Travel permits can be stalled for three to four months, according to doctors.
Source: Israel delays cancer treatment for Gaza children | The Electronic Intifada
Tag: shame
By Dahlia Scheindlin Ofer Buchris is a barrel-chested 48 year old with a heavy brow and war wounds. Until recently he was also a venerated general in the IDF. “A.” was a young female soldier under his command in the legendary Golani combat brigade. She accused him of sexual assault, rape, and sodomy between 2010 and 2012. She sent him a letter saying he had ruined her life and began psychological treatment. Meanwhile he was slated for a major promotion (other Golani commanders have gone on to become IDF chief of staff). In late February 2016, A. made a formal…
Source: +972’s Person of the Year: The women standing up to sexual harassment | +972 Magazine
Comments marked new escalation in rhetoric warning of the danger of admitting refugees into US as he addressed issue of terrorism following bombing attacks
US, China, Japan, Germany, France and UK accommodate just 2.1 million refugees, according to Oxfam report
Source: Six wealthiest countries host less than 9% of world’s refugees | World news | The Guardian
At a meeting in Vienna, Europe’s major far-right parties rant against EU, “radical Islam” and asylum immigrants.
Source: Europe far-right leaders join forces against Islam, EU – News from Al Jazeera
Australia’s shonkiest get-rich quick scheme
It’s grown from nothing to costing taxpayers $4 billion this year, and growing fast, and there are few controls. Now the salesmen and shysters are in charge of Australia’s vocational education system.
Source: Vocational education, the biggest get-rich quick scheme in Australia
Morrison’s Death Row: The new lost generation.
I have lost all respect for Nick X and Ricky Muir. I had none for Scott Morrison
Will we hear anything from Scott Morrison on this? Or will he have the Monthly charged under the new whistle blowers act?
Oct 4, 2014
Taliban tortures Abbott government deportee
The first Hazara asylum seeker refouled by the federal government was taken by the Taliban inside a month.
An Afghan police photograph of Zainullah Naseri after his escape from his Taliban captors.
Zainullah Naseri has been in Afghanistan three weeks when the Taliban find him. They stop the car in which he is travelling and find in his pockets his Australian driver’s licence – a memento of the country that on the night of August 26 made him the first Hazara to be forcibly deported back to the country he was fleeing.
The six Taliban also find Zainullah’s iPhone, but he pretends it is not working. They do not believe him. Zainullah is punched and kicked. “They told me they would kill me if I didn’t open it.”
The Taliban bundle him into a car and after 20 minutes’ driving, take him to a mud house ringed by high walls. They beat him with wet rods cut fresh from a tree, demanding he open his phone. Again they threaten to kill him. Zainullah relents and offers his PIN.
Immediately, they are scrolling through pictures: the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, a video of the new year he recorded in 2014. Speaking in broken Dari, the Taliban tell him, “You from an infidel country.” They mean Australia. “You infidel. We kill you. Why you come to Afghanistan? You a spy.”
He tells them the truth: he was deported after his refugee application was rejected. But they do not believe him. He is laid out on the ground and again is beaten. “I swear to God, I was deported from Australia,” he pleads. “I don’t live there anymore.” The six men do not relent. “They kept bashing me,” Zainullah remembers.
Hellish escape
It was thoughts of his daughter that prompted Zainullah to break out. On the second night in captivity, at 10pm, he heard gunfire in the valley. He saw that the Taliban had gone out to fight and locked the gate. He realised it was an opportunity to escape but his feet were chained together. He groped in the darkness, found a rock, and brought it down onto the chain every time he heard gunfire.
At the back of the house, steps led up to a traditional Afghan squat toilet system, a hole above a chamber below. Having broken his chain, he ran for the toilet and dropped into the excrement. The human waste is collected for fertiliser, accessible with a shovel from outside the house’s wall through a hatchway. Zainullah wriggled out through the hatch. For eight hours, covered in faeces, he walked through darkness and early morning. At some point, exhausted, he heard more gunfire – the whizzing of bullets as they passed his ear.
A video captured by Afghan police shows officers firing on him, suspecting him to be a suicide bomber. A voice calling “help” is heard in the darkness. Moments later, three police speaking in Hazaragi are shown in the video, saying in angry voices, “Who are you?” and “Raise your hands”.
‘Not a real risk’
Mohammad Musa Mahmodi, the executive director of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, said: “It’s totally unacceptable to return a refugee to Afghanistan in this critical moment. It contradicts their [Australian] own law not to deport refugees where they face danger.”
Asked about Zainullah’s case and whether any attempt had been made to assess the ongoing safety of deported asylum seekers, a spokesperson for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said: “People who have exhausted all outstanding avenues to remain in Australia and have no lawful basis to remain are expected to depart.”
Depressed and alone
On the day of his deportation, about 10am, he was transferred to a solitary room where he was asked repeatedly to return to Afghanistan. “A person talked so much, it was as if there was a wasp on my mind.” That night, he was taken to Sydney airport. He and six department escorts boarded the plane from a different door, away from other passengers’ eyes. “I did not know where I was. I did not sleep for two nights. My mind was not working. I just knew that my world is going to end.”
The Afghan embassy in Canberra didn’t issue a passport for Zainullah, disagreeing with his forced removal from Australia. Instead, the Australian government issued a travel document bearing his name and photo, but not his signature. The document was carried by his escorts, who showed it at every checkpoint. He was given a photocopy.
Walking alongside me, he shakes his head. “I ask why the Australian government wasted my time for so long. Made me wonder for three years. Then they dump me here. I have no future now.”
olddogthoughts 