Dear Hon Sen.: your comments are "not in our name"

Dear Hon. Sen. Barnaby Joyce
I read your comments on your solution to the standoff onboard Oceanic Viking. I shockingly disbelieved that you could have suggested such deeply ridiculous solution to this highly humanitarian issue.
I do believe that every responsible person should make informed comments before opening their mouths and give public speech. These informed comments require one to search issues they do not know or have no idea about. But shockingly you even failed to make such research and went on with your ridiculous comments that not only had embarrassed you. We, all Australians, could become a matter of international joke as a result of these deeply naïve comments.
We understand that you want to attract all racist votes you can before the coming Federal election, to secure your re-election. But we think that you have sent the wrong message.
For a senator in the highset decision making body in this country you could have read the Geneva Convention relating to the status of refugees adopted 1951 before giving such ridiculous comments. If you have read this convention, you would have discovered that your comments are clearly violating many articles in the convention. These comments are especially violating article 33 of the convention.
The more ridiculous suggestion in your comments is the suggestion to send the asylum seekers to Sri Lanka to process their claims there. This suggestion is highly ridiculous because you are in fact trying to send them to their deaths. I am not sure if you have read recent reports about the massacres of ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka and other abuses to their human rights. Secondly, and to qualify for refugee status, person should be outside the country of their nationality (according to article 1 (a) of the convention) to qualify to be refugee.
We know that you are so keen to play race card again to win some popularity. But we believe that you could play this card more intelligently, to avoid make Australia and its politicians laughing matter on international arena.
As we have plenty racists in politics at the moment, we are sure that Australians are looking to hear from the more compassion ones. This is why in the latest opinion poll, both the Government and the Opposition failed to win the support of the majority of voters on this particular issue.
While we deeply condemn your racist and ridiculous comments, we believe that they would not win you any popularity. Consequently, we promise to fight the redicularity of politicians like you, and most of our politicians at the moment.
At the mean time and to avoid more embarrassment in the future, we hope that you can access the UNHCR website and read more about this issue and legal aspects relating to them. We also hope that you can read more about the dire situation in Sri Lank to better understand why people are risking their lives to come by boats to this great nation.
At last we would like to tell everyone, in Australia and abroad, that your comments are “not in our name”. We would not hesitate to welcome these refugees and have no troubles with the way they arrived to save their lives (and the lives of their loved kids).


Yours truly,
Jamal Daoud
Spokesperson, Social Justice Network