The result of Labor immigration policy is sanity-sapping limbo, people fleeing some of the world’s most troubled regions find

    Lenore Taylor

        The seven nervous Afghan men sitting on the floor along one wall of the tiny, dark flat in Melbourne’s outer west are the forgotten cargo from the boats that couldn’t be stopped.

As Hazaras – an often persecuted ethnic minority seeking refuge in Australia – they say they cannot go back to where they came from but don’t know whether they can stay in Australia either and they don’t know when they will know. There is no date upon which they can pin any

Hope.

For an indeterminate period of time, probably many years, they must exist in this and another flat. The walls are cracked, the carpet is lifting and the roof is covered in motley brown stains. There are a couple of old couches dragged in from kerbside cast-offs, but no beds or mattresses.

The men are not allowed to study or work, and live on about $220 a week, 89% of unemployment benefits.

After rent they have barely enough to survive, certainly not enough to send anything much back to the wives and children three have left behind without a breadwinner.

They were each unlucky enough to wash up in Australia in a people smuggler’s fishing boat after 13 August – the date on which the Labor government decreed that the refugee claims of asylum seekers arriving by boat would receive “no advantage” over those who sit for years in refugee camps overseas.

If they had arrived on 12 August they would probably be able to work by now and the processing of their refugee claims would have begun.

Their state of sanity-sapping limbo is not an unintended consequence of government policy. It is the whole point. Removing work rights and delaying the processing of claims for many years was supposed to remove hope and stop the boats.

It has not. Since 13 August 19,760 more people have arrived.

The problems of the several hundred post-13 August arrivals sent to reopened processing centres on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and the remote Pacific island of Nauru are receiving some publicity.

But thousands – possibly as many as 10,000 – have so far been released into the Australian community on no-advantage bridging visas live like this, out of sight, in the outer suburbs of Australian cities.

“We have no work, no study. We just stay here and worry about our families … we are full of distress,” says Jawad, through an interpreter, a man who provides proof of how different things could be.

Reza Andesha arrived just over a year ago as a refugee and has now set up business as a driving instructor – the Kabul Driving School (discounts for female customers to celebrate the fact that they can freely learn to drive here) – while he waits for his professional qualifications to be documented. He has also established an Afghan community association to help men such as these.

“I am a tiler, but I would do any work at all, anything. I don’t want to take money from the government,” Jawad says.

“I left $1,000 with my wife and children. I thought I would be able to work and send them money. Now they have nothing. I don’t know what will happen to them. I don’t know what to tell them. I just have to wait.”

“We are living in stress. Sometimes we cry. Sometimes we sing songs to make ourselves happy,” says Ali, who has also left a wife and three children.

“It’s hard to sleep. He was awake until half past three last night. He was

worrying,” says Jawed, motioning towards another of the men, Mohammed.

The men say they walk around sometimes and visit other Hazaras in the neighbourhood, but they don’t venture far, as recently-arrived Magrit, a young, single man, explains.

“We don’t go out very much. We heard of other Hazara people who were attacked on the train. We don’t want to be near any trouble because it might be bad for our case.”

Asked whether they would have come had they known of the new no-work policy the men nod. One had been waiting for many months in Indonesia just to register for refugee processing with the UN high commission for refugees when he heard about the Australian policy change. He came anyway.

Asked whether they would have come under the Coalition’s proposed policy – which would grant proven refugees work rights but under a temporary protection visa with no prospect of permanent resettlement and no chance of bringing their families to Australia – some nod also.

“I was in danger. I had to escape,” says 30-year old Mohammed. “I had worked for a contractor to the US army. I was a labourer. The Taliban warned me. I didn’t believe them. But then they killed the brother of my friend so I ran away.”

Magit says a temporary protection visa “would solve one problem, but make another one”. He adds: “At least we would be able to work then.”

But Mohammed looks distressed. “If we can’t bring ever our family that will be like doomsday for me,” he says.

In a neighbouring suburb, Syed Ejan Hussein Zaidi, a Shia Hazara who was working as an accountant in Quetta, Pakistan, before he fled the escalating attacks on Hazara by militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is in the same situation.

He says the money he receives is difficult to survive on, but he feels bad every time he withdraws it from the bank because he hasn’t earned it.

“Yeah I would rather, earn money myself, OK, than money given by the government of Australia us. I really feel quite, what shall I say, uneasy when I am paid such money when I draw out from the bank such money because I do not do anything, but I am paid,” he says.

He says the limbo life is taking its toll on him and other asylum seekers on bridging visas.

“They are sitting at home and they are doing nothing and this definitely affects negatively, because once you are sitting here without doing anything. It, I mean it gets down your morale, it gets down your emotions, it gets down OK, your feeling. It turns the people into

tense situations. It turns the people into depression,” he says.

Across Melbourne in yet another near empty flat sits Arman [his name is changed for the protection of his family] who fled Iran when the authorities discovered the underground Christian church of which he was a member.

“I became a Christian … my parents were not happy about it but they accepted … but my beliefs were different from my fiancee so we separated. I had to live as a Christian secretly, do my Bible studies secretly, but then the secret police found out about our group, they questioned some of our members. I decided to run away while I still could. I paid $6,000 to get to Australia.

“We know the government here is having a big argument with each other … We don’t know what is going to happen. We are wasting time, losing time, with nothing to do. We can’t go back and we can’t do anything here, we just sit and wait.”

“I don’t understand why they don’t let us work. If we work then we can stop taking money from the government … I feel useless. Men are meant to work. Men who don’t work get sick.”

Arman has found a bicycle to avoid the cost of buses and trains. He uses it for the few outings that punctuate the long boring weeks: a trip to the library, Bible studies two weekday evenings and church on Sundays.

There’s no money for anything else. “I paid the rent yesterday,” he says. “Now I have $10 left for the next 12 days.” He has been given an old television, but for it to work he needs an aerial. “I think they cost $60.” He laughs at the improbability of saving such a sum.

Cath Scarth is chief executive of AMES, a company contracted by the federal government to house asylum seekers released on bridging visas for up to six weeks, help them rent a house and provide some basic English language training and instruction on life in Australia.

“This is a highly resilient group of people. They are not dependent and they often help each other,” she says.

“There are some wonderful stories, like the Iranian man who was a personal trainer. He gets the younger guys up in the morning and takes them out for a run.”

“But we are concerned that over time without hope they will get demoralised. We fear for their health and wellbeing living in this perpetual state of not knowing … we have to try to make sure they don’t go from being resilient to being depressed and dependent.”

Moving into completely empty flats and with no money, asylum seekers have no choice but to turn to charities, who are also deeply concerned and fast running out of emergency supplies.

UnitingCare in Werribee, in Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s own electorate, ran out of food vouchers in February for the first time in 13 years because of the extra demand from hundreds of asylum seekers in the area.

The St Vincent de Paul chief executive, Dr John Falzon, says the no advantage test is “an incredibly cruel and punitive way of treating people” and is also stretching charities such as his past capacity.

He says: “They are released, they end up in a completely empty flat and they’re told, here’s the number for Vinnies … We help as much as we can but it’s putting an incredible strain on our resources. It’s demeaning for the people and it isn’t stopping the boats or preventing people from being drowned at sea.

“The aliens in our midst is how these people are being portrayed … it’s a damning indictment of where Australia has moved to.”

But as the boats keep coming and the asylum detention centres fill to bursting, budget pressures mean more asylum seekers will be released to a life of limbo in the suburbs, not just the single men who have been released so far, but now also families.

On the windowsill of the Afghan Hazaras’ flat is a large tin moneybox. “We put some coins in there when we can,” Jawed explains. “They’re for the poor people.”

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/27/no-advantage-asylum-seekers-limbo

Taha, his father Ezatullah and mother Hakima Abasi left Indonesia last August full of hope for a new life free of the persecution they faced as Afghanistani Hazaras.

Instead, they vanished.
They are among whole families, groups of cousins, fathers, who have boarded boats and never been seen again and children who have disappeared in the dangerous waters between Indonesia and Christmas Island and whose mothers are now in limbo between hope and grief.

Photographs of the lost in happier times are now contrasted by accounts from their families of life racked by uncertainty, often without a breadwinner.

Their stories are the true toll of the crisis at Australia’s borders with at least four boats, carrying almost 300 people vanishing and hundreds of other asylum seekers are known to have drowned in the past four years.
The Hazara community in Australia is using a Facebook page to plead for information about 40 of the missing.

Little Taha’s family are devastated that the inquisitive boy and his parents have been lost at sea.

“He (Ezatullah) was a very good person, he was a labourer and hard worker, he was a family man,” Taha’s uncle Avazali Etemadi said through an interpreter from Iran.

“They were ordinary people.
“The main reason that he fled from Iran…is his ethnic group is Hazara, they are the target of attacks.”

His wife Zahra Abasi, Hakima’s sister, had trouble coping, he said.

“I put his last photo on Facebook so if there is any news for them from anywhere they can tell me,” he said.

Mushahid Hussain could be any 18-year-old, anywhere in the world.

The photograph his brother has used in a search shows him sporting white earphones with a stylish black suit jacket slung over one shoulder.

His brother Shafiq said the teenager had gone to Indonesia with friends and a cousin in a bid to reach Australia, a decision his family still does not understand.

“It is very, very hard. I can’t tell you how difficult,” Shafiq said.

“There is no information. My mother, my father, everyone is very, very worried.”

Syed Mustafa, 23, called his family in Quetta, Pakistan, where Hazaras are routinely attacked, at 2am in December 2011 to tell his family he was boarding a boat headed for Australia.

It was the last they heard from him, his vessel later sank.

“The boat was overloaded. We are still hoping that he is alive,” his sister Shanaz said.

“My mother is basically really worried about him and hopes he is alive.”

Sayed Murtaza’s 21-year-old brother Sayed Asif and his neighbour Mohammad Mohsin vanished after their asylum vessel sank in December 2011.

“They are all jobless, they don’t have any work, they don’t have any money,” Mr Murtaza said of his neighbour’s wife and children.

There are two toddlers without their father in Quetta.

Abbas, also known as Mossa, left his wife and two young children behind last year after he was threatened with death, friend Madi said.

“He is missing, we don’t know about him anymore, it is very difficult for his wife, she didn’t have anyone to support her, she didn’t have any way to find her husband,” he said.

Father of two teenage daughters and two sons, Ramazan Ali stared seriously into the camera lens for a portrait in August last year.

He has been missing since his asylum boat sank near Indonesia last month, with only 14 survivors out of 70 who were on board found.

His family would rather believe he was in jail in Indonesia for trying to leave by boat, than think he is dead, nephew Shukrullah Rajai said.

“His family think Ramazan will be all right,” he said.

Mr Rajai said in Quetta the Hazara family faced “bombings and targeted killing.”

Mohamed Hatif, a refugee living in Adelaide, has been trying to find his friend Amin so that his wife in Quetta can have certainty about his fate.

“Amin’s wife doesn’t know if he is dead. She says `maybe Amin is on an island,”‘ he said.

Arif Hazara, 18, who is studying for his Year 12 exams at a Melbourne school started the Hazara community Facebook page to connect people but as the toll at sea mounted he began posting pictures from families desperate for news.

Having left his own parents and four siblings behind he suddenly found himself trying to help connect other families with their lost loved ones, despite little hope any of the missing will be found alive.

Arif and a group of friends spent eight “very scary” days on an asylum boat crammed with 52 asylum seekers with the perilous journey made worse when the engine broke down.

He was found by Australian authorities to be a refugee.

“There are hundreds of families who have had their relatives or their father or mother or sister on the boats and they have never heard of them,” Arif said.

“We have reports of boats lost.

“They have perished and the families or the kin who are left in Quetta, they still believe they might be alive somewhere.”

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Afghan children running away from the scene of the recent suicide attack in Kabul. Photo: Reuters

Afghanistani citizens have been going through long periods of war for over the past 30 years. By now, millions have been displaced, hundreds of thousands killed or disabled, and the major infrastructures seriously damaged. Nevertheless, the war had a different shape. There was the regime and there were the rebels. The lines were pretty much clear.

But this picture has changed after the first suicide attack took place in Afghanistan. Most of these attacks are planned in crowded areas of the major cities. Kabul, for instance, looks more like a military base rather than a city. Its appearance has changed. Its dynamic has changed. Its people have changed.

Apart from the demographic shift in Kabul in the past decade, one of the major reasons that keep people on edge is suicide bombings. These attacks do not require the investment and management of a small brigade let alone an army. They don’t require a big budget. All is needed is a few number of brain-washed fanatics, some explosives, and a good plan. At the same time, however, they consume significant resources in order to be prevented.

On the other hand, a plan of this small caliber leaves a very deep impact. It leaves uncertainty. It worsens unpredictability. It shatters the trust in security and it causes an increasing sense of constant instability. And this is this feeling of constant instability that is a killer. People just become unable to think or manage how to stay safe, how to keep children away from violence, and how to plan for future. This is because suicide attacks can happen anywhere at any time. They have this element to dash people’s hopes and wreck their nerves.

It is true that our people have shown resiliency and that is how they survived. However, it has come with a heavy cost that we must not ignore. Along this painful journey, relationships have shattered. Extremism has become stronger. Violence has become more prevalent.

Therefore, the mere element of resiliency in people doesn’t mean the government stop taking proper measures to put an end to these attacks or at least manage them in an efficient manner. The simple yet compelling question is: how can we expect our children, the next generation, to be non-violent, open-minded, and law-abiding citizens whereas they are exposed to such horror and trauma too much and too often?

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Imagine that you live in Afghanistan. Your ancestors have lived there for hundreds of years, but you are a minority. In fact, you are a minority two times over, because the religion you practice is different from the one most people practice, and the way you look is different from the way most people look.

Many of you escape, but millions of you don’t. So many of your people are killed that you believe fewer than half survived. Even statues that look like you are attacked.

For the next century, those of you who survive are relegated to the bottom rungs of society. The king has made it difficult for your people to gain admission to university and places a ceiling on the rank you can achieve in the military. Later, a group that calls itself The Students, or the Taliban, will take over the country and declare it every Afghan’s duty to kill your people.

Imagine, though, that you are one of the lucky ones, and you escape before the king or The Students can get you. You go to a country next door.

Country #2

Iran is a country where, mercifully, everyone is the same religion as you — Shia. You think you will be welcomed there. There, you are still an ethnic minority, but you are no longer a religious one.

Then there is a revolution, and then a war, and then the ending of a war. People emerge from the tumult and remember that their economy is not very good. There are sanctions. And your people, the different-lookers, are the target of most of the rage. There are not enough jobs for everyone, so why should your people get to take them?

You are not the only immigrants, but you are immigrants people can see are immigrants just by looking. In your country of refuge, you are now an enemy of the people.

You must leave again.

Country #3

Some of you go to Iraq. There, Shias are not in power, but at least there are many of them. Plus, there are important Shia sites in Iraq, so while you feel physically alien, you can make-believe you are spiritually home. Iraq has a powerful and fearsome dictator, but no matter; you are safe.

Until you are no longer safe. The dictator embarks on a foolish war and becomes an enemy of peace, a cancer in the region. Iraq is a pariah state and its dictator a paranoid man who fears that those who aren’t like him will soon betray him. He hates Iran, and knows your people were there. And even though you were driven from Iran, you are spying for them, the dictator thinks.

You must leave again.

Country #4

In Syria the situation is reversed — there are far more Sunnis than Shias, but the Alawites, a kind of Shia, are in power.

You find homes near a shrine, and you settle again. Finally you are safe and free, even though you are four countries from your own and have no papers so you cannot leave.

Then a popular uprising envelops the region and the president of this new land watches heads of state fall all around him. He resolves to stay. He cracks down on those opposing him; he is merciless and decisive. He is killing militants and people suspected of being militants. Soon he is killing so many civilians it is hard to believe he is not killing civilians on purpose.

It is a terrible thing you are seeing, but that’s not the worst of it. The worst of it is that the president doing all this killing belongs to your religion. The people dying are the Sunnis.

The Sunnis are angry, traumatized, and full of fire. They have seen the bodies of their loved ones broke open, and when they look up from the carnage, they see you, the different-lookers. The people who believe like he believes, the man behind the slaughter.

The victims think: You like this evil man. His family let you live in this country, so surely, you are helping him. You are providing him information. Or maybe you’re not now, but soon you will. And so some of the victims arrive at your doorstep to drive you from your home.

There are about 1,000 of you left. You’ve now been kicked out of your houses, you live in a parking lot next to a shrine, and you are watching mortar rounds fall closer and closer to your family.

And then you’re watching mortar rounds hit your family. You are watching your people die in a fourth country. You want to flee, but you can’t. You don’t have papers, remember? The moment you leave the country, you are illegal.

So you are sitting in a parking lot watching your people die, because even though you haven’t chosen sides in this civil war, you’ve been assigned one.

Residents from the Hazara community pray as they visit their relatives’ graves in Quetta, Pakistan on March 1, 2013. (Naseer Ahmed/Reuters)
You are Hazara. Your name actually means “thousand,” and you are reliving your own founding myth. You look Asian because your ancestors in Afghanistan were Buddhist pilgrims, or because you descended from Genghis Khan, or both — this is a contested historical point.

You are Muslim, but you are Shia. What this means is that in Afghanistan, you believed in the right God, but the wrong way. In Iran you believed the right way, but looked wrong. In Iraq, and now in Syria, you were wrong in both ways.

You have never been too comfortable in the places you live because you’ve always looked different. And you have always been under suspicion because you believe differently. Those of you with features mild enough to pass as other ethnicities often try to.

But now you are trapped. You’ve moved west and west and now if you moved any further west you’d be in the Mediterranean Sea. You have survived a massacre in Afghanistan, a revolution in Iran, a tyrant in Iraq, and now, a civil war in Syria. You have always been the first to suffer, but you’ve always been able to go a little further west. Now you can’t.

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According to Jang News Karachi, two unidentified terrorists on motorcycles approached the Katarko school and knocked at the closed door. Upon opening the small window in the gate for inquiry, the assailants opened fire with AK-47 killing two Hazara security guards/watchman – Chaman Ali s/o Ali Hassan (45) and Hafeezullah s/o of Ghulam Hussain (40) – while critically injuring Mohsin s/o Safdar (20). The deceased and the injured were shifted to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

All three are residents of  Yaqoob Shah Basti in Monghopir, which has recently become the hub of Taleban terrorists and a virtual no-go area for the ordinary citizens of Pakistan.

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 Shiites. So far this year they have killed almost 200 people, and Hussain was nearly one of them. Lifting a pants leg, he displayed an eight-inch scar from a bomb blast in January.

But great danger also lay ahead. Hussain was headed for Australia, where thousands of his fellow ethnic Hazaras, Shiites who have borne the brunt of the recent violence, have sought refuge. The illegal journey — across Southeast Asia by air, ground and sea at the mercy of unscrupulous human traffickers — would be long and perilous. Several hundred Hazaras had died on that route in recent years, most when their rickety boats foundered at sea.

For Hussain, it was worth the risk.

“I’d rather die in the boat than in a bomb blast,” he said, twisting a cup of coffee nervously in a restaurant near the hotel. “At least this way, I get to choose.”

Hussain, 25, is part of a growing exodus of young Hazara men who are fleeing Pakistan as it has become apparent that their government and military cannot, or will not, protect them from violent extremists.

In Quetta, where most Pakistani Hazaras live, the attacks are led by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a fanatical group that views Shiites as heretics. With their distinctive Central Asian features and historical links to anti-Taliban forces, the Hazaras make an appealing target. After a decade of intermittent attacks, bloodshed is suddenly surging: two Lashkar suicide bombings this year killed almost 200 people, up from 125 in 2012.

That toll set off a long-overdue security crackdown, but the attacks resumed last Tuesday with a suicide attack on a Hazara politician that killed six people. To young men like Hussain, whose family runs a clothes shop, the next bomb is only a matter of time.

“We can live without the basics of life — gas, electricity and so on,” said Hussain, who asked to be identified by just part of his name in the hope of avoiding arrest on his journey. “But we can’t live with the fear.”

Hussain’s older brother was shot and killed by militants in 2008. His own brush with death came on Jan. 10, after a powerful blast ripped through a snooker hall near his house. As Hussain rushed to help, he was caught in a second explosion that killed rescue workers, police officers and journalists. He blacked out.

“I don’t remember the sound of the blast,” he said. “Just the feeling, like a sort of sonic pulse.” He awoke in the hospital with 36 stitches in one leg and learned that three of his closest friends were among the 84 dead.

It was becoming clear that the Lashkar killers could operate with impunity. “They take their time. They select. Then they shoot,” he said.

The final straw came on March 7, when the military summoned Hussain and other Hazara traders to a meeting in Haideri bazaar, a popular market. As soldiers stood guard outside, an army colonel offered the merchants some sobering advice: they needed to buy handguns, he said.

Some people reacted angrily, and began berating the military officers, demanding better protection, Hussain recalled. But he went home to make a phone call. Two years earlier, his younger brother had left for Australia, where he had gotten a job in a fast food restaurant. Now Hussain needed to hear his voice.

“Just come,” the brother said.

Three days later, Hussain had agreed to pay $6,000 to a trafficker and was on a flight to Karachi, on the first leg of a journey across Asia that would be as emotionally wrenching as it was sudden.

In the plane, he found himself comforting a weeping 16-year-old boy, also Hazara, who said he had been forced to leave by his parents. In the shabby Karachi hotel, he shared a room with “Master,” a 41-year-old shoe trader from Quetta, also bound for Australia.

With thinning hair and a quick grin, Master, who would give only his nickname, had an avuncular manner. But when conversation turned to the three bewildered daughters, aged 7, 9 and 13, he had left behind in Quetta a day earlier, the smile faded and his eyes welled up.

“I will bring them to Australia,” he said in a cracking voice. “This country is no longer for us Hazaras.”

As with many other Hazaras aiming for Australia — from Afghanistan as well as Pakistan — their starting point was Karachi. From there, the journey is arduous and uncertain. Refugees first fly to Thailand or Malaysia, often via Sri Lanka, after their agents bribe immigration officers and Pakistani border officials. The trek continues by land and sea across Malaysia and Indonesia, in cars and trains, dodging police patrols, overnighting at flophouses.

Some migrants are arrested by police officers and border guards along the way and deported back to Pakistan; others are extorted or abandoned by the traffickers, or robbed on the roadside. In many cases, they end up paying thousands of dollars more — in bribes to crooked border officers or supplemental fees to smugglers — so they can keep pressing toward Australia.

The last leg is the most treacherous. In Indonesia, migrants buy tickets aboard small, overcrowded boats bound for Christmas Island, a small Australian territory about 240 miles off the Indonesian coast, where they apply for political asylum. There, they join other boat people — Sri Lankans, Iranians, Afghans, Iraqis.

Safe arrival is by no means guaranteed. Between late 2001 and last June, 964 asylum seekers and boat crew members from various countries are known to have lost their lives on this passage, said Sandi Logan, a spokesman for the Australian government’s Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

Habibullah, a 22-year-old student from Quetta, was nearly one of them. Last October, he joined 34 Hazara men on a boat bound for Christmas Island. Within 24 hours, the boat had sunk in a storm. Mr. Habibullah, who has only one name, says he was the sole survivor, picked up by an Indonesian fishing boat after three days clinging to floating debris.

In a harrowing written account of those events sent by e-mail, and in a phone interview from Indonesia, Mr. Habibullah described a traumatic ordeal.

He spoke of long hours in the water, whipped by waves and fearing sharks, desperately calling out to distant passing ships. But most anguishing, he said, was the sight of fellow passengers slipping under the waves, some calling out to their wives or parents.

Mr. Habibullah, suffering extreme thirst and sharp kidney pain, sustained himself by thinking of his home in Quetta. “I remembered my past, surrounded by my parents,” he wrote. “And I realized they were with me.”

It is impossible to confirm Mr. Habibullah’s account independently. But Hazara community leaders in Quetta confirmed that several men accompanying Mr. Habibullah had died, and some of their photographs have been published on blogs.

Mr. Habibullah sounded despondent. Conditions at the government detention center in Indonesia were grim, he said, and he was struggling to gain an asylum hearing from the United Nations refugee agency. Nine months after leaving home, and having spent $15,000 on bribes, transportation and smuggler’s fees, he had not reached Australia.

Still, he understood why other Hazaras wanted to make the journey. “It’s worth it,” he said.

The Australian government has tried to deter the boat people. Last year, it began transferring asylum seekers to detention centers on two remote Pacific islands while their cases are heard. Human rights groups and United Nations officials have condemned conditions at the camps, and Australian news media have reported several suicide attempts there in recent months.Responding to the criticism, Australian officials say they have increased their humanitarian refugee quota to 20,000 this year, a 40 percent increase. At the same time, in countries like Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, the Australian government has started an advertising campaign seeking to persuade potential refugees to stay at home.

Yet still they keep coming. In the first weeks of April, according to official figures, the Australian Navy intercepted 10 boats carrying 760 people, most bound for Christmas Island. The majority of cases from Afghanistan and Pakistan were ethnic Hazaras, whose numbers have grown to about 25,000 people in Australia, officials say.

Before leaving Karachi, Hussain and Master took a stroll along the beach, dipping their toes in the Arabian Sea and meandering among the young families on the sand.

Hussain stressed that if not for the extremist threat, he would not be leaving Pakistan. Ten months earlier he had married his sweetheart, a local teacher, whom he had left behind. His family made a good living from its clothes business. And patriotism ran in the family — his grandfather had served in Pakistan’s army.

“This could be the last time I see Pakistan,” he said, staring out at the waves.

His younger brother had warned him of a daunting journey ahead — “Expect it to be hell,” were his words — and so he was relying on the religious items around his neck: a small leather pouch containing two folded Koranic inscriptions, from his father and his wife, and a black pendant inscribed with the words “Y’Allah Madaat” — “Oh God, help me.”

Over the following weeks, he sent several messages: from Bangkok, where he was staying in a cramped room with 16 other refugees (“Waiting, waiting, and so on,” he wrote), then, in late March, from Indonesia.

Master had been arrested in a car headed for a port in Malaysia, Hussain said. But he had managed to escape, and had arrived in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, where he would seek a boat to Australia.

This month, a boat carrying about 90 people, most of them Hazaras, sunk en route to Australia. Hussain was depressed, but undeterred. “I’m looking forward,” he wrote. Then he added: “May God help me.”

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“It is our religious duty to kill all Shias… in all of Pakistan, especially Quetta, we will continue our successful jihad against the Shia Hazara and Pakistan will become a graveyard for them.” -A letter of intent circulated by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) in 2011

Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons
The Pakistani Hazara are undergoing systematic ethnic cleansing and, according to prominent politician Abdul Khaliq Hazara, nothing short of a “genocide.” In Quetta, Pakistan over 180 Hazara have been brutally murdered in two separate bombings in January and February of this year. These acts of terror, committed by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), a terrorist group with links to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, are but the latest instances in the history of persecution endured by this predominantly Shiite Muslim community.

The Hazara can be distinguished by their language, a variant of Persian called Hazaragi, by their physical features, as they closely resemble Mongolians and East Asians, and by their cultural traditions, which are most similar to Turkic peoples. Scholars speculate that the Hazara are descended in part from the Mongol warriors of Genghis Khan, who invaded Central Asia in the 13th Century. However, in the wake of this recent targeting by Sunni extremists, the Hazara have been defined primarily by their Shiite Muslim faith.

Tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims­–divisions that date back to the 8th century­–have often resurged in discrimination and sectarian violence across the region. In the 19th century, for example, the Sunni Pashtun Amir Abdur Rehman ensured that “more than half of the entire Hazara population was massacred or driven out of their villages” in Afghanistan. Some Hazara managed to escape to the city of Quetta in the Balochistan province of modern-day Pakistan, where their struggle for peace continues today.

The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the self-professed perpetrator of the most recent attacks, operates primarily in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The mission of the LeJ is to cleanse Pakistan from what it sees as “impurities” in the faith via targeted violence against Shiites, and specifically the Hazara Shiite population. In the letter of intent quoted from above, the LeJ issued a warning to Pakistani Hazara: leave Quetta by the end of the year or face death. Since 2012, Amnesty International has reported the deaths of around 500 Shiites in 91 attacks throughout Pakistan, a significant portion of whom were Hazara.

Although the LeJ cites religious motives for its attacks on Hazara, there are political and historical dimensions to the conflict as well. After the 1996 takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, many Hazara allied with the United Front (or Northern Alliance) when full-scale civil war erupted. As a result of their political opposition to the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, it has been speculated that the Hazara assist U.S. security efforts in the region. Considering the pervasive animosity towards the West in these countries, any perceived association with the U.S. is stigmatizing.

In response to anti-Hazara violence, the Pakistani government has been incompetent at best and complicit at worst. Despite an official ban of the LeJ in Pakistan in 2001 and its inclusion on the official U.S. list of terrorist organizations in 2003, the group functions with de facto impunity throughout Pakistan. The Hazara have been confronted in their places of work and worship, but they are no more safe in public spaces: armed men have been known to confront Hazara, regardless of gender or age, in marketplaces or on public buses, and shoot them point-blank. The government has not only failed to prevent these crimes, but it has also failed to consistently apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators. Many Hazara are murdered “in broad daylight” and often “gunmen do not even bother to cover their faces” because there has been no demonstration of state retribution.

According to Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi, a policy and defense analyst based in Islamabad, it is possible that the government overlooks attacks by the LeJ because there are other, more direct threats to state authority—like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)—that need to first be addressed. “The preference of the Pakistani state is to first go after those groups that challenge the Pakistani state, and just ignore the other groups. And that gives [groups such as the LeJ] enough space,” Dr, Rizvi explains. He also notes that strains of support for the LeJ and other extremist activities are widespread in the government because, historically “these militant groups have been allies of the state.” Consequently, the Pakistani military has adopted a “policy to appease and accommodate extremists.” Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch reiterates these connections and points out that the LeJ fighters have an “historical alliance” with Pakistan’s military establishment that dates back to when they jointly supported the Taliban in Afghanistan after the Soviet retreat in the 1990s. In other words, considering this history, it is likely that many military and government officials are sympathetic to the LeJ’s anti-Hazara mission.

Whether it’s a product of inadvertent facilitation or active involvement, the state is effectively enabling these hate crimes. As Aziz Hazara, the vice president of the Hazara Democratic Party, has stated, “The government is responsible for terrorist attacks and killings in the Hazara community because its security forces have not conducted operations against extremist groups… But our people are very peaceful people. We only demand this is my right, a human being’s right, we want security and nothing else.”

For Pakistani Hazara, there is little hope of escaping these grim circumstances. Their home in Quetta has become inhospitable. There are limited opportunities to make a living or go to school due to discrimination and violent attacks. Hazara enrollment at the University of Balochistan has dwindled from 300 students to none after a series of threats that culminated in a student bus bombing in June 2012. Many Hazara have surmounted numerous obstacles in a search for refuge from this terror. Hundreds have ventured to Australia, for example, despite the enormous costs and risks of such a dangerous journey. Various other nations and the international community at large could be doing much more to assist Hazara asylum-seekers, but the root of the problem must also be addressed. In order for the violence to stop, the Hazara community’s status as a distinct political and ethnic entity must be defended by the government of Pakistan. It is the state’s responsibility to seek out and prosecute the perpetrators of these attacks and ensure that the military is taking the appropriate measures to prevent this violence. Thousands of innocent lives are at stake.

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(Reuters) – A prominent leader of Pakistan’s ethnic Hazara minority narrowly escaped a suicide attack that killed six people on Tuesday, underscoring the growing threat militants pose to secular politicians in the run-up to next month’s general elections.

The blast in Quetta was the worst attack since a series of bombings in the city at the start of the year killed almost 200 people, briefly drawing global attention to a growing campaign of persecution of the Hazaras by sectarian militants.

The 500,000-strong community in Quetta has been subjected to an escalating campaign shootings and bombings by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), a militant group dedicated to attacking Pakistan’s Shi’ite Muslim minority, which includes the Hazaras.

Khaliq Hazara, the chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party, the main Hazara political organization, said the blast occurred shortly after he had finished addressing a small outdoor election meeting in a Hazara enclave in the east of the city.

“I was doing my campaigning in my own community,” Hazara told Reuters. “The government should give us security.”

Hazara, who is running for a National Assembly seat at the May 11 elections, said he suspected the bomber intended to kill him and his advisers. “We were the target,” he said.

LEJ’s spokesman claimed responsibility for the blast via telephone from an undisclosed location, though he did not specify whether the HDP leader was the target.

The HDP is a secular party that has emerged to press Pakistan’s government to take greater action to protect Hazaras from attacks that have killed hundreds of people in Quetta in recent years. The party’s previous chairman was shot dead in the city in 2009.

The proximity of the blast to the HDP gathering will fuel fears that Islamist militants are determined to disrupt campaigning by secular parties ahead of the polls, Pakistan’s first transition between elected civilian governments.

The suicide car bomber detonated his explosives-laden vehicle after being stopped at a nearby checkpoint manned by the paramilitary Frontier Corps, according to a security official. He said a member of the force was among the dead.

The blast occurred shortly after three smaller, hidden bombs exploded at various locations in the city, wounding nine people, police said.

LEJ’s activists subscribe to the hard-line Takfiri Deobandi school of Islam, which is followed by a small minority of Pakistanis. The most violent members see it is a sacred duty to kill Shi’ites, who are known in Pakistan as Shias.

Hazaras are both Shi’ites and members an ethnic minority who originally migrated from Afghanistan, leaving them vulnerable to a double layer of discrimination.

LeJ’s campaign of violence against the Hazaras has placed the community under siege in Quetta, leaving many people afraid to venture out of Hazara enclaves and disrupting business and education. Thousands of Hazaras have fled Quetta to seek asylum in Europe and Australia rather than face LeJ’s death squads.

In a separate attack on Tuesday, a bomb exploded in the commercial capital Karachi near a gathering of activists of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), the dominant political party in the city. Police said two people were killed.

The MQM, a secular party, is locked in a battle with various rival contenders for influence in Karachi, including Pakistan’s Taliban movement, which has sought to gain a foothold in various districts on the outskirts of the city in recent years.

The worst attack on an election event occurred last week when at least nine people were killed in bomb attack on a rally held by the Awami National Party in the north-western city of Peshawar.

The ANP, a secular party, is locked in a bitter struggle with Pakistan’s Taliban movement, which has staged numerous attacks on its members over the years and has vowed to step up its campaign in the run-up to the polls.

QUETTA, Pakistan, April 23 (Reuters) – A prominent leader of Pakistan’s ethnic Hazara minority narrowly escaped a suicide attack that killed six people on Tuesday, underscoring the growing threat militants pose to secular politicians in the run-up to next month’s general elections.

The blast in Quetta was the worst attack since a series of bombings in the city at the start of the year killed almost 200 people, briefly drawing global attention to a growing campaign of persecution of the Hazaras by sectarian militants.

The 500,000-strong community in Quetta has been subjected to an escalating campaign shootings and bombings by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), a militant group dedicated to attacking Pakistan’s Shi’ite Muslim minority, which includes the Hazaras.

Khaliq Hazara, the chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party, the main Hazara political organisation, said the blast occurred shortly after he had finished addressing a small outdoor election meeting in a Hazara enclave in the east of the city.

“I was doing my campaigning in my own community,” Hazara told Reuters. “The government should give us security.”

Hazara, who is running for a National Assembly seat at the May 11 elections, said he suspected the bomber intended to kill him and his advisers. “We were the target,” he said.

LEJ’s spokesman claimed responsibility for the blast via telephone from an undisclosed location, though he did not specify whether the HDP leader was the target.

The HDP is a secular party that has emerged to press Pakistan’s government to take greater action to protect Hazaras from attacks that have killed hundreds of people in Quetta in recent years. The party’s previous chairman was shot dead in the city in 2009.

The proximity of the blast to the HDP gathering will fuel fears that Islamist militants are determined to disrupt campaigning by secular parties ahead of the polls, Pakistan’s first transition between elected civilian governments.

The suicide car bomber detonated his explosives-laden vehicle after being stopped at a nearby checkpoint manned by the paramilitary Frontier Corps, according to a security official. He said a member of the force was among the dead.

The blast occurred shortly after three smaller, hidden bombs exploded at various locations in the city, wounding nine people, police said.

LEJ’s activists subscribe to the hard-line Takfiri Deobandi school of Islam, which is followed by a small minority of Pakistanis. The most violent members see it is a sacred duty to kill Shi’ites, who are known in Pakistan as Shias.

Hazaras are both Shi’ites and members an ethnic minority who originally migrated from Afghanistan, leaving them vulnerable to a double layer of discrimination.

LeJ’s campaign of violence against the Hazaras has placed the community under siege in Quetta, leaving many people afraid to venture out of Hazara enclaves and disrupting business and education. Thousands of Hazaras have fled Quetta to seek asylum in Europe and Australia rather than face LeJ’s death squads.

In a separate attack on Tuesday, a bomb exploded in the commercial capital Karachi near a gathering of activists of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), the dominant political party in the city. Police said two people were killed.

The MQM, a secular party, is locked in a battle with various rival contenders for influence in Karachi, including Pakistan’s Taliban movement, which has sought to gain a foothold in various districts on the outskirts of the city in recent years.

The worst attack on an election event occurred last week when at least nine people were killed in bomb attack on a rally held by the Awami National Party in the north-western city of Peshawar.

The ANP, a secular party, is locked in a bitter struggle with Pakistan’s Taliban movement, which has staged numerous attacks on its members over the years and has vowed to step up its campaign in the run-up to the polls. (Writing by Matthew Green; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Photo Archive, Hazara genocide in quetta
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A Hazara, Mohammad Bashir son of Shah Wali was hit by the Saudi funded terrorists of Sipah-e-Sahaba (Yazeed) and Taliban, when he was going to somewhere when the terrorists opened fire upon him. He  was shifted to CMH Hospital Quetta for treatment where his condition is said to be critical.

Hazara leaders have condemned the murder’s attempt of Mohammad Bashir. They demanded arrest of the killers and exemplary punishment to them.