Hazara Nation

TheAge murder suspect will be extradited to Western Australia after security guards had to force him from his Melbourne jail cell to face court.

Osman Ahmadyar, 32, of Dandenong, refused to budge from his cell to face the extradition hearing after being charged with the murder of Afghan refugee Abed Ahymad Shah, 29, in Perth.

Shah's body was found in a unit in the southern Perth suburb of Victoria Park by his housemate about 1pm (WDT) on Saturday.

Ahmadyar allegedly travelled from Melbourne to Perth before the murder and returned to Melbourne on Saturday.

Victorian police applied to extradite Ahmadyar to Perth to face a charge of murder, but the Melbourne Magistrates Court was told on Tuesday he was refusing to leave his cell and would not speak to anyone.

He had refused to speak to a legal aid lawyer, an interpreter or a psychiatric liaison officer, the court was told.

He had a major depressive illness but was not deemed catatonic.

After one magistrate stood down from the matter because he was not "robust" enough to force Ahmadyar out of his cell, the Afghan national was eventually brought to court by security guards.

He was handcuffed and looked down for the entire hearing.

At one point, he broke down when given a chance to speak.

Through an interpreter, Ahmadyar said he had spent most of his time in hospitals since coming to Australia from Afghanistan, but did not elaborate.

"I don't know what I did," he said through the interpreter.

After Ahmadyar's initial refusal to leave his cell, Magistrate Duncan Reynolds said he was not prepared to make an order to forcibly bring him to court and stood down from hearing the matter.

"I just can't see that I've got the power," Mr Reynolds said.

He suggested another magistrate might be "more robust" in meeting the police request.

Magistrate Elizabeth Lambden ordered Ahmadyar be extradited to WA to face Perth Magistrates Court on Friday.

ana Greece's supreme administrative court, the Council of State, has revoked a ministerial decision denying asylum to an unaccompanied minor from Afghanistan, who had entered Greece as an illegal immigrant in November 2001.

The young man, then aged just 15, and had been arrested by the Kos coast guard when he attempted to enter Greece from neighbouring Turkey, unaccompanied by a parent or guardian. His application to be given asylum as a political refugee, claiming fear of persecution in his native Afghanistan due to his racial background and religion, had been denied by the then public order ministry three times.

Specifically, the boy claimed to be a Shi'ite Muslim of the Hazara tribe and that he had been forced to leave Afghanistan due to the civil war and the religious and political turmoil in his native country, believing that he would be personally targeted if he returned. He had also requested to be given a temporary residence permit on humanitarian grounds.

Since arriving in Greece, the youth had been living in a hostel for underage minors on Crete, where he had been attending classes.

The CoS revoked the ministry's decision as insufficiently justified, finding that the ministry had failed to observe laws that obliged it to investigate the validity of the claims put forward by the boy, who as a minor was entitled to a special protective status and guarantees under international, European and Greek laws.

The CoS decision noted, also, that the ministry had failed to assign a special temporary commissioner to the minor, as it was obliged to do.

JG At least six Indonesians charged with people smuggling are undergoing trials in Perth, Western Australia, the Indonesian Consulate in the state capital said on Thursday.

Consular official Ricky Suhendar said Abdul Hamid, 35, and Amos Ndolo, 58, are awaiting sentences after pleading guilty to people smuggling. The charge carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years in jail.

Abdul, of Dompu, Bima, West Nusa Tenggara Province, was arrested by Australian police near Ashmore Reef in the Indian Ocean between Indonesia and Australia, on Sept. 29, 2008. He was caught attempting to smuggle 12 asylum seekers from Iran and Afghanistan into Australia.

Amos Ndolo, a resident of Rote Island, Flores, East Nusa Tenggara Province, was arrested after he was found with 14 refugees aboard his boat on Oct. 6, 2008.

“The [sentencing] of Amos Ndolo and Abdul Hamid is expected next month,” Ricky said.

TheAge EIGHT Afghan asylum seekers rescued by the navy from a sinking boat off Western Australia last year will be flown to the mainland after the Immigration Department found they would face persecution or death if returned to their homeland.

The decision to grant the permanent protection visas comes less than a week after 28 Afghan and Iranian asylum seekers — the first group to be processed on Christmas Island under the Rudd Government — were also found to be refugees.

One of the eight Afghans, a medical doctor and human rights activist, told The Age from Christmas Island he was forced to flee his homeland after being shot twice.

"I have the scars of these bullets on my body," he said through a Dari interpreter.

The man, who asked that his name not be used until he reached the mainland, said he was from the Hazara ethnic minority group, which was targeted by the Taliban.

"Eighty-five per cent of Afghanistan is now covered by people of al-Qaeda and the Taliban," he said.

The man, who practised as a GP in Afghanistan, said one of his "deepest desires" was to become a cardiologist to "pay back the good deeds of the Australian people".

"I want to convey my deepest appreciation to the Government of Australia and the people of Australia," he said.

The eight Afghan adults and two children, who are already in Adelaide, were rescued by HMAS Ararat on November 19, after Coastwatch spotted their sinking ship — which had a broken engine and hole in the hull — about 150 kilometres from Ashmore Island.

Their lawyer David Manne, from the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre, welcomed the Government's "prompt and efficient processing of the claims".

"This represents a vast improvement on past practice of prolonged processing, which caused such unnecessary and huge human and financial cost," he said.

Mr Manne said the Afghans were the direct victims of a vicious and unrelenting pattern of human rights abuse targeting minorities.

"They fled from brutality and terror inflicted by the Taliban and other extremists — exactly the same elements which Australia and other Western countries have been battling against," he said.

The decision to grant the men visas comes as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, this week told the Security Council the number of refugees world-wide had increased to more than 11 million over the past two years.

Mr Guterres said 3 million Afghans remained in exile in Pakistan and Iran.

Eight boats of mostly Afghan, Iranian and Sri Lankan asylum seekers have been intercepted in Australian waters in the past four months, with the most recent arriving off the coast of Western Australia last Sunday.

Although the number of unauthorised arrivals rose only slightly in 2008 to 164, compared with 148 the previous year, the Government's border protection scheme has come under intense scrutiny.

While human rights activists and immigration lawyers have applauded the scrapping of temporary protection visas and faster processing times, the Opposition has claimed this has made Australia a "soft target" for people smugglers. Read the full story

ToL A new wave of boat people to Australia has forced the government to open a controversial detention centre on a tiny Indian Ocean island nearly 1000 miles off the coast.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's government had been resisting pressure to open the detention centre on Christmas Island, criticised by its own MPs and refugee workers as harsh and 'prison like.'

Mr Rudd had inherited the Christmas Island facility from the previous government of John Howard, but had consistently argued that the $A400 million (£180m) centre, which was completed only a few months ago, would not be used as it was not family friendly.

Michael Danby MP, the head of a parliamentary delegation that visited the centre earlier this year described it as a "stalag" and a "grandiose waste of money".

Refugee advocates who toured the facilities in August criticised the high security facility as "prison like".

In a letter to Chris Evans, the Immigration minister, Amnesty International reminded him of "the damage done to people's mental and physical health by detaining them in remote, high security detention centres such as this."

But a spate of refugees arriving by boat has forced the government into an about turn. Australian authorities have intercepted seven boats trying to make it to Australia, with 164 suspected asylum seekers on board, in the past three months.

The most recent arrivals were intercepted on Tuesday, 100 miles north east of Darwin. The boatload of 37 suspected refugees will be the first asylum seekers to be housed at the detention centre.

The Rudd government has recently come under fire for relaxing its policies on asylum seekers which some have blamed for the recent spate of boat people.

Since coming to power a year ago, the government has instituted a number of changes to migration policy, which under John Howard had been notoriously hard-line.

One of its first acts was to end the so-called Pacific Solution - a policy of compulsory detention for asylum seekers, who were sent to offshore institutions on Papua New Guinea and Nauru to make it impossible for them to apply for refugee status in Australia.

It has also ended the system of temporary-protection visas for refugees, a move that has led to accusations from the Liberal opposition that it is turning Australia into a 'soft touch' for people smugglers.

Last month, Indonesian officials arrested an Iranian they described as the head of a people smuggling racket responsible for an influx of mainly Iraqi and Afghan refugees to the shores of Asutralia.

The Immigration Department said in a statement today: "The government's policy is to open the new facility when numbers and separation arrangements required it."

It said women,children and family groups would not be detained at the facility but would be housed in other accomodation on the island.

NZH Abdulrahman Ikhtiari beat almost insurmountable odds to bring his family to freedom. But their dreams turned to a nightmare.

Abdulrahman Ikhtiari clung to his family and prayed for their survival as the wooden boat taking them to their new life began sinking.

As the boat crammed with terrified refugees floated aimlessly on the Indian Ocean, he was hoping for another chance at life free from persecution at the hands of the Taleban in his homeland of Afghanistan.

Mr Ikhtiari would make it through this traumatic ordeal at sea, and find this prized new life for his family in Christchurch, only for it to be taken in a mindless act of violence a few years later. Two teenagers have been charged with Mr Ikhtiari's murder after he was stabbed in his taxi last weekend.

Old friends told his story at his funeral in his adopted home town yesterday. Seven years ago Mr Ikhtiari was facing death off the Australian coast on the dilapidated 20m fishing boat KM Palapa. Around him more than 400 other refugees, including pregnant women and toddlers, were crying and throwing up in the ocean swells.

They had paid thousands of American dollars for transport on the cramped fishing vessel from Indonesia to Australia, after travelling various routes from Afghanistan.

Mr Ikhtiari's cousin, Mohammad Ikhtiari, was on the boat with him. He remembers them praying together and the calmness his cousin displayed. But as the boat buckled and seawater poured in, they feared the worst.

"Maybe we die at any time. For three days we don't know. It was a very hard time," said Hamidullah Habibi, a friend of Mr Ikhtiari who was also on the boat.

Then, as the panic grew, some on board spotted a dark spot on the horizon and suddenly there was hope. The now famous Norwegian vessel Tampa came into view and the refugees cried with relief.

The refugees, short of food and water, slept in shipping containers or on the exposed deck of the Tampa as they awaited their fate.

Abdulrahman Ikhtiari had a better grasp of English than most, and was able to speak to the Tampa's captain as frantic negotiations were taking place over the radio. Eventually, they would travel to temporary detention on the Pacific island of Nauru under Australian military escort.

Mr Habibi remembers being shown a laptop computer by an Australian Army officer with the news to give them all hope. "It shows [then Prime Minister] Helen Clark wants to take 150 people who have families. We [were] very, very happy."

Abdulrahman's wife and five children were among those Tampa refugees accepted into New Zealand. They set up in Christchurch with others from the Hazara tribe who had been on board the Tampa.

Mr Ikhtiari had to spend a month in the Mangere Resettlement Centre before he could join them in May 2002.

Trying to adapt to the new culture and language was not easy, but his family at least had security.

Friend Baryalai Waziri said: "He was feeling very free, and feeling very safe in New Zealand. And he was very happy to get his children educated in New Zealand."

It was a tragedy that such a quiet family man who "never had a quarrel with people" should die like this.

Mr Waziri spoke to Mr Ikhtiari a week before he was killed and asked him how his taxi driving job was going.

"He said he was not happy with the business, but he had to do it because his wife is a student at the polytech studying language. He could not support the family with the benefit he was getting from the Work and Income."

"He said there was risk involved and there were lots of people who get very aggressive and they attack the driver."

TheAUSEIGHT years after arriving in Australia as a stateless refugee on a leaky fishing boat, the man whose detention prompted a High Court judge to call for a bill of rights has urged the nation to back stronger human rights protection to prevent a repeat of his ordeal.

Ahmed Ali al-Kateb, who suffers persistent panic attacks and nightmares about life in Western Australia's Curtin and South Australia's Baxter detention centres, was pleased his case had helped to trigger discussion about a bill of rights.

Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland this week announced a national consultation headed by Jesuit priest Frank Brennan to canvass community attitudes to human rights protections.

Former SBS newsreader Mary Kostakidis, former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Palmer and Aboriginal barrister Tammy Williams will help Father Brennan with the consultations next year.

Mr al-Kateb, 32, said he hoped basic rights would be enshrined in legislation to prevent the possibility of refugees being locked up indefinitely.

Recalling his time in detention, the still-shattered civil engineering student said: "They said we will not let you out.

"That goes on and on. I just believe that I'm waiting for my death. With the days, months and years, it really killed most things inside, it killed the hopes, the dreams, the innocent child inside me. My hope is that a bill of rights would stop that happening to anyone else."

A boat carrying Mr al-Kateb was intercepted by the navy on Ashmore Reef after leaving Indonesia in December 2000.

The son of Palestinian refugees, his journey began 10 years ago, when he left his birth country of Kuwait for Jordan after violence escalated against Palestinians.

After being denied an Australian protection visa, he asked to be sent back to Kuwait or to Gaza, where his family now lives. When no country wanted him, he asked to be released from detention.

But the High Court ruled the Government could detain him indefinitely.

In the lead-up to last year's election, then immigration minister Kevin Andrews finally granted him a permanent visa.

Mr al-Kateb's case is seen as a watershed, leading to agitation for greater human rights protections, although there are many leaders from both sides of politics who have argued just as passionately against a rights charter.

One of the majority High Court judges in the case, Michael McHugh, argued for a bill of rights to prevent legal rulings with "tragic" consequences.

For Mr al-Kateb, the High Court decision was the lowest point in his life.

Theage

A refugee who was refused entry to Australia amid the Tampa scandal in 2001 has been killed working as a taxi driver in New Zealand.

Abdulrahman Ikhtiari fled persecution in his native Afghanistan seven years ago.

One of 438 asylum-seekers rescued by the MV Tampa from a sinking fishing boat off WA in August 2001, he was refused entry to Australia and subsequently taken to New Zealand.

The 39-year-old father-of-five was killed during a night shift in Christchurch on Saturday night. He was found in his taxi with a single stab wound to the chest.

Police had yet to find two men believed to have been the United Taxi driver's last fare, press.co.nz said.

The United Taxis fleet does not have alarm systems or cameras.

Ikhtiari's home in Bryndwr was a sombre scene yesterday, press.co.nz said.

More than 30 taxi drivers and members of the Afghan community were at the home to lend support to the family.

Ikhtiari's wife, Ziagul, and his children aged six to 14, had been moved to a different address and were suffering extreme distress.

A family spokesman, who declined to be named, expressed concern for Ikhtiari's widow, who was "very frail".

"She can't cope," he said.

Christchurch man Ali Tausif said Ikhtiari was known in the Christchurch Muslim community as a "very quiet, polite person".

Hagley Community College associate principal Rex Gibson said members of Ikhtiari's extended family worked at the college and Ikhtiari volunteered at the school's refugee homework program.

Ikhtiari came to New Zealand after persecution of his Hazara ethnic group in Afghanistan by the ruling Taliban.

He was aboard the container ship the MV Tampa which created international headlines when it rescued him and more than 400 other Afghan refugees from a distressed fishing vessel but then was refused access to Australian ports.

New Zealand took 131 of the 438 asylum-seekers (including about 40 unaccompanied boys) rescued by the Tampa.

WHEN Maryam Hossein releases the handbrake and pulls away from the kerb for her first driving lesson, it will be more than just her maiden journey behind the wheel.

For the 23-year-old refugee it will be the latest step in a journey that began when her parents were forced to flee Afghanistan for Iran during the Russian occupation in the early 1980s.

By learning to drive, she is doing something once virtually impossible for women in her home country — and fast-tracking her integration into Australian society.

She is not alone; Ms Hossein is one of 28 Afghan women, including her 41-year-old mother and 19-year-old sister, attending a driving school in Dandenong designed to help recent refugee arrivals gain their licences.

"This is a very good opportunity for Afghani women," she said. "All of the things we need in life, like going to the doctors or school, mean that we have to drive."

Traditionally, very few women drove in Afghanistan's male-dominated society, a situation that worsened under Taliban rule when they were denied the right to drive and forced to remain at home.

This has caused problems for the Afghan community in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, which comprises around 3000 families.

Female-only families such as the Hosseins have been practically immobile and unable to get access to the services needed to integrate into society.

"It was causing a lot of stress as men were under pressure to handle the settlement process for their families and provide for them financially with houses and cars while the women were totally dependent," said Abbas Amiry, co-ordinator of the driving school.

"By running this course we want to give women the opportunity to drive and at the same time increase their self-confidence and self-worth so that they really feel part of the community here in Australia."

The driving school is run by the Association of Hazaras in Victoria, assisted by $19,700 in funding from the Transport Accident Commission and a car provided by Adult Multicultural Education Services.

It is already oversubscribed. The women, who range from 18-year-olds to mothers with five or more children, is halfway through a series of sessions run by senior community members, alongside Vic Roads, Victoria Police and Ambulance Victoria, in which they are taught road rules and driving theory. It is an essential precursor to taking control of a vehicle as not only do they come from a country without road rules but, according to Aisha Mahboob, a female Afghan driving instructor from Hampton Park, some women she has taught had never sat in a car before moving to Australia.

Ms Mahboob, who moved to Australia 11 years ago, has helped about 50 Afghan women learn to drive since becoming an instructor in 2006, often giving lessons for free.

She said: "The women can handle the car very well after just five lessons, but they don't know the rules of the road so this course is very important.

"Most have realised they need to drive to get their kids to school or to get to work and now they have the chance to get up and do it."

Once the women have finished learning the theory, the driving school will fund their first five lessons with Ms Mahboob. After that, they hope members of the local community will come forward to act as volunteer trainers.

Mr Amiry says plans are in place to bring in professional instructors who will train people to act as mentors who can guide the women through extra hours of driving practice as they work towards qualification.

"We need the support of the mainstream community," he said. "I came to Australia on a boat and entered society as a TPV holder, which meant I couldn't go to school without paying, but I received amazing support from volunteers.

"They made a huge difference to my life and I hope people will be willing to help us again."

Ms Hossein, from Dandenong, who supports her mother and younger sister, said: "I'm very happy to have this chance.

"It would have been very expensive for us to learn to drive with another company, but now we are able to learn a lot."

The age

GHOLAM Ali spent 18 months in detention on Nauru after being rescued by the Tampa in August 2001, but is so determined to reach Australia he paid people-smugglers thousands of dollars to try again

Mr Ali, 45, was deported to Afghanistan after his time on Nauru as part of the Howard government's Pacific solution for asylum-seekers.

He says he was among the 433 people rescued by the Norwegian freighter from a sinking 20m fishing boat north of Christmas Island.

After the rescue, the Tampa's captain, Arne Rinnan, was refused permission by Australia to offload the boatpeople, most of them ethnic Hazaras from Afghanistan.

The incident led to international condemnation but scored domestic political points for John Howard ahead of that year's election.

But the father of four now pins his hopes on Nauru's abandonment as a refugee processing centre and the Rudd Government's abolition of mandatory detention. Little matter that his second attempt has so far also ended in failure.

"If people in Australia know I was on the Tampa, I hope they will know I am a good person and accept me now," Mr Ali says at an immigration detention centre at Dowa on the Indonesia island of Sulawesi, where he was arrested eight months ago.

"If I wasn't really in danger in Afghanistan, why would I try again after I saw death in the face on the Tampa.

"If the government has changed, I'm very happy; I find some hope now, that maybe this Government will pay some attention to me, it might help me."

Mr Ali is part of a new wave of asylum-seekers that has seen five boats intercepted in Australian waters in the past two months, but despite his optimism the Rudd Government was yesterday maintaining its tough rhetoric.

Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus pledged that Canberra's policy would stay as tough as the Howard government's. "There will be no diminution in the border patrol effort over the Christmas period," he said.

Of the five asylum-seeker boats intercepted in the past two months, four were from Indonesia and one probably arrived directly from Sri Lanka, he said.

In the latest interception, on Tuesday, a vessel believed to be operated by Indonesian-based people-smugglers was intercepted carrying 35 passengers and five crew near Ashmore Reef, off northwest Western Australia. They are being taken to Christmas Island for processing.

The five boats intercepted this year compare with five last year and six in 2006.

Efforts to crack down on people-smuggling had not been aided by corrupt officials at the Indonesian embassy in Kabul processing visas for Afghans, Immigration Minister Chris Evans said.

As revealed in The Australian yesterday, embassy officials in Kabul have been demanding up to $US1500 in cash for Indonesian visas, marking the first leg of a journey asylum-seekers hope will end in Australia.

Senator Evans was unable to confirm whether any action had been taken to stamp out the racket. "I'm aware there's been a visa scam in Kabul," he said

"We remain aware and the Indonesian Government remains aware of it. But it's a matter for them to resolve."

Senator Evans said the Government had "reinvigorated" efforts with Indonesia to eradicate people-smuggling. "It has remained a major threat to us throughout the year. Numbers of arrivals have gone up and down but activities have been maintained, our efforts at interdiction have been maintained," he said.

Mr Ali carries with him a photograph of a friend, Mosa Nazari, who he says was killed by ethnic Pashtun fighters after they were sent home from Nauru to Afghanistan's troubled eastern province of Ghazni. After 18 months in Ghazni, Mr Ali said, he paid a people smuggler $US6000 to get him to Indonesia via Malaysia for the second attempt. All went well, including a boat trip from Kuala Lumpur to Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, but arriving in Indonesia without a visa - or even a passport - was a mistake.

"The smuggler took my passport in Malaysia and said he would organise the visa. He cheated me," he said. He has since been telling his wife, still in Afghanistan with their children, to wait, even though she is nervous. After a month in Jakarta, Mr Ali flew to Kupang in West Timor, where he was arrested and eventually taken to the refugee processing centre in Gowa, outside the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar.

He shares the facility with 68 others - a handful of Afghans, who are all ethnic Hazaras like Mr Ali, as well as stateless Kurds, Iraqis, Sri Lankans, Pakistanis and Vietnamese.

Another Afghan at the centre, Mohammad Taleb, said the Rudd Government's immigration policy changes were welcome news. "We already made the decision to go to Australia," he said. "We know it's dangerous but a whole part of my village was killed. What else can we do?"

from the australian Read the full story

The AUS
CORRUPT staff at the Indonesian embassy in Kabul are selling visas for $US1500 ($2350), the starting point in an organised people-smuggling racket, according to members of the Afghan community in Australia.

The Immigration Department has been advised of the allegations and has notified Indonesian authorities.

On Monday, The Australian reported that the International Organisation for Migration chief-of-mission in Indonesia Steve Cook had identified a "considerable" increase in people-smuggling activity - a trend he in part attributed to changes to Australia's refugee policy.

Immigration Minister Chris Evans said that while there had been an increase in people-smuggling, it was not due to the policy change.

Hassan Ghulam, an ethnic Hazara community leader living in Brisbane, said worsening security in Kabul had forced the price of the Indonesian visas up from $US1200 four months ago to the current price of $US1500.



"This is because the people are very eager to leave to Indonesia and then try their luck with a smuggler and get on a boat to come to Australia," Mr Ghulam told The Australian.

More than 100 visas had been issued so far, he said, basing his estimate on information provided by members of the Afghan community in Australia and those still in Afghanistan.

Impoverished Afghans wanting a better life in Australia were selling their worldly possessions to buy a visa, he said.

The process involved paying a middleman with contacts inside the Indonesian embassy, Mr Ghulam said.

After the cash was handed over it normally took between 24 and 48 hours for the visa to be issued.

Mr Ghulam said Australian officials had known about the visa racket for months. A spokesman for the Immigration Department yesterday confirmed it was aware of the reports.

A senior Indonesian Foreign Ministry official, who asked not to be named, did not deny the claims.

"Whatever is the case, these are forged or illegal visas because we have a strict code of issuing visas from conflict areas," the official said.

"If this is the case, we will conduct our own investigation. This will be a good opportunity to clean out our house from our side."

The official said Jakarta was committed to co-operating with the Rudd Government in tackling the problem of people-smuggling. In Indonesia, an official from the sub-directorate for immigration and detention, Ahmad Khumaidi, confirmed there had been a slight rise in the number of Afghan irregular migrants arriving in Indonesia.

An irregular migrant either lacked immigration permits or was in the country on a lapsed one, he said.

Mr Khumaidi, who was unaware of the reports that visas were being sold illegally from Kabul, said 15 Afghan would-be asylum-seekers had been detained by police on November 3 in Serang, West Java, as they were preparing to leave for Australia.

The revelations come at a sensitive time for the Rudd Government. The Opposition charges that there has been a recent surge in boatpeople arriving from Indonesia.

In question time on Monday, Kevin Rudd said there had been only four boat arrivals this year carrying a total of 48 passengers.

"The critical question is how we co-operate with our friends in the international community, most particularly in the Republic of Indonesia, in dealing with this challenge," the Prime Minister said.

Immigration Minister Chris Evans said people smugglers were moving "up the supply chain" and recruiting customers directly from source countries, making it harder for authorities to track their movements.

Yesterday, the Liberal Party moved to shore up its tough reputation on border security following the release of a dissenting report by two backbenchers calling for a radical overhaul of mandatory detention.

Malcolm Turnbull addressed a session of the joint partyroom in Canberra yesterday, telling his colleagues there had been no change in the Coalition's position on the subject.

"We are the party of secure borders," the Opposition leader said.

"We must not encourage people smugglers."
Read the full story

SMH By Glenda Kwek.
Maria Mehr has just spent her first day as the only 21-year-old in year 10 at Condell Park High School.

But her age is not the only reason she stands out. While her classmates are spending their teenage years going to the movies and the beach, Mehr spent hers selling cigarettes on the polluted, dangerous streets of Tehran - forced to help support her desperate Afghan refugee family.

Mehr knows she stands out in her class of 15-year-olds and is nervous about her English, but says her first day at high school was one of the happiest of her life.

Mehr's journey to Australia from Afghanistan has been long and tumultuous. Her parents and six siblings spent more than

11 years in Iran after they fled the Taliban in Kabul in 1996. But their new home presented new difficulties and the family soon faced a day-to-day struggle to keep afloat through working on the streets of Tehran with no prospect of a formal education.

When Mehr's sister, Sania, now 16, asked why Iranian children wore identical clothes and carried a bag, she was told that they were on their way to school. "Why can't I join them?" she asked her mother. "My mum said to me, 'Because we are Afghani and the Iranian Government doesn't allow Afghanis to learn, to go to a school.' " The sense of rejection the Mehr family experienced during their years as refugees in Iran lingers. For these Afghan children, their only memory of their homeland was of being caught in conflict. When they arrived in Tehran they were deemed outcasts and deprived of financial, educational or social support. Forced to work illegally, the seven children and their father took to the polluted roads of the city, selling cigarettes and lollies. Many Iranians were resentful of refugees at a time of high unemployment. Iran has 1 million registered refugees and the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR estimates there are at least another million unofficially living there.

When Mehr's family arrived, unemployment was running at 12 per cent, and more than 20 per cent for those aged 15 to 29, who make up 36 per cent of the population. Even the UNHCR ended its education support to refugees in 2004, preferring instead to focus its resources on voluntary repatriation to Afghanistan.

Mehr tells how people on the streets would swear at her and her parents when they heard her conversing with them in Dari, their Afghan dialect. "The Iranian Government does not respect us, so the people look at the Government and follow," she says.

"I'm Muslim, but I wear the cross sometimes. You have to respect others," she says, fingering the cross around her neck.

Sania Mehr told of how, at five years old, she was spat at, hit and told that she was a "dirty Afghani who should go home" when she was working on the streets.

There are about 30,000 children, many under 15, who work on Tehran's roads. Throughout Iran they number 200,000, non-government organisations estimate. Like Mehr, many of them are Afghani. They have a high mortality rate - 100 to 150 die every month from malnutrition and disease, according to the Iranian newspaper Dowran Emrooz.

But there was a ray of hope. An Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel laureate, Shirin Ebadi, set up the Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child, which established a school and medical clinic staffed by volunteers.

Word spread quickly among the street children, and before long the Mehr sisters were attending English and Farsi (a Persian dialect) classes in a crumbling building in Soosh, a poor suburb in southern Tehran.

They quickly became familiar with the makeshift classrooms. Like the other children, they were happy to attend school whenever they could. It offered a respite from the heat and hard work of the streets, and they enjoyed the attention they received from the teachers and doctors, something often lacking in their interactions with other Iranians.

When the Herald visited the centre in May, children burst in and out of the single-storey building, their dust-covered clothes and slippers barely soiling the powdery walls already marked by years of neglect.

Two young Iranian doctors, Mohammad Tosefi and Mamak Hashemi, tended to the 30-odd children and family members who came to seek their medical advice.

When a lanky boy with a scarred cheek approached Dr Tosefi he set to work quickly, laying him down on a classroom table while reassuring him in a low voice. A curious group of children gathered around the pair, watching as the doctor placed leeches on the boy's cheek. "The skin's rotten," he said.

Dr Hashemi has been visiting the centre for more than two years.

"There are many problems with them [the children]," she says. "[The parents] are poorly educated and they don't know how to bring up their children and there are many cases of child abuse. Many of these children work. These are very bad things. They need love very much."

The sisters contributed to a magazine set up by one of their favourite teachers, Bahram Rahimi. It was his way of helping the refugee children express their thoughts about their old life in Afghanistan and their new life in Iran. The current editions are glossy with snazzy graphics, but Mehr still treasures the first edition, a black-and-white booklet, handfolded and stapled. Her voice softens when she flips to a story written by a young Afghan boy. "He is writing about his parents and how he is sad after they died in Afghanistan," she says. "I cried when I read it.

After five years of struggle in Iran, with Mehr's father earning only 200,000 tomans ($250) a month working at a mirror store, the family decided to leave Iran. But it took them years to find a way out. "We tried all the embassies but they always said no," Mehr says. "Even our uncle [who came to Australia 18 years ago] tried to help us come to Australia, but couldn't."

Rahimi referred them to a friend, who worked for the International Organisation for Migration. They were asked to write a letter about their situation and their father's fear of retribution from the Taliban if they returned to Afghanistan. Two years and four interviews later, the Mehr family obtained refugee visas from Australia. "We went to the Australian embassy to pick up our visas on 29 March, 2007," Mehr says proudly.

On May 2 last year the family arrived in Australia, with another 1401 Afghans, who were granted humanitarian visas in 2006-07, about 11 per cent of the total intake. They were provided with a Dari-speaking case officer and lived in government housing at Mount Druitt for three months, with assistance from Centrelink and Medicare.

The Mehrs now live in Sydney's south-west in a house rented from Granville Presbyterian Church. They live simply.

Yet Mehr knows her family is lucky. Many of her fellow Afghan friends remain in Iran, trapped in poverty, while others have returned to Afghanistan and are uncontactable. "After 10 years, we have had to start all over again," she says. "But I am very, very happy here."

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ABC
Federal Immigration Minister Chris Evans says he has no plans to meet a group of detainees reported to be on a hunger strike.

The Refugee Action Coalition says more than 100 detainees at Sydney's Villawood detention centre are refusing food in protest against Australia's immigration laws and are seeking a meeting with Senator Evans.

"They're actually meeting to draw up a delegation of people who would be available to meet with the Minister to try and sort out the problems," spokesman Ian Rintoul said.

A spokesman for the Immigration Minister says it is unclear how many people are on a hunger strike but Immigration Department officials will visit Villawood to hear their concerns.

The spokesman says two-thirds of the 126 people held at Villawood are visa overstayers who have no right to be in Australia.

He says food and water are constantly available and the people on the hunger strike are under medical observation.
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asahi

Afghans seeking refugee status in Japan are finding themselves backed into a corner, faced with a government that appears unsympathetic to their plight and the resurgence of the Taliban, from whom they fled, at home.

Denied refugee status and unable to return to Afghanistan, where the Taliban-led insurgency has destabilized conditions, many live in limbo.

Some have been driven to the edge, developing mental illnesses or attempting suicide.

The number of Afghans seeking refuge here started to swell in the late 1990s, as the fundamentalist Taliban took power. Formed mainly of ethnic Pashtun, the Taliban set about persecuting other ethnic groups in the landlocked country and imposing its extreme form of Islam.

According to Justice Ministry figures, 256 applications for refugee status had been filed by Afghans here at the end of 2005. Just 23 applicants were recognized as refugees, and 87 were granted special residency permits due to "humanitarian considerations."

The tally is a far cry from the number accepted in other industrialized countries. According to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, as of the end of 2007, Germany had accepted 24,236 Afghan refugees, Britain 23,565 and the Netherlands 17,296.

Despair over his uncertain future drove asylum seeker Manocheher, 34, to start a hunger strike in mid-September.

"The Japanese government does not recognize me as a human being," he said. "I'm exhausted."

For now, Manocheher has found shelter at a Catholic church in Osaka.

He belongs to the Hazara ethnic group, which was persecuted under Taliban rule, and said his older brother was taken by Taliban in the early 1990s, and he has not seen or heard from him since.

After fleeing across the porous border to Pakistan, Manocheher helped to import used Japanese cars. He arrived in Japan on a short-term visa in late 2000 and managed to extend his stay.

He applied for refugee status the following year but was rejected. He was ordered to be deported back to his country.

While he filed suit seeking a nullification of the deportation order, the Osaka District Court upheld the order in September 2007. The presiding judge ruled that Manocheher was not likely to face persecution as the Taliban regime had been toppled in the U.S.-led war.

Manocheher took his battle to the highest levels of the court system, but the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal in October.

He has been granted a provisional release from detention pending deportation by the Osaka Regional Immigration Bureau, but is banned from working and is ineligible to apply for national health insurance. He is also prohibited from leaving Osaka Prefecture without permission.

Manocheher, in his severely weakened state, ended his hunger strike after 20 days following a dream in which he "saw" his mother. He had lost contact with her since last seeing her about 15 years ago.

With tears in her eyes, his mother chided him and told him to "eat properly" in the dream. The next day, he agreed to let an Afghan friend feed him.

The despair felt by Manocheher is not uncommon among Afghans. In 2002, a 28-year-old man seeking refugee status committed suicide in Aichi Prefecture after apparently agonizing over the prolonged process and his inability to pay medical fees without national health insurance coverage.

In 2004, an Afghan man received hospital treatment in Tokyo after cutting his arms with a box cutter and swallowing the blade in an attempted suicide. His application for refugee status had just been rejected.

Supporters say at least one other man is receiving psychiatric care.

"We need to create a system under which they can live without fear," said Atsuko Matsuura, a member of the Social Action Center of Catholic Archdiocese of Osaka based in the city's Chuo Ward.

Meanwhile, an official with the Justice Ministry's Immigration Bureau said the government "objectively takes into consideration the current situation of the country in question" before deciding whether to deport an asylum seeker.

"As a result, there are cases where it takes time to reach a conclusion," the official said.(IHT/Asahi: November 4,2008)
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TheAge

IN THE depths of the harsh Afghan winter early this year, Abdul Azmin Rajabi took an Australian with him on a pilgrimage to the graves of his two daughters.

Mr Rajabi placed his hands on the snow-covered tombstones marking where his children now lie, and told Phil Glendenning, the director of the Edmund Rice Centre: "I put my life in danger to help my family, to help my children, but I couldn't."

Mr Rajabi is one of 400 Afghans Australia rejected under the Howard government's "Pacific Solution". His story, along with many others, is told in a documentary, A Well-Founded Fear, to be screened on SBS next month.

He had reason to fear the Taliban in 2001. His family had connections to the previous communist government, and as if this wasn't reason enough for the Taliban to want him dead, he had given up his Islamic faith and had married outside his tribal group.

The Taliban came looking for him and captured his father, who refused to say where his son was. So he was beaten with electrical cords. "When he came home he was unable to walk or talk or sit," the son says in the documentary.. "His entire body was blackened with bruises."

He died two days later. So Mr Rajabi fled to Australia, leaving behind his wife and children, in hiding in Iran, waiting until they could join him.

How his two young daughters came to be killed by the Taliban a year later is a tragic consequence of Australia's refusal to grant this Afghan father asylum when he came begging for refuge, say the makers of the documentary.

The decision to embark on such a perilous journey to Australia, aided by people smugglers, was a hard one. "I consoled myself hoping that, although separated from my family, at least I would find a way to keep myself and my family alive," Mr Rajabi says.

Mr Rajabi, a member of the persecuted Hazara ethnic group in Afghanistan, arrived on Nauru in late 2001, where his claim for asylum was rejected and he was given no right of appeal.

He tells Mr Glendenning, whose search for rejected asylum seekers is at the heart of the program, that Immigration officials told him it was safe to go back. They offered to give him $2000 to return "voluntarily", or face indefinite detention. "They told us that even if we stayed there for 10 years we would never be accepted."

So in late 2002 Mr Rajabi went back. Four months later he was at home with his family in a town outside Kabul when an explosion ripped through the walls and windows of his house. He describes in the documentary how first there was one bang, then another. Shrapnel tore through the window, killing his daughter Yalda. Rowna, his youngest daughter, died a few minutes later.

It was a grenade attack, believed to be by the Taliban who, according to local medical authorities and newspaper reports, targeted the family.

Mr Rajabi drops his head into his hands and breaks down, unable to go on.

Today he lives with the remainder of his family in Pakistan, where he can't send his sons to school for fear of their safety.

He only came to Kabul so he could tell Mr Glendenning, and Australia, in person, what happened to him. "We could only speak from our heart, which we did," he says of the account he gave to Australian officials seven years ago, but which they didn't want to believe.

Mohammed Rizae is also a Hazara Afghan who was rejected by Australia. He believes this had something to do with the translators used by Immigration officials on Nauru who were all Pashtuns - the same ethnic group as the Taliban.

He was too scared to tell the translators some aspects of his story, such as the fact he is Ishmaili, a member of the pacifist Islamic sect targeted by the Taliban and the nomadic Kuchis, who are also Pashtuns.

Mr Rizae's grandfather had refused to fight the Soviet-backed communists. He was publicly hanged by the Taliban in a bazaar.

But Australian officials told Mr Rizae there were inconsistencies in his testimony, and they were unable to substantiate his fear of persecution because Afghanistan was now safe.

So in 2002 Australia sent him back to Afghanistan, where he was forced to flee to Pakistan because his old enemies returned to pursue him again. Today his province is in the hands of the Taliban.

"Those places where we live are not and never were secure," he tells Mr Glendenning.

Mr Rizae now spends his days moving between Pakistan and Kabul.

There are many other stories.

Gholam Payador, also an Hazara Afghan sent back to Afghanistan by Australia in 2002, holds up a photo of himself and two other Afghans standing together on Nauru. The other men are now dead, he says. One was shot by two men on a motorcycle.

Mohammed Hussain, another Afghan rejected by Australia, also meets with Mr Glendenning. "I was forced to leave this country, and seeking refuge in Australia worsened my crime," he tells him.

A self-described poet who was working in a coalmine, he disappeared soon after he met the filmmakers. Eyewitnesses saw him taken out from his workplace by gunmen who put him into a 4WD vehicle with blackened windows. Mr Glendenning said he is still missing and there are grave fears for his life.
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TheAge

SURPRISED refugee lawyers have praised the Department of Immigration for moving swiftly and co-operatively to assess the protection claims of 26 Afghan and Iranian asylum seekers on Christmas Island.

Initiatives that include tree-planting proposals, tearing down fences and sending the kids to a local school have provided the first snapshot of immigration detention on Christmas Island under the Rudd Government, while the $396 million detention centre sits empty.

In the first test of how the Rudd Government would deal with asylum seekers arriving by boat, Steven Glass, a volunteer for the Refugee Advice and Casework Service who spent a week on Christmas Island, said he had never seen anything like the dramatic change in attitude of both Department of Immigration and Citizenship officers and the GSL guards.

"It was not exactly anything physical," said Mr Glass, a legal casework veteran of mainland detention centres under the Howard government.

"It was all about 'How can we help?' I have to say it took a bit of adjustment."

He cautioned that it was "so far, so good" but the government seemed committed to moving swiftly to resolving the cases.

"My sense is they are trying to avoid a repeat of the lengthy detentions of the past that went on for years and people went crazy."

The asylum seekers are almost all Afghan men, with eight under the age of 18 and most of the interviews were conducted in Dhari. Mr Glass would not discuss specifics of their claims or the route they took to reach Australia. "The claims are not necessarily all the same, but do have some common themes. Most are Hazara or Shia."

On Christmas Island, the asylum seekers are being held at the old detention centre, while the $396 million centre that looks like a high security prison built remains empty.

"The starting point is it is still a detention centre and no one wants to be in one. But a number of the asylum seekers are not behind fences and the kids are all going to the local school. My overall impression is DIAC and GSL are going to whatever lengths they can to make conditions as good as possible," Mr Glass said. "They are looking at planting trees, tearing down fences."

The asylum seekers have access to sporting facilities, television and the children go to the local school.

Susan Mayer, co-ordinator of the Refugee Advice and Casework Service, a community legal centre specialising in refugee law, said the Department of Immigration approached her the day after the first boat landed on Ashmore Reef to assemble a team of volunteer lawyers.

"I think the Department of Immigration has done well in terms of the speed and commitment to getting a taskforce together, there was a sincerity with which they did it."

Under Section 46A of the Migration Act, asylum seekers arriving on Christmas Island have no right to make an application for a protection visa in Australia except with the minister's consent.

Legally, this process is an application to the minister for consent to apply.

"There has never been a process for doing this before because the previous government didn't entertain such applications. The new minister is entertaining these applications," Mr Glass said.

"Their wellbeing is absolutely fine. We have relatively good access to them, it would be better if they were in Villawood."

He said the policy of keeping people offshore for processing depended on your political viewpoint on border security but so far it was proceeding swiftly.
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The Age
A second group of suspected Middle Eastern refugees has arrived in Australian waters and is being transported to Christmas Island for processing.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Evans tonight said 17 people, including three crew, had arrived at an offshore storage facility in the Timor Sea off the north-west coast of Western Australia.

"The reasons for their voyage are unknown at this time," the spokesman said.

"They've been moved on to a Royal Australian Navy vessel for transfer to Christmas Island where they'll be placed in immigration detention," the spokesman said.

The spokesman said the group would undergo health, security and identity checks upon their arrival at Christmas Island.
He was unable to confirm the nationalities of any of the group.

"It will probably take at least three or four days before they arrive at Christmas Island and that's where they'll determine all of that," he said.
It is believed the group arrived about 10.30am yesterday.

It is the second boat of unauthorised arrivals to be intercepted off the coast of Australia this year.

An Australian naval patrol boat last week intercepted another vessel carrying 14 people near the Ashmore Islands, 320km off Australia's north-west coast.

The group, including one woman, was also transferred to Christmas Island for processing.
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The Australian.News

BOATPEOPLE intercepted in the Ashmore Islands this week have arrived on Christmas Island and are being held in detention

The 12 suspected asylum-seekers and two Indonesian crew were brought ashore by barge at Flying Fish Cove shortly before 11am local time.

They were met by immigration officials who flew in from mainland Australia last night, Customs officials and guards from detention centre contractor GSL to carry out health, security and identity checks on them.
The group, who are thought to have reached Indonesia from the Middle East, have been travelling towards the Australian territory of Christmas Island aboard a naval vessel since being picked up at the Ashmore Islands on Monday.

“The group seemed mostly like young men, they looked quite healthy and happy, they were smiling and waving to us,” said observer Michelle Dimasi from the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University in Melbourne.

Ms Dimasi, who is writing a PhD on Australia's asylum-seeker policy on Christmas Island, said: “To me, they appeared to be Afghanis, of Hazara ethnicity.”

Ms Dimasi said the group was then taken by bus to the island's six-year-old detention centre near the community's swimming pool, often referred to as the temporary detention centre.

Federal Immigration and Citizenship Minister Chris Evans said the group's interception demonstrated the Rudd Government's border security arrangements were working.

He rejected opposition claims this week that border security had weakened under Labor, saying the Rudd Government “maintained extensive patrolling of our borders by Defence and Customs which is why this vessel was intercepted”.

Christmas Island, which will this weekend celebrate 50 years as an Australian territory, is excised from Australian waters for migration purposes.

“The Rudd Government has also consistently made clear its commitment to maintain a system of mandatory detention and excision,” Senator Evans said.

“As part of this system of mandatory detention, all unauthorised boat arrivals will be detained and processed on Christmas Island and those found not to be owed protection will be removed.

“They will be held in detention at Christmas Island while they undergo health, security, identity and other checks to establish their identity and reasons for travelling to Australia.

Senator Evans said processing suspected asylum-seekers at Christmas Island signalled that the Australian Government maintained a very strong anti-people smuggling stance.

“The continuing threat of people smuggling is a direct result of significant long-term pressures driving the international movement of displaced persons through our immediate region,” he said.

“Despite this latest arrival, 2008 has seen the smallest number of arrivals in three years.

“This is testament to the increased level of engagement undertaken by Australian agencies in the region and the close relationships formed with key partners such as Indonesia.”

Senator Evans said the Rudd Government was determined to deal “effectively and appropriately with the perpetrators of the heinous crime of people smuggling that puts vulnerable lives at risk”.
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Fourteen boatpeople picked up off Australia's northwest coast will be taken to an off-shore immigration centre, the government said yesterday, sparking concern among human rights advocates.
Immigration Minister Chris Evans said the navy had intercepted the group of 13 men and one woman near the Ashmore Islands, some 320 kilometres off Western Australia on Monday.
The minister said the boat appeared to have come from Indonesia, but he did not know their nationalities or whether they were asylum-seekers. He said they would be transferred to Christmas Island for processing.
"There's no suggestion at the moment that they were illegal fishers, but we don't know much more about them at this stage," Senator Evans told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"Until they're properly interviewed on Christmas Island, we won't know and I won't be able to make public comment about that.
"If they are seeking asylum, then they will be assessed and have their claims tested before proceeding any further."
Rights group Amnesty International Australia said it was concerned about the government's policy of taking boatpeople to remote off-shore stations rather than processing their claims on the mainland.
"It is completely inappropriate to treat this group differently from other asylum seekers," spokesman Graham Thom said. "Individuals should not be punished simply based on their mode of arrival."
"A small boat with 14 people on board is not a border security issue, it is a humanitarian issue and should be treated as such."
In July, Australia announced a "more humane" policy towards refugees, scrapping a widely-criticised system of automatically locking up asylum seekers on arrival, which was introduced by the previous conservative government.
Asylum seekers arriving by boat would still be held at Australia's Christmas Island detention centre, but with the aim of resolving their cases as quickly as possible, Evans said at the time.
The new government has already scrapped the "Pacific Solution" under which boatpeople were sent to special detention centres in the tiny island nation of Nauru or the Papua New Guinea island of Manus.
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A REFUGEE hoping to remain in the UK after fleeing Afghanistan has taken his plight to West Ham MP Lyn Brown.

Brampton Manor pupil Kamal Begi, 16, visited the House of Commons to present her with a petition containing more than 1,000 signatures. He was accompanied by his uncle Aramudin and school representatives.

Kamal, of Stratford, said: "I am touched by the sympathy shown by my MP. She seemed really to care and now I am hopeful that I shall be able to stay here."

Ms Brown said she would make representations on Kamal's behalf. If his application to stay fails she vowed to take his case to Minister for Borders and Immigration, Liam Byrne.

Threat of deportation hangs over Kamal who arrived in the UK as an asylum seeker more than six years ago.

He said his father and one of his two uncles were murdered and he was threatened with a gun.

His family belong to the Hazara tribe who have been subjected to ethnic cleansing, said Kamal.

Leaving family behind, Kamal arrived in the UK with his surviving uncle and was granted exceptional leave to remain for one year.

He applied for extension of his leave to remain but was turned down. He appealed in 2005 and is yet to have a decision.

A UK Border Agency spokesperson has said: "We do not comment on individual cases. We will not remove someone if they have an application outstanding or they are pursuing an avenue of appeal. Read the full story