For the first time, a welcome to country ceremony has been held inside one of Australia’s immigration detention centres. Larrakia woman June Mills was granted permission to give the welcome at Darwin’s detention centre yesterday. She says she sang and talked about customary law and found the asylum seekers to be a very receptive audience. [...]
Human Rights Watch Drop Proposal to Swap Asylum Seekers, Refugees with Malaysia (New York) – Australia risks reneging on its international legal obligations if it forcibly transfers 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Human Rights Watch urged Australia not to proceed with [...]
Click here and watch video Transcript LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: The Federal Government’s refusing to grant visas to the Pakistani family of a seriously ill boy in Adelaide, saying they’re concerned the family won’t return home. Documents obtained by 7.30 show the case could help other asylum seekers desperate to stay in Australia. South Asia correspondent [...]
A senior United Nations official has called on Australia’s leaders to ditch their habit of demonising asylum seekers for political gain. Ending her six-day tour of Australia, UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay said Australia’s mandatory detention regime had ‘cast a shadow’ over its human rights record. She voiced fresh concern about the federal government’s [...]
By: Nima Idihaw Part one | Part two Beyond the borders of Afghanistan in the south and east, on the other side in Pakistan, the inhabitants are from ethnic Pashtun tribes and as a result of ethnic solidarity the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is freezone for ethnic Pashtuns to smuggle weapons, people, and opium [...]
JAVID Zanidi speaks in a weary voice that belies his youth but tells much about a harrowing life and two years of intense frustration in Indonesia. ”Yes, I heard about this new rule,” the 17-year-old Afghan asylum seeker said when asked about the Gillard government’s proposal to send him to Malaysia if he tries again [...]
by Ahmad Shuja I have obtained documents, in Dari, that show a peace agreement between Kuchi and Hazara elders in the Behsud district of Maidan-Wardak province. The agreement, which is about two weeks old, appears to have already been violated. But it is an interesting organic attempt at dealing with the longstanding conflict between the [...]
by Nima Idihaw The elimination of Osama Bin Laden has once more raised the question of how long the war on terror will continue in Afghanistan. The first reactions to his death by extremists was their retaliatory attacks on Hazaras in Quetta, Pakistan and then in Kandahar, Ghazni and Laghman in Afghanistan as a message [...]
