Friends & Colleagues,
Please register your disgust at this discrimatary Policy by Australia
Immigration Officials that has led to this tragic outcome.
Also please circulate to other lists.
Phillip RuddockMinister for Immigration
mailto:[log in to unmask]
or http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/general/contacts.htm
Senator Meg Lees Democrats
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Senator Chris Evans Opposition Spokesperson for Disability Services
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Withholding hope from refugees
Melbourne "Age" Editorial
Thursday 5 April 2001
In 1996 Shahraz Kayani from Pakistan was granted
asylum in Australia.
He was allowed to stay after the authorities assessing
his case were
satisfied that he fulfilled the provisions of the
humanitarian program. But
although Mr Kayani had been granted residency in a
stable democracy,
his troubles were far from over. His application for
his wife and three
children to join him under the program's “split
family” provisions was
denied because one of the children is disabled and it
was deemed that she
would place too great a burden on the taxpayer. The
Commonwealth
Ombudsman intervened and a new application was made
last September
but, on Monday, the wait had been too long and too
painful for Mr
Kayani. He went to Parliament House in Canberra,
doused himself in
accelerant and set himself alight. His burns are so
severe that his chances
of survival are considered to be slim but, even so,
Immigration Minister
Philip Ruddock has said that decisions in the Kayani
case “are not going
to be determined under duress”.
But what will make the government pay attention to the
plight of the
Kayanis? Five years is a significant proportion of a
child's life, and too
long for a father to wait to be reunited with his wife
and children. It was
reasonable for Mr Kayani to expect that if he was
eligible for asylum in
this country, his immediate family would be too. Many
asylum seekers are
driven by a desire to provide a better life for their
children. Mr Kayani
was in a more desperate situation than most because of
his daughter's
disability. According to the logic of the heart, such
a situation calls for
prompt and compassionate action, but immigration
officials, implementing
a policy driven chiefly by concern for the bottom
line, decided that the
disability meant that no more help would be extended
to the Kayanis. This
is cruel and discriminatory, reflects badly on
Australia and has had a
devastating effect on the Kayanis. Relatives of the
Kayanis have now
offered to pay for the disabled daughter's medical
costs and are
concerned that the family will be punished further
because of Mr Kayani's
action. “We did want to make clear that what happened
to Mr Kayani
was not done in a deliberate act of trying to create a
problem,” said Victor
Rebikoff, a family representative.
Australian officials have been so intent on
discouraging asylum seekers
from queue jumping that they have come to resemble
those Dickensian
villains who delight in punishing the needy and
tormenting the vulnerable. A
plastic surgeon has said that if Mr Kayani survives he
will be “horribly,
horribly scarred”. The pity of it is that, if the
government had dealt with his
case swiftly and with compassion, his suffering could
have been avoided.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/2001/04/05/FFXAPIIY3LC.html
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/2001/04/05/FFXHHHIY3LC.html
Thanks.
Frank Hall-Bentick
President
Disability Australia Ltd
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