Australia signed the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, and is therefore obligated to hear claims from asylum seekers, even if they departed foreign shores illegally and arrived in Australia illegally.
In a statement released by Indonesia’s foreign ministry on 26 September, Major Andy Apriyanto, a senior officer with the Maritime Security Coordinating Board, sounded a warning about the turn-back proposal, one of several to anger Jakarta. “Casualties may happen with this, and if they are in open sea … it’s too risky with boats commonly in poor condition and over capacity.
Survivors from a boat that sank off the south of Java said they had raised the alarm with Australian authorities, passing on their exact location at least 24 hours before their boat sank with the loss of an estimated 59 lives.
Indonesian police said on th 27th that locals in west Java “found 20 dead bodies floating in the water, most of them are children”, while 25 adults were rescued. The boat was believed to have been carrying 120 people, originally from Jordan, Lebanon and Yemen.
Abbot has campaigned to “stop the boats” and has begun plans to expand detention centres for asylum seekers on remote Pacific islands, conditions at which have led them to be labelled “gulags” by critics. He has imposed a media blackout on reports of boat arrivals, stopping providing regular information on asylum boats turned away and emergencies at sea. Australia’s Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, is an immigrant having arrived in Australia on the 10 pound subsidised boat - a case of take away the ladder, i’m alright.
The White Australia policy, enacted in its first form in 1901 to discourage non-Europeans from migrating to Australia, is held up as an example of the country’s backward past. The current policy can only be described as the past come back to haunt Australia.
In a statement released by Indonesia’s foreign ministry on 26 September, Major Andy Apriyanto, a senior officer with the Maritime Security Coordinating Board, sounded a warning about the turn-back proposal, one of several to anger Jakarta. “Casualties may happen with this, and if they are in open sea … it’s too risky with boats commonly in poor condition and over capacity.
Survivors from a boat that sank off the south of Java said they had raised the alarm with Australian authorities, passing on their exact location at least 24 hours before their boat sank with the loss of an estimated 59 lives.
Indonesian police said on th 27th that locals in west Java “found 20 dead bodies floating in the water, most of them are children”, while 25 adults were rescued. The boat was believed to have been carrying 120 people, originally from Jordan, Lebanon and Yemen.
Abbot has campaigned to “stop the boats” and has begun plans to expand detention centres for asylum seekers on remote Pacific islands, conditions at which have led them to be labelled “gulags” by critics. He has imposed a media blackout on reports of boat arrivals, stopping providing regular information on asylum boats turned away and emergencies at sea. Australia’s Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, is an immigrant having arrived in Australia on the 10 pound subsidised boat - a case of take away the ladder, i’m alright.
The White Australia policy, enacted in its first form in 1901 to discourage non-Europeans from migrating to Australia, is held up as an example of the country’s backward past. The current policy can only be described as the past come back to haunt Australia.
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