees.
«Woomera is in dire straits at the moment. The conditions inside are putting tremendous stress on both the detainees and the health professionals, particularly counsellors and psychologists sent in to help them,» a medical source said.
Two protesters from Adelaide who planned a 48-hour hunger strike in support of detainees were held by guards after they tried to enter gates put up on Saturday to keep media away. Tracey Bretag and Peter Lawrence were forced into an APS vehicle after they tried to take banners to the razor wire fence.
A temporary fence, pieces of which began arriving three weeks ago, keeps the media 250 metres from another temporary fence where, until three days ago, reporters used to be able to position themselves.
Beyond these fences, it is another 750 or so metres to the centre, which is enclosed by razor wire.
The centre itself is square shaped, containing to the left and right five compounds, each separated by a cyclone wire fence topped with razor wire.
Each compound contains demountable houses – actually just a room inside – and demountable buildings housing men’s and women’s toilet blocks.
Lawyers say that since last Tuesday a few trees have begun arriving, and one side of the demountable houses – the one visitors would see – has been given a splash of colourful paint.
When lawyers visit the centre they go through a double gate which is controlled from a guard house. Once through the first gate they are locked in an enclosure while they clear security – handing over currency, mobile phones and cameras, and putting their bags through x-ray machines. After being issued a day pass, they enter the second inner gate and walk into the middle section of the centre, which holds offices of the ACM guards and Immigration Department officials. On the other side of that is the interview room, the only place where lawyers are permitted to talk to detainees.
Finally, two water cannons, which can fit through the spaces separating the wire fences of each compound, sit at the front of the centre, to be turned on detainees should the guards see fit.
Nobody mention the war, the captives, or the asylum seekers
I don’t feel morally intimidated by the actions of the asylum seekers. Rather, I feel morally diminished by the actions of our Prime Minister.
It is an absolute disgrace and I feel ashamed to be an Australian citizen.Nobody mention the war, the captives, or the asylum seekers
The threat to arrest journalists is a further sign of the Government’s unhealthy obsession with secrecy.
When the Government of Nauru, with the support and encouragement of the UNHCR, allowed media representatives to attend a volleyball game between Nauruan police and detained Afghan asylum seekers last October, Australia wasn’t happy.
It was even less happy that media had been allowed to inspect conditions at the detention camp, and had been allowed to speak to detainees.
The Nauruans were quickly informed they should organise no further such volleyball games, tours of the holding facilities or chances for direct media contact with boat people.
This denial of media contact ran counter to the international policy of the UNHCR, and its team leader on Nauru, Gregory Balke, was nonplussed.
Mr Balke said media access to asylum seekers could contribute to greater public understanding, and noted that the balance between security and media access was struck elsewhere in the world, with journalists allowed into camps every day.
But the Government’s actions in Nauru were entirely typical of its position on media access and secrecy.
Its general aversion to scrutiny is obvious across a wide range of areas, from plans to give extra powers to intelligence agencies to its imposition of new, tighter controls on what pictures can be taken by news photographers during Question Time.
But it has never been as obvious as in the (overlapping) cases of the boat people and the war in Afghanistan.
As the Tampa floated off Christmas Island last August, the port was closed and an air exclusion zone was imposed over the ship. For most information, media were forced to rely on the Norwegian ambassador, the only person with access to the vessel and the inclination to talk.
And during the controversy about whether children were or were not thrown overboard from another boat seeking asylum, a former chief of the navy, Sir Richard Peek, described government censorship as "Goebbels-like".
In the case of Afghanistan, the level of domestic secrecy saw the Pentagon happily confirm basic details of its arrival in Afghanistan, while Australia’s military was still denying it.
Likewise, the US continues to provide more information on David Hicks, the Australian alleged to have trained with the Taliban, now detained by the United States at Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It has even let a Herald reporter in to see the camp and talk to US military personnel about Hicks.
Camp X-Ray houses 200 of the alleged worst of the worst of the Afghan war, but access is allowed. Woomera detention camp houses about 200 Afghans who fled the worst of the worst, and access is denied.
Furthermore, journalists doing their jobs at Woomera face arrest even for getting close enough to see what happens under the world’s only policy of mandatory, non-reviewable detention of asylum-seekers.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that senior media executives, including those from this paper and The Age, yesterday protested in the strongest terms about the removal of journalists from the vicinity of the Woomera centre.
Last night, though, there was no indication it had made the slightest difference.
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