BY RACHEL EVANS & SARAH STEPHEN
In a letter to the Australian people on Auguts 30, the Afghan asylum seekers on the MS Tampa said of their plight, "You know well about the long-time war and its tragic human consequences ... the genocide and massacres going on in our country and thousands of men, women and children put in public graveyards, and we hope you understand that ... we have no way but to run out of our dear homeland and to seek a peaceful asylum ... we do not know why we have not been regarded as refugee and deprived from rights of refugees according to international convention."
Conditions in Afghanistan are so bad at present that even the likelihood of death or spending years in a refugee camp will not deter people from fleeing the country.
The ruling Taliban regime is likely the most repressive and reactionary in the world.
Persecution of ethnic and religious minorities is fierce, with some evidence of the mass murder of minorities including secret filming of mass graves filled with disfigured bodies. Non-Muslims must now wear a yellow patch on their clothing, to tell them apart from the rest of the population.
Strict Islamic law is enforced, with those who break the rules beaten, flogged or even publicly executed. Music, television, videos, movies, the internet are all banned; men must not shave or trim their beards; women are denied the right to work or an education; everyone must attend prayers five times a day; any Muslim who converts to another religion faces the death penalty; even kite-flying is forbidden.
As a result, 400,000 people have fled Afghanistan in the last year. Of that 400,000 only 21 were accepted into Australia through "legal channels".
Worldwide, there are 3-5 million Afghan refugees, 30-40% of the global refugee population. In 2000, 40,000 Afghani refugees were resettled with United Nations assistance. In the same year, Australia granted asylum to 700 of the 1,765 Afghan refugees who arrived in Australia, a tiny number in comparison with Kenya which resettled 9400, Yugoslavia 3300, Egypt 3100 and Turkey 2300.
Those still in refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran are in a desperate situation: hundreds of thousands are living in tents, without access to running water, sanitation, or basic service provisions. Children, even many adults, are malnourished and despair is commonplace.
And that's not the only threat. UN officials have begun to interview tens of thousands of Afghan families currently living in Pakistan to determine who will be allowed to stay and who will be deported. Two refugee camps are scheduled for closure, large-scale deportations have already begun and Pakistani officials have stated that Afghan refugees should return to their homeland.
On August 29, Pakistani government officials lured 28 Afghan families into trucks by promising they would be relocated from the notoriously overcrowded and makeshift Jalozai camp to a better equipped camp. Instead, the 145 people were handed over to Taliban authorities at the Pakistan border.