Bloody Boat People!

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/national/australian-navy-reportedly-fired-shots-in-high-seas-to-scare-off-asylum-seekers/story-fnl2dwun-1226803172840


THE Federal Government says no shots have been fired at any time during Operation Sovereign Borders. 
 
An Indonesian local police commissioner from southern Java, who did not want to be named, told Fairfax Media that villagers plucked a number of asylum seekers from the water on January 8 after their boat was turned back by Australian authorities.


After speaking to those on board the boat, the officer said the navy had "shot into the air just to scare them".

"The boat hadn't reached Australia - they were still at sea but they said they could already see Christmas Island,'' the officer said.

"But they said the Australian navy then drove them away and escorted them until they entered Indonesian waters again.''

The boat had been carrying 25 people - including four children - from Bangladesh and Myanmar and two Indonesian crew.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison told AAP today he would not comment on the specific allegation.

"(But) I can confirm that no shots have been fired at any time by any persons involved in Operation Sovereign Borders since the operation commenced,'' Mr Morrison said in a statement.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the government should provide more detail.

"The possibility of shots being fired is really alarming," she told ABC radio.

The only alarming thing about it is they didn't aim the guns firing the shots at the intended targets!

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

http://www.smh.com.au/national/asylum-seekers-say-they-were-tricked-by-navy-20140116-30xtz.html

Australia has for the first time used one of its new lifeboats to send a group of 56 asylum seekers back to Indonesia in a move that is likely to plunge the bilateral relationship to a new low.

Fairfax Media has interviewed a large group of would-be refugees from Pakistan and Bangladesh who scuttled their wooden vessel six days ago in an attempt to avoid being pushed back to Indonesia.

Instead they were picked up by an Australian Navy vessel, HMAS Stuart, and kept overnight before being transferred to a Customs and Border Protection vessel.
The men said they were tricked into thinking they were going to be taken to Christmas Island.
But they were put on a small, bright orange lifeboat-style vessel close to the Indonesian shore, with only enough fuel to return there.

ABOUT TIME WE TRICKED THE DIRTY TRICKSTERS RIGHT BACK!

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/national/detention-centres-dysfunctional-insider/story-fnjbnvyj-1226805280960


THREE asylum seekers escaped a Western Australia detention centre in 45 seconds last week, exposing major security flaws at the facility, a leaked report has revealed. 
 
The January 12 breakout was the third escape from the Yongah Hill Detention Centre in five months and an embarrassment for Serco, which manages Australia's detention centres and WA's prisoner transport system.

Documents reveal security weaknesses including asylum-seeker access to the internet for maps, to book plane tickets and organise getaway cars through social media.

Detainees had also become more confident as a result of the number of recent escapes and the lack of penalties, while the voltage on the 3.2-metre electric fence at Yongah Hill was not strong enough to shock escapees and was easy to climb.

A Serco insider described the entire system as "dysfunctional" and said he was speaking out against "incompetence".

"There is no training given and everything is about money," he told The Sunday Times newspaper.

"Every time we have these incidents the main effort isn't improving, but more so passing the buck and looking for someone to blame."

Two of the Vietnamese detainees from the January 12 breakout have been caught, but the third remains on the run.

A spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said recommendations made by Serco following any escape incident were considered and implemented if appropriate.

"There are service standards in place with regard to performance against the department's contract with its detention service provider, Serco, and compliance with these standards is regularly reviewed," she told AAP.

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/northern-territory/jump-in-asylum-seeker-hiv-cases/story-fnk0b1zt-1226819639825

"The number of HIV notifications was higher than estimated mainly due to cases being diagnosed from newly introduced screening for people arriving by boat without a visa," the report said.

The number of detected cases has increased fivefold from just six notifications in 2010-11.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison outlined testing, education and prevention measures aimed at curbing the spread of the blood-borne virus within detention centres. But concerns about the standard of health care within immigration detention persist.

Darwin-based advocacy group DASSAN said yesterday that a woman attempted suicide at Blaydin Point on December 29.

DASSAN spokeswoman Emma Murphy said parents had told the group the environment was having a marked effect on their children.

"There are no maternal and child health nurses working inside detention for these women," she said.

The Australian Medical Association last year raised concern about the level of primary healthcare in detention facilities, based on a Medical Journal of Australia audit of the Royal Darwin Hospital emergency department.

The audit found that half the immigration detainees in Darwin attended the emergency department at least once in 2011.

A statement released by Mr Morrison's office said HIV testing for newly arrive asylum seekers was introduced in August 2012 in consultation with sexual health groups.

Standard HIV testing assists identifying acute illness and chronic disease requiring immediate or ongoing medical care," Mr Morrison said. "All detainees are provided with pre and post-test counselling."

The Government said condoms are provided free of charge in detention.

"The detention health services provider also provides a range of health education programs to people in immigration detention," Mr Morrison's statement said.

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/national/unconfirmed-reports-of-more-unrest-at-the-manus-island-detention-centre/story-fnl2dwun-1226830902443

An asylum seeker with a fractured skull has been sent to an unnamed Australian hospital.

Another who was shot in the buttocks has been transferred to Port Moresby for treatment, and three more injured men will follow.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison faced media twice on Tuesday to dispel ``wild stories'' circulating.

``This is a tragedy but this was a very dangerous situation where people decide to protest in a very violent way and to take themselves outside the centre and place themselves at great risk,'' Mr Morrison said.

``The tension is not a surprise and the tension will remain because of the nature of where people are and where they don't want to be.''

A series of rolling protests started a few weeks ago with mostly peaceful demonstrations and culminated in the violence of the past two nights, Mr Morrison said.

``If you behave in an unruly way and in a disorderly way then you subject yourself to the response of law enforcement,'' he said.

PNG authorities are investigating the death, while Australia Immigration Department secretary Martin Bowles will also conduct a full review into the incident.

The PNG government said the individual was an Iranian who died in hospital from head injuries.

Mr Morrison hosed down claims that PNG police fired shots directly at asylum seekers, although he confirmed reports of gunfire at 11.20pm on Monday and 1am on Tuesday.

He could not confirm reports on the ground that local people had been involved in the fight and had been possibly armed with machetes.

Detention security provider G4S said asylum seekers broke through the perimeter fence after protesting for two days and rejected claims that locals had broken into the facility and attacked the residents.

``Claims that the transferees breached the fence following internal attacks on them by local residents are unfounded,'' it said in a statement.

``A number of transferees were injured after they breached the perimeter fence and the matter became a law enforcement issue for PNG authorities.''

Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his PNG counterpart Peter O'Neill discussed the incident on Tuesday.

Mr O'Neill said preliminary investigations suggest less than 50 per cent of the 1400 asylum seekers were involved and sent a delegation to Manus Island to investigate the break-out.

``The situation at the centre now appears stable and under control,'' Mr O'Neill said on Tuesday afternoon.

He reassured Mr Abbott his government is committed to the resettlement program.

Australian Greens leader Christine Milne is demanding the detention centre be immediately closed, describing the facility as a gulag.

``Ministerial responsibility has to mean something and Scott Morrison has to stop hiding,'' Ms Milne said.

The Refugee Council of Australia (RCOA) said the death and injuries is an ``appalling tragedy and a failure of Australian government policy.''

Council chief executive officer Paul Power called on the government to abandon offshore processing and resume prompt processing of refugee claims while asylum seekers are in the community.

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/national/kevin-rudd-admits-at-oxford-university-that-the-hardline-asylum-seeker-policy-labor-took-was-not-a-perfect-answer/story-fnjbnxug-1226842790883


KEVIN Rudd has admitted the hard-line asylum seeker policy Labor implemented in mid-2013 was "not a perfect answer'' but says his government was facing a practical, moral and political dilemma. 
 
The now retired Mr Rudd delivered a lecture titled "On Politics'' at Oxford University last night.

The former prime minister urged 300 students who he said would become future world leaders to meet five challenges.

He asked them to preserve peace, fight for liberty, work for inclusive capitalism, face the rise of China and take seriously the "gargantuan challenge'' of climate change.

A student subsequently asked if his policy of turning away asylum seekers was consistent with his advice to always pursue peace and liberty.

As prime minister in July 2013, Mr Rudd unveiled his so-called PNG solution.

Under the policy, continued by Tony Abbott's government, Australia no longer accepts any asylum seekers arriving by boat and instead sends them to PNG for processing and possible resettlement.

Mr Rudd acknowledged the policy was controversial but said it was implemented in the context of 12 million refugees languishing in camps around the world, with another 40 million people internally displaced.

He insisted Australia was the third most generous country when it came to resettling UNHCR refugees behind the United States and Canada.

Mr Rudd said "a large slice'' of people arriving by boat weren't genuine asylum seekers.

"Where it got to by the end of 2013 was the number of folks coming by boat was overwhelming the whole (Australian) refugee intake,'' he said at the prestigious Oxford Union.

'The lesson that sent out to people smugglers was 'You come by boat, we'll get you there quickly (but) if you stay in a camp somewhere around the world, in some hellhole, you're never going to get anywhere'.''

Mr Rudd said Labor was facing a "practical, moral and political dilemma''.

"It's not a perfect answer,'' he admitted of the ALP policy, before adding all the facts had to be considered before judging if it was right or wrong.

Iranian man Reza Berati, 23, died at the Manus Island detention centre in mid-February following a riot.