Sarah Stephen
On June 29, the first group of 35 Afghan asylum seekers arrived in Australia from Nauru. A second group of 35 Afghans arrived on July 6. The remaining 76 Afghan asylum seekers on Nauru who have been assessed by the immigration department as refugees are expected to be resettled in Australia by the end of July.
Most of the 70 Afghan refugees have been granted three- or five-year "secondary movement" temporary protection visas. As "punishment" for spending more than seven days on their way to Australia in a country that could have offered them "effective protection", these refugees will never be eligible to apply for permanent protection. Upon expiry of their TPVs, and if they are able to prove that they are still refugees, they will have their temporary visas renewed.
Twenty-one Afghan men, the last of the asylum seekers on Nauru who were originally rescued by the Tampa three years ago, are still waiting to find out if the New Zealand government will agree to take them as part of its annual refugee quota. Only nine have been classified as refugees by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, but the NZ government will give humanitarian visas to the remaining 12 men.
The 56 Iraqi asylum seekers remaining on Nauru are in a very bad state, according to refugee advocate and migration agent Marion Le, who represents Afghan and Iraqi detainees on Nauru. "The Iraqis, who watch ... the situation in their own country on television, some of them are just living a total nightmare and it is showing", she told the July 7 Melbourne Age. One Iraqi woman asylum seeker on Nauru, whose husband is in a Melbourne hospital after suffering a heart attack, has gone blind. Other Iraqis are suffering severe depression.
Le said that except for four who claim they fled Iraq for religious reasons, none have had their cases reopened. This is despite a recent call by the UN for countries to give protection to Iraqis seeking asylum.
From Green Left Weekly, July 14, 2004.
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