A cross-section of Australia’s most prominent Christian leaders is imploring the nation’s politicians to “do the right thing” and release asylum seeker children from detention before Christmas.
Source: Religious leaders push for release of asylum seeker children before Christmas
I am alive today because my parents left Europe just in time. My mother did not sit back and wait, but actively sought a way out.
Source: Guess what, Mr Dutton: each asylum seeker has a face and a story
These cartoons were drawn by a man held in immigration detention on Manus Island.
Source: Cartoons From Detention: Eight Drawings By A Man On Manus Island – New Matilda
In an open letter to the Labor Party, Liam McLoughlin lays bare the lies, cynicism and cowardice that underpins the party’s position on asylum seekers.
There are reports of mass riots at the Christmas Island detention centre following a death.
Source: ‘They’ve disappeared’ – guards reportedly abandon Christmas Island dentention centre following riots
Why was a refugee with a history of trauma and torture incarcerated indefinitely on Christmas Island?
Source: Christmas Island death highlights need for detention inquiry
Robert Manne’s argument is (not surprisingly) impeccable in its reasoning. And I agree with most of his facts and assumptions. In particular, I think his political calculations are right. In essence, he says:
When respected philosophers get attacked in the middle of the street, you know that something is going terribly wrong with the nation. The Czech Republic (and before, Czechoslovakia) was always a t…
Kidnapping, violent gangs, torture, terrorism, corruption, civil unrest, treacherous roads, endemic diseases, bad hospitals, strict laws, police harassment, earthquakes and avalanches. Welcome to Kyrgyzstan, the place the Turnbull government wants to send refugees.
Source: Destination Kyrgyzstan: the latest troubled country Australia wants to send refugees
Mohammed’s* daughter doesn’t play with other girls. She sits most days in the family’s hot airless tent, and does not go to school.
Source: ‘Dad, why are we here?’: No money, no life and a baby on the way at Nauru
This celebrated film by Tom Zubrycki starts where the hysteria and hyperbole of most media coverage of refugee problems leaves off. It offers an intimate insight into what it means to be only partially accepted by the country you live in and to endure the emotional implications of seeking belonging. In the town of Young in rural NSW ordinary Australians share their community with 90 Afghan refugees working at the local abattoir. These everyday Australians still believe in the lucky country: people like Tony Hewson who recruits the refugees, Anne Bell who organises English classes and social activities, and Lyn Rule who offers them hospitality in her own home. Twenty two-year-old Mobarak Tahiri has been in Australia for two years and his temporary visa soon expires. His English is improving and so is his driving, thanks to Molly, Lyn’s twenty-five year old daughter, and the object of Mobarak’s affections. Against Molly and Mobarak’s burgeoning relationship emerges a picture of a town divided. The Bali bombing and a heightened fear of terrorism cause racism to resurge.
A
A young, vulnerable and traumatised woman who sought protection in Australia has been very badly let down.
Australia’s militarised border protection policy borrows its methods from the war on terror – not least by moving questionable activities offshore and outside the easy reach of courts
Melbourne’s medicos remind us that the utilitarian politics behind our brutal asylum seeker policy strikes at the heart of our civilisation.
Source: Doctors’ protest over asylum seekers shows us what real morality is all about
Save the Children workers in Nauru are searched and have their phones and computers confiscated after the charity’s office is raided by Nauruan police.
“Instead of accepting them into Australia they send them back home,” Jens Baur from the far right NPD party tells a crowd outside a refugee camp in Dresden. “And only this is the one real solution and not how our government is going about it.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel says refugees are welcome, but in a story for tonight’s Dateline, Amos Roberts finds the reality is different in the former East Germany.
Source: German Neo-Nazis praise Australia’s refugee policy | SBS News
Victoria’s Health Minister Jill Hennessy has thrown her support behind doctors at the Royal Children’s Hospital who have refused to discharge asylum seeker children back into detention.
Source: Royal Children’s Hospital doctors refuse to return children to detention
A 23-year-old “vulnerable and traumatised” Somali woman who was raped on Nauru is pleading with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to allow her to come to Australia to have an abortion.
Source: Refugee raped on Nauru begs Malcolm Turnbull to let her come to Australia for an abortion
The new Prime Minister says he’s concerned about what’s happening on Manus Island and Nauru. He should do something about it.
The United Nations has postponed a planned visit to Australia because the federal government has failed to guarantee no one would be charged or intimidated for talking to its special rapporteur about asylum seekers and migrants.
“We will now go up to 85,000 with at least 10,000 over the next year in Syria specifically. And in the next fiscal year we will target 100,000,” he said.In the f
Source: US to take in 85,000 refugees in 2016, and 100,000 in 2017 – Your Middle East
One year after the deal was toasted with champagne, what has become of Australia’s A$55m plan to relocate its rejected refugees in Cambodia?
Source: Australia’s refugee solution: An expensive joke? – BBC News
A single image of a drowned boy half a world away has already split Australia’s ‘stop the boats’ consensus. Tony Abbott can only paper over it for so long
The question all Australians should ask is this: What sort of country are we? Are we selfish or are we generous? Are we willing to mistreat terrified human beings who have the courage, and the initiative, to escape to safety?
Source: Getting The Facts Straight On Refugee Resettlement | Julian Burnside
When first confronted by the devastating image of drowned three year old Aylan Kurdi in my newsfeed I reacted more with cynicism than shock. Even the traditionally progressive Guardian seems to have joined in the mass media outcry for Western intervention in Syria to end the current humanitarian crisis. Critics have seized on this with…
Source: Sure, let’s go bomb Syria. Why not? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Unlike Lebanon or Turkey dealing with over two million asylum seekers, the EU is not really facing ‘a crisis’, said Anas El Gomati of the Libya-based Sadeq Institute think tank. European politicians are flaming xenophobic sentiment to get political power, he adds.
Source: ‘EU migrant crisis created by political elite for electoral benefits’ — RT Op-Edge
The family of Alan Kurdi were, along with thousands of Syrian Kurds, in limbo in Turkey.
Source: Alan Kurdi death: A Syrian Kurdish family forced to flee – BBC News
The outpouring of generosity by German residents has been so substantial, police in Munich have become “overwhelmed.”
Source: German People Are Giving So Much To Migrants, The Police Had To Ask Them To Stop
Viktor Orban says history of Ottoman rule means Hungarians will not accept large-scale Muslim immigration
Source: Hungary Prime Minister Says Muslims Not Welcome | Al Jazeera America
In 1957 a little blue-eyed boy was sat on the desk of the Australian High Commission in Sri Lanka and closely appraised. His parents had applied to migrate to Australia, but his aunts and uncles had already been knocked back.On paper they were European descent and English speaking, as they needed to be in order to pass the test of Australia’s Immigration Restriction Act (1901) – the White Australia policy.
Source: A Little Brown-Eyed Babe Washed Ashore | newmatilda.com
EU countries with more favourable asylum seeker regimes are attracting more migrants and sparking divisions among bloc members.
European nations are tightening their borders, shutting down trains and ramping up rhetoric to stop a surge of refugees. But myths about the European tide are misleading policy makers about how bad the crisis is and why it’s happening – and that could have deadly consequences for asylum seekers
Source: Europe’s migrant crisis: Eight reasons why it’s not what you think – The Globe and Mail
The government’s policy would be a terrible model for other prosperous countries facing huge numbers of people fleeing wars and persecution.
Source: Australia’s Brutal Treatment of Migrants – The New York Times
Editorial: Angela Merkel has faced up to how a humanitarian emergency is threatening a continent’s defining values. The rest of Europe should pay attention, and follow suit
Europe is buckling under the weight of hundreds of thousands of African and Middle Eastern refugees trying to get into the EU. The Keleti train station in Budapest shut down Tuesday due to the number of migrants trying to get from Hungary to Germany; in late August, 71 refugees were found dead after suffocating in a refrigerated truck in Austria. Germany, meanwhile, is expecting 800,000 refugee arrivals this year.In response to the crisis, the tiny island nation of Iceland has only offered the smallest amount of aid, agreeing to take in a mere 50 Syrian refugees. That wasn’t nearly enough for popular Icelandic children’s book author Bryndís Björgvinsdóttir. She launched a Facebook campaign that asked her fellow countrymen and women to open up their homes and urge the government to do more, The Telegraph reports. In 24 hours, more than 10,000 Icelanders had offered their homes for refugees to stay in. Keep in mind that Iceland’s entire population is less than 330,000.”I think people have had enough of seeing news stories from the Mediterranean and refugee camps of dying people and they want something done now,” Björgvinsdóttir told Icelandic public television RUV in response to the overwhelming support.That seems to be true. “I’m a single mother with a 6-year-old son…We can take a child in need. I’m a teacher and would teach the child to speak, read, and write Icelandic, and adjust to Icelandic society,” one Facebook user wrote. “We have clothes, a bed, toys, and everything a child needs. I would of course pay for the airplane ticket.”The Icelandic government is now looking into how to accept more refugees. Whatever they decide, this much is for sure: The migrants they take in will have a warm welcome waiting for them. Jeva Lange
Cambodia says it has ‘no plans’ to take more Nauru refugees, but Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop insist Australia has secured ‘important agreement’
Source: Cambodia deal doomed after just four Nauru refugees resettled for $55m | World news | The Guardian
Australia’s Nauru detention center has been criticized by human rights groups and compared to a ‘concentration camp’
Source: Australian Detention Center Unsafe for Children | Al Jazeera America
As history teaches us, tyranny condoned against some will finally become a tyranny visited on us all. Tony Abbott cannot distance himself from this
The Immigration Minister plays down reports Cambodia does not want to settle more refugees as part of its transfer deal with Australia.
A spokesman for Immigration Minister Peter Dutton simply said “no claims of water-boarding had been made to the Government or brought to its attention.”
Minister Dutton said
“Claims asylum seekers at Nauru were water-boarded are ‘unsubstantiated’
: Peter Dutton
olddogthoughts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.