“When people are put in detention, they have part of their lives stolen. I lost nine months of my life, during which I had no human rights, no access information or facilities, and no ability to control my life. It is like being taken out of the world, you don't exist. It is inhuman. There is no reason to detain us.
“There are real alternatives to detention. I know many people in the Afghan community who would support an Afghan asylum seeker each while their claims are being processed. We would be happy to take responsibility for them because we know they are not criminals, they will not break even minor laws. They just want a chance for a reasonable life” — Riz Wakil, an Afghan refugee who arrived on Ashmore Reef in 1999 and was held in Curtin detention centre for nine months, now on a temporary visa.
“The most immediate problem is what's happening in the Labor Party, where Simon Crean has attempted to use the support for some sort of initial detention as a mechanism for committing the ALP to the continuation of mandatory detention.
“I have always been very concerned that some in the refugee movement support any locking up of refugees, but when the movement was in its early stages, it was important to unite around the broadest issues, such as mandatory detention and the conditions in the camps.
“People who are angry about the camps want an alternative, and it's important that we don't leave the existing model unchallenged. When refugee advocates say refugees should be locked up for an initial period, it gives weight to Howard's argument that there are reasons to be concerned about refugees” — Phil Griffiths, convener of the Canberra Refugee Action Committee.
“Mandatory detention defies basic democratic principles by assuming that asylum seekers are criminals, rather than desperate people whose life choices have been denied by wars, famines or persecution that is no fault of their own.
“There are no practical reasons for jailing asylum seekers either. None of the main health checks take more than a few hours. So-called security checks are never reliable anyway, given that the information often comes from the authorities from which asylum seekers are fleeing” — Lisa Macdonald, Free the Refugees Campaign activist in Sydney, and an organiser of the June 23 World Refugee Week rally in Sydney.
From Green Left Weekly, June 19, 2002.
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