4 Otober 09
With yesterday’s revelation of wrongful detention of Australian residents for years, it is very clear that there is need to establish a royal commission to close the dark chapter of the immigration department’s inhumane practices.
“We are well aware of many highly inhumane cases of this particular department’s officials abusing their power in countless ways. Some of these include delaying visas processing, refusing visa grant on false grounds and allegations, many cases of stateless people who lived in Australia for many years with no prospect of solving their dilemmas, and many more inhumane practices” said Jamal Daoud, spokesperson of Social Justice Network.
“These examples of misconduct have resulted in deep mental problems of innocent people who committed no crime and yet have been punished so harshly”
“These recent revelations are very good evidence that what the department is suffering from is a culture of disregard to basic human rights, with no prospect of any punishment or being accountable for these practices”
“We deeply believe that a Royal Commission with full powers to investigate this misconduct will reveal many serious crimes against innocent people committed by DIAC’s officials and case managers. But we deeply believe that such a Commission with full power is vital to clean this particular department of this regressive culture”
“The culture we refer to includes a culture of lying and cover up, suspecting any non- English speaking person of being criminal (an illegal immigrant at least), feeling of immunity from any accountability and a culture of deep racism and discrimination”
The very low amount of money offered to Mr Van, in comparison to money granted to others in similar cases, is very clear evidence of such culture. Mr Van was offered less than $60,000. In comparison, Ms Cornelia Rau was granted more than $2.5 millions for detaining her illegally for lesser period of time. We can genuinely ask if this huge difference of compensation was related to the different skin colour of both. Or maybe it is related to the mother tongue of Mr Van, compared to the European origin of Ms Rau.
The case of Mr Van Nguyen is not unique in its nature. We are aware of tens of cases involving deep negligence and neglect to basic rights (even according to DIAC laws and regulations) that have resulted in deep mental health problems to innocent people. The case of Ms Lina Hamdan, whose visa grant was delayed for 4 years for no reason, is a clear example of such culture.
We deeply believe that if the Labor government is keen to get rid of such inhumane practices, the Minister will not hesitate to form the royal commission. He also needs to get rid of the senior bureaucrats he inherited from the previous deeply regressive Liberal government.
In this instance we should mention that we have provided the minister with names and details of tens of such cases. We are more than ready to keep cooperating with the minister’s office to expose these practices and names of people affected by such regressive inhumane practices.
For more info, Jamal Daoud can be contacted on 0404 447 272
Monday, October 5, 2009
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