By Richard Marcus Whenever I’ve wanted to learn something about a culture I’d read the stories the people told each other. Not the stories others tell about them, or what’s been written about them in history books, but the ones which have been passed down from generation to generation. They could be anything from myths [...]
By DECLAN WALSH KARACHI, Pakistan — Stranded in a dingy hotel in the heart of this port city, waiting for the smuggler’s call, Hussain felt at once trapped and poised for freedom. Behind lay his hometown, Quetta, the city in western Pakistan that has become a killing ground for Sunni sectarian death squads that hunt [...]
Continue reading …60 asylum seekers whose boat sunk in route to Australia, with Indonesian authorities still scrambling to launch a co-ordinated rescue effort. The boat was carrying as many as 72 people when it hit rocks off the coast of West Java. According to Indonesian search and rescue agency BASARNAS due to lack of information aerial search [...]
Continue reading …Amnesty International has grave concerns with the Government’s recent move to start returning Hazara asylum seekers to Afghanistan and Pakistan. “The security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating and we are extremely fearful for their safety should the Government send these asylum seekers back,” said Alex Pagliaro, Amnesty International’s Refugee Spokesperson. “The Government also indicated that [...]
Continue reading …A refugee activist says the men have been denied due process but the Government is determined to make an example of them and prove that it can forcibly remove people back to Afghanistan. The Immigration department says the men’s claims for refugee status have been denied and they will be forcibly removed and there are [...]
Continue reading …At least 92 members of Hazara died, including some 20 women and 18 children, more than 200 sustained serious injuries and 30 people gone missing when a bombed ripped through a densely populated fruit market situated in Hazara Town, a Hazara enclave, in Quetta on Saturday, 16 February, 2013. It happened just 38 days after [...]
Continue reading …Dear Sir/ Madam We are writing to ask you to support Hazara asylum seekers in Australia. We are deeply concerned about the Hazara asylum seekers’ circumstances, and about the resent reports on Australia’s cooperation with Pakistan’s intelligence agencies to stop Hazaras to leave the country which has been described “questionable and sordid” by Amnesty International. [...]
Continue reading …Amnesty International says Australia’s reported cooperation with Pakistan’s intelligence agencies to stop Hazara asylum seekers leaving the country is “questionable and sordid”. An investigation by journalist Aubrey Belford quotes Pakistani officials confirming that Australian Federal Police officers have been encouraging a policy of racially profiling people from the Hazara community who they suspect may be [...]
Continue reading …Kate Bastians, The West Australian Lone survivor ‘floated for three days’ An asylum seeker says he clung to a rubber tube and drifted helplessly for three days before rescue as the sole survivor of a boat that sank en route to Christmas Island. Habib Ullah, 22, of Karachi, said he was among 34 Hazara from [...]
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