The Guardian: Australia deports Tamil asylum seeker despite father’s murder

Kavi’s mother and sister are missing and his brother was killed in 2009

Fri 27 Jul 2018 12.06 AESTLast modified on Fri 27 Jul 2018 19.34 AEST

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Kavi, a 25-year-old Tamil asylum seeker, has been deported to Sri Lanka despite his father’s murder and his mother’s and sister’s disappearance. Photograph: Rebecca Lemay/AAP

A Tamil asylum seeker has been deported to Sri Lanka despite a last-minute plea to re-examine his case, after his father was shot dead and his mother and sister disappeared earlier this year.

The 25-year-old asylum seeker, known as Kavi, had been detained in the Yongah Hill immigration detention centre near Perth for four months, since his bridging visa expired.

He had been in Australia for six years, having fled Sri Lanka after the brutal 26-year civil war in which his brother was killed in 2009.

Kavi’s full name is being withheld to protect him from potential danger in Sri Lanka.

In a statement addressed to the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, Kavi wrote: “On 5 January 2018 I received a very distressing call from my mother.

“My mother and sister were crying on the phone and she said my father had been shot dead on the farm. Up to now, no death certificate has been issued by the Sri Lankan authorities.

“I have now lost contact with my mother and sister. The last I spoke to them was on 28 March 2018. The Red Cross has been contacted to search for them. But until today I have no news about my mother and sister who are still missing.”

The Red Cross confirmed it had received the tracing request but had failed to find Kavi’s mother and sister.

“I fear that my father’s killing and my mother’s and sister’s disappearance are both connected,” he wrote. “My family and I believe that my father was killed by the Sri Lankan security agencies. We believe he was killed because they suspected that we assisted the [now-defeated separatist military force, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] LTTE.”

Kavi has always maintained that the Sri Lankan security agencies suspected his family, fishermen from the northwest of Sri Lanka, of having supported LTTE, commonly known as the Tamil Tigers.

“I fear of what will happen to me if I am forcefully returned to Sri Lanka,” he wrote. “I fear that my mother and sister have now been killed and I am afraid that I may face the same fate as my family at the hands of the Sri Lankan security agencies …

“For safety of my life I desperately request that my case is reassessed by the Department of Home Affairs.”

The United Nations says Tamils, particularly those with links to the LTTE, continue to face harassment in Sri Lanka nearly a decade after the war ended.

Disappearances – particularly at the hands of security forces personnel driving unmarked white vans – have been notorious across the country for years, both during and after the civil war.

“Entire communities have been stigmatised and targeted for harassment and arbitrary arrest and detention, and any person suspected of association … with the LTTE remains at immediate risk of detention and torture,” the UN special rapporteur, Ben Emmerson, wrote last year.

However, the Sri Lankan prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, has urged Tamils who fled Sri Lanka to return, saying “all is forgiven”.

“They are welcome to return to Sri Lanka and we won’t prosecute them.”

Before appealing to Dutton, Kavi had been rejected four times as a refugee by Australian authorities. Having been found not to meet the criteria for refugee status by the then immigration department, he had applied for review by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, and two appeals were dismissed.

Under the Migration Act, the minister has broad powers to allow someone who has had a visa refused to reapply.

Dutton did not allow Kavi to do so, despite the murder and disappearance of his family members.

Home affairs department regulations state that requests will be considered where a person makes “genuine and compelling claims” that could not have been made in their initial application.

But the department also states that the minister will not consider claims from someone who does not hold a current visa.

Kavi’s bridging visa was cancelled before his mother and sister disappeared.

The Australian government maintains it never sends people back to a place of potential harm, but that people with no lawful basis to remain in Australia are expected to return home.

“Australia does not remove people to Sri Lanka who engage Australia’s non‑refoulement obligations. Australia takes its non-refoulement obligations seriously,” it said.

It is understood Kavi was deported early on 17 May.

He has said he intends to escape to India, where Sri Lankan refugees live in rural inland camps or undocumented in the margins of cities in the state of Tamil Nadu.

“I can’t do anything now,” he has told friends in Australia. “I’m going to India. I will be safe there.”

Interview with SBS to launch our latest campaign to help a Vietnamese failed asylum seeker family

https://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/vietnamese/en/audiotrack/seeds-love-202-campaign-launch-standing-their-own-2-feet

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For the past 2 years, Shira Sebban has been assisting a Vietnamese failed asylum seeker family to survive hand to mouth. She has been trying to help this family ever since the father lost his ability to walk in a Vietnamese jail where he was serving a 2-year sentence for helping to organise an “illegal” departure by boat to Australia. As a result, Quyen, his oldest son, 16, has become the family’s main breadwinner: he works in a cafe for $4 a day. Now Quyen is just old enough to be accepted into a free 2-year English and hospitality-training program for disadvantaged youth in Hanoi. The course has a 100% success rate in placing graduates in their first job.

By Mai Hoa

Published on Thursday, August 2, 2018 – 21:18

Why would you decide to raise fund for a Vietnamese family

I have been helping Vietnamese families since mid-2016 when I first became aware that parents of young children were being sent to jail in Vietnam for helping to organise what are seen as “illegal” departures to Australia by boat. Until I read an article in The Australian newspaper in July 2016 about the plight of another family, Tran Thi Thanh Loan and her 4 children, I was not aware that 3 boats, carrying 113 Vietnamese asylum seekers in total, had tried to reach Australia in 2015-16 and had all been forcibly returned to Vietnam. The Australian Government said that it had received written assurance from the Vietnamese Government that these failed asylum seekers would not be punished, but that has not proven to be the case, with those regarded as organisers all receiving a jail sentence.

As an Australian, I feel morally responsible to some extent for what has happened to these families because we sent them back in the first place without giving them what I believe to be a fair hearing. These families are not people-smugglers as the term is understood in international law. They were not punished in Vietnam for unlawfully bringing people to another country for financial or material benefit. On the contrary — they were punished for leaving their own country and helping their families, relatives and friends go with them.

Mr Quyet, the father of Quyen, was among those punished. He was the skipper of the second boat to try to reach Australia in July 2015 and he received a 2-year jail sentence in Vietnam. While in jail, he lost his ability to walk but is still too traumatised to speak about what happened to him. Although he was released in January 2018, he is still unable to work and so can no longer support his family. So Quyen is now the main breadwinner — earning $4 a day in a cafe — and is also the only one who can do heavy physical work around the house, helping to carry his grandfather who also lives with the family. His mother relies on him for everything — even speaking to the doctor — a big responsibility for a 16 year old boy.

How did you know about this family?

I first became aware of Mr Quyet’s and his family’s situation in September 2016 when Vietnamese human rights lawyer Don An Vo asked me to help them. At that time, I had just completed a crowdfunding campaign for Tran Thi Thanh Loan and her 4 children, raising $11,000 in one month — enough to stop her 4 children from going to an orphanage and to enable the extended family to care for them while their parents were serving jail sentences for helping to organise the first “illegal” departure by boat to Australia in March 2015. After that campaign, Mr Vo asked me to help several other families including Mr Quyet’s. I ran another crowd fund campaign, which raised $15,000 over one year — it was much harder the second time. This money went to support 3 families, including Mr Quyet’s family: Every month I would send a few hundred dollars to each of their bank accounts. This money was used to buy medicine for Mr Quyet, whose legs were causing him a great deal of pain, as well as extra food for him while he was in jail. The rest went to support his family. Unfortunately, neither of his sons is in school. Quyen’s younger brother, Quynh, now 14, left school in Grade 3 and walks the streets selling lottery tickets. He keeps in touch with me via Facebook messenger, using Google Translate, and tells me what is happening with the family. His dream is to become a carpenter. Their mother, Mrs Thanh, works 18 hours a day washing dishes and doing other odd jobs. She and her younger son earn less than $3 a day, and some days they earn nothing at all because the Government is still harassing this family and so people are often too afraid to give her work.

Why it is a a crowdfund rather than one of donation in helping them?

This new crowdfund is my idea. I cannot keep sending a few hundred dollars each month for ever — the money from the second crowdfund has run out and I would really like this family to be able to stand on their own 2 feet and not have to live hand to mouth for the rest of their lives. My translator told me about KOTO, an amazing social enterprise in Vietnam, started by Vietnamese Australian Jimmy Pham. KOTO provides hospitality training for disadvantaged Vietnamese youth aged 16-22, who are also given English language and life skills. Now that Quyen is 16, I thought that it would be wonderful if he could undertake this training and then get a good job and be able to help his family. KOTO has an 100 %  guarantee to place all graduates in their first job. The training takes 2 years and is completely free; all we have to pay for is the first trial month in Hanoi. But in order for Quyen to be able to go to Hanoi, we need to cover his wages for 2 years and we would also like to provide the family with a part-time carer to help his mother look after his father and grandfather. We also want to be able to fly Quyen back home a couple of times a year to see his family — they live in LaGi, BinhThuan on the central south coast — and we hope to put his younger brother Quynh back in school to learn carpentry. 

In 2016 You have helped to raise fun for Loan’s family with four young children to help them overcome the hardship while the children’s parents were facing jail because of illegal departure to Australia, what happen to them now?

Mrs Loan and her 4 children tried to come to Australia again in early 2017 — they were part of a group of 12 children and 6 adults, also including another family I was assisting, Tran Thi Lua, her husband Nguyen Long and their 3 children — who fled Vietnam for a second time. Both Mrs Loan and Mrs Lua were facing jail sentences for helping to organise “illegal” departures by boat and both were being threatened by police that they would be beaten in jail for daring to complain to foreigners. I did not know they were planning to run away again. Their boat sank off the coast of Java, Indonesia, resulting in them losing everything, but fortunately they were rescued by the Indonesians. We used money from the crowd funds to help them stay in Indonesia for the first few days; they were subsequently interviewed by the UNHCR twice and were recognised as refugees in April 2017. After almost 10 months in 2 different detention centres – in early June 2017 I went to visit them in detention and brought them phone tablets and other supplies, together with an American Vietnamese refugee advocate, Grace Bui, who is based in Bangkok — they were released in early 2018 and now Iive in community housing on the outskirts of Jakarta. They are completely dependent on Indonesian Immigration and the IOM (International Organisation for Migration). We are working very hard to get them accepted for resettlement in a third country — I will share the good news when we know more. Meanwhile, they are all well and happy. They cannot work but the children are learning English and a teacher provided by the IOM is giving them Maths and Social Studies classes. I keep in touch with them via Facebook Messenger.

While it is stressful and suffering to witness and learn about asylum seekers’ story, involving in helping them means exposing yourself and maybe your family in a duration of suffering, why didn’t you let it go especially you have done an excellent fund raising for another family before?

I am very passionate about helping asylum seekers and refugees. I visit Villawood Immigration Detention Centre each week as a member of SASS (Supporting Asylum Seekers Sydney) in order to provide support to asylum seekers detained there. I also run programs and teach students about their plight and try to create awareness by writing and publishing occasional articles, as well as volunteering as a guide at the Sydney Jewish Museum, where I combine lessons learned from Jewish history and notably the Holocaust with my passion for social justice. My Judaism plays an instrumental part in my desire to help others: As Jews and humane beings, we are taught to welcome the stranger; to help those less fortunate, and to treat everyone with respect and dignity — the way we would like to be treated ourselves.

Click here for more: https://chuffed.org/project/standing-on-their-own-2-feet

My latest article on the Vietnamese families recognised as refugees in Jakarta published in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age today

JUNE 11 2017

Turned back by Australia, Vietnamese recognised as refugees in Indonesia

Shira Sebban

Ever since they were forcibly returned by Australia to Vietnam two years ago, mother-of-four Tran Thi Thanh Loan and mother-of-three Tran Thi Lua have lived in constant fear of a harsh jail sentence.

They did not know whether Indonesia – where they applied for recognition as refugees earlier this year – would follow Australia’s example and return them too.

Now, however, the two mothers can breathe a little easier: officials from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees have visited the group of 18 Vietnamese asylum seekers, including 12 children, currently in detention in Jakarta to tell them they have been granted refugee status.

Loan and Lua had been facing lengthy prison terms in Vietnam for helping to organise “illegal” departures to Australia on family-owned fishing boats in 2015.

At the end of January 2017, they fled Vietnam for Australia again, only to be rescued 10 days later from their sinking boat off the Java coast by Indonesian authorities.

The families were among 92 Vietnamese asylum seekers intercepted in two separate incidents by the Australian navy in 2015.

Assessed at sea and found not to warrant protection, they were forcibly returned after the Australian government received written assurance from its Vietnamese counterpart that returnees would not be punished. Several members of the two groups were subsequently incarcerated, including Lua, who has complained of being severely mistreated in prison.

Both she and Loan were facing up to 15 years’ jail as repeat offenders under the recently amended Vietnamese penal code. The women maintain police had threatened to beat them in jail for having spoken out to foreigners in the past. They had also told their lawyer, Don An Voh, they would rather commit suicide by jumping into the sea than be jailed in Vietnam.

Retired US ambassador Grover Joseph Rees visits the Vietnamese families in detention.

Retired US ambassador Grover Joseph Rees visits the Vietnamese families in detention. Photo: Shira Sebban

According to Loan, her family had originally left in 2015 because the state had seized their land, they had lost their livelihood due to Chinese incursions into fishing grounds, and also because of institutionalised discrimination against Catholics.

Taken into Australian custody and held at sea for almost a month, they underwent “enhanced screening” by two officials. While Australian authorities claimed they were fairly assessed, Loan said a translator was not provided for the group, none of whom spoke English. They only realised they were being returned when they reached port in Vietnam.

Loan’s husband, Ho Trung Loi, was sentenced at the time to two years’ jail in Vietnam, seven hours away from the family home. He was subsequently moved to a harsher prison in the Vietnamese jungle, and told he would never be released unless his wife and children return. Frequent beatings damaged his sight in one eye; he suffered a stroke and lost considerable weight.

Last week he was released, after being forced to sign a document stating that he had not been mistreated. He is now seeking medical treatment and is under police watch for the next six months, forbidden to leave his local area without express permission.

The family’s desperate situation first came to international attention in mid-2016 when Loan lost her appeal for leniency despite being the sole carer of her four children, then aged between four and 16, who were set to be forced to leave school and live in an orphanage. Donations from ordinary Australians subsequently ensured the children could stay at school and be cared for by relatives. Both Loan and Lua were eventually granted a temporary reprieve from jail.

Meanwhile, however, Australia has continued to return Vietnamese intercepted in the Timor Sea. Last December, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton signed a formal agreement with Vietnam’s public security minister, Lieutenant-General To Lam, to return “Vietnamese nationals with no legal right to enter or remain in Australia”.

Ineligible for resettlement under current Australian immigration policy, the families in Jakarta now hope to find another country which will offer them a safe haven. “UNHCR said they would soon work with the International Organisation for Migration and the Indonesian Immigration Department to get us out of here,” Loan said.

Canada, which is prepared to take 300,000 immigrants this year, is a serious option.

“Despite their assurance that refugees would face no sanctions or retributions for leaving the country, the government of Vietnam continues to jail, beat, torture and prosecute refugees returned to them by the Australian government,” Canadian senator Thanh Hai Ngo said. “The occurrence of these violations of basic human rights and civil liberties are at the core of why many are choosing to flee and are well known by the Canadian and Australian governments.”

The first Canadian senator of Vietnamese origin, he has agreed to “discuss and bring this re-occurring issue on Vietnamese refugees to the attention of the Australian High Commission and to the appropriate authorities here in Ottawa”. He has also requested full documentation and an update on each of the refugee claimants to help bring their cases forward.

Shira Sebban is a Sydney writer and editor and a member of Supporting Asylum Seekers Sydney.

Assaulted by Hells Angels in Villawood: Asylum seeker speaks out

An asylum seeker seriously assaulted in detention speaks out, writes Shira Sebban.

AN ASYLUM SEEKER seriously assaulted recently while in detention in Villawood has decided to speak out “even if they kill me” because “too many asylum seekers are being bashed by 501s”.

An influx into detention centres around Australia of 501 Visa holders – non-citizens, many with substantial criminal records, awaiting deportation on character grounds – over the past few years is known to have exacerbated tensions with asylum seekers, leading to a steep increase in violence

At the end of January 2017, 420 detainees were being held in Sydney’s Villawood Immigration Detention Centre, including 149 “501s” and 84 “illegal maritime arrivals“, according to the latest Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) statistics.

article-10164-hero — *Refugees are being locked up with violent criminals on 501 visas at Australian immigration detention centres (image screenshot YouTube)*

Among them is Afghani Hazara asylum seeker, Sayed Akbar Jaffarie, who alleges that he was assaulted on the evening of 12 March 2017 by members of the Hells Angels bikie gang, at least one of whom was armed with a knife. Detained in Villawood since 2013, Mr Jaffarie had recently been moved, due to construction work, to the high security Blaxland compound, where the alleged assault took place. He has since been relocated to another compound, but only after a second altercation with gang members, this time involving a friend who was visiting him. Meanwhile, a fellow asylum seeker, who was a witness to the original assault, remains in the high security compound, with Mr Jaffarie concerned for his safety.

Forced down from his top bunk while trying to sleep, Mr Jaffarie said the bikies

“… put their feet on my left hand, fracturing my ring finger. I was shouting for an officer, but no one came. They started smashing my thigh and hit me in the stomach. They told me I had to give them $200 a week and that I had to give up my points and buy them whatever they wanted.”

Detainees earn points through the “individual allowance program”, supplemented by participating in authorised activities, allowing them to buy personal and recreational items, including newspapers and snacks, from outlets within the facility.

Serco officers, responsible for the management of Australian immigration detention centres, subsequently interviewed Mr Jaffarie, who identified the alleged perpetrators. After making a police statement, he was taken to hospital overnight. Serco ‘provides tailored services to detainees that support their wellbeing and personal security’, according to DIBP’s latest annual report (2015-16).

In 2015-16, an Australian Border Force report stated

‘… efforts ensured that more than 100 non-citizen motorcycle gang members, associates or organised crime identities had their visas cancelled or refused on character grounds or under the Migration Act 1958.’

Section 501 of Australia’s Migration Act allows for the deportation of non-citizens who fail the “character test”, the threshold for which includes any prison sentence longer than 12 months. Whereas in June 2015, 23 per cent of those in immigration detention had their visa cancelled on character grounds, the number had increased to 31 percent by June 2016. In contrast, the percentage of “illegal maritime arrivals” had decreased over the same period, from 61 per cent in June 2015 to 32 per cent a year later.

“Introducing hardened and violent criminals into detention centres, without separating them from asylum seekers, is criminal in itself,” said longtime visitor to Villawood detainees, Dr Graeme Swincer OAM, a member of the Blue Mountains Refugee Support Group.

“Repeated calls for a change in these arrangements have fallen on deaf ears. The underlying trauma of sustained and punitive detention should not be exacerbated by having to live in constant fear,” he continued.

Mr Jaffarie has been in Villawood since 19 June 2013, when his Spousal Visa was cancelled, based on an allegation that he was involved in people smuggling. He has not been charged, let alone convicted, of that offence, but is currently fighting attempts to deport him to Afghanistan, which he left with his family as a young child, escaping to Quetta, Pakistan. He came to Australia by plane after his marriage to an Australian in 2006, but eventually offered his wife release from the marriage due to his uncertain future.

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/assaulted-by-hells-angels-in-villawood-asylum-seeker-speaks-out,10164

Fate of Vietnamese asylum seeker children hangs in the balance

EXCLUSIVE: Fate of Vietnamese asylum seeker children hangs in the balance
Shira Sebban 16 March 2017, 3:30pm

Vietnamese asylum seeker children in Indonesia2

‘What will happen to the 12 children caught up in this saga? At worst, they will be returned to Vietnam, where their mothers risk longer prison sentences as repeat offenders under the Vietnamese penal code.’ (Image supplied)

I HAD BEGGED THEM never to try to reach Australia by boat from Vietnam again. Through an interpreter, I had warned them about our country’s tough border protection policies and we had made it clear that any money raised was to be used to feed, clothe and educate their children in Vietnam.

They had agreed, sending messages of gratitude, or photos of their children with their new school supplies, each time we transferred a few hundred dollars from the online crowd funds launched last year.

So when they embarked on their second attempt to seek asylum in Australia, they did not tell us.

All we knew was that they had disappeared from Facebook and were no longer answering their phones. Concerned, we asked their lawyer, Don An Vo, to find out what happened.

Imagine our shock to read his announcement that three failed asylum seeker families, including 12 children, had fled Vietnam again and were heading for Australia.

As it turns out, they never made it here. Ten days into their journey, the engine failed, their boat hitting rocks and beginning to sink. Rescued off the Java coast by Indonesian authorities, they have since been interviewed by the UNHCR and are applying for refugee status in Indonesia.

Tran Thi Thanh Loan and her four children made headlines last year when she lost her appeal against a three-year jail sentence imposed by the Vietnamese government for helping organise an “illegal departure” to Australia in the family-owned fishing boat in March 2015. Her children, aged 4-16, were set to be forced to leave school and live in an orphanage, their father, Ho Trung Loi, having already received a two-year sentence. He is not due for release until April 2017, although that now appears out of the question.

The Vietnamese authorities have said “he will never be released unless we return,” Loan said from the Indonesian motel where she and her children are staying.
Loan continued:

“At first they told him we died at sea because the boat sank. He nearly went crazy with grief. Then they put him in solitary confinement, refusing to let my sister visit or send him food or medicine. She had to bribe them to see him and only managed to say we are safe before the police took him away. They told the family he will be punished for ‘my mistake’ and so we believe he may be beaten.”
Loi has since been moved to a harsher prison in the Vietnamese jungle, where he is forced to do hard labour and is not given enough to eat, Loan alleged.

She accused the Vietnamese police of “terrorising” her extended family, preventing them from operating their fruit stall:

“I’m worried the police will destroy their only source of income as pay-back and to ensure they have no money to help me and provide for my husband.”
Pressure had been mounting on Loan in the weeks leading up to her decision to flee. Also among the group of 18 asylum seekers is mother-of-three, Tran Thi Lua, who last year too lost her appeal against a 30-month jail sentence for helping organise another “illegal” departure to Australia in July 2015.

While the two women had been granted a temporary reprieve, they were both facing imminent, lengthy sentences.

“They asked what would happen if they went back to Australia,” Doan Viet Trung, president of Vietnamese human rights organisation, VOICE Australia, said.

children in Indonesia1

The children in Indonesia (Image supplied)

He added:

“I told them they’d be sent back or detained indefinitely. Lately they expressed fears that when in jail they’ll be beaten badly for speaking out, officials have threatened them so. I told them they should record the threats to show their fears are grounded. Lua told me she had recorded something.”
Both women had also told their lawyer Vo they would rather commit suicide by jumping into the sea than be jailed in Vietnam. Lua had already spent ten weeks in prison in 2015, before being charged, which had traumatised her, describing being beaten and sworn at by female guards, who forced prisoners to drink, wash and cook with filthy water.

The Vietnamese court has now revoked its deferral of the two women’s jail terms, so if they are returned, they will go straight to prison.

Since mid-2016, I have been in regular contact with both women, having started online crowd funds to help their families, who were among 113 Vietnamese asylum seekers intercepted in three incidents by the Australian Navy over the past two years. Assessed at sea and found not to warrant protection, they were forcibly returned after the Australian Government received written assurance from its Vietnamese counterpart that returnees would not be punished. Several members of the three groups have since been incarcerated.

Last December, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton signed a formal agreement with Vietnam’s Public Security Minister Colonel General To Lam to return “Vietnamese nationals with no legal right to enter or remain in Australia”.

What will happen to the 12 children caught up in this saga? At worst, they will be returned to Vietnam, where their mothers risk longer prison sentences as repeat offenders under the Vietnamese penal code. At best, they could be detained in legal limbo in Indonesia, unable to work or study.

An apparently hopeless choice made by increasingly desperate parents in the face of Australian intransigence, with fewer options now available to asylum seekers in what certainly seems to be a harsher world.

https://independentaustralia.net/australia/australia-display/exclusive-fate-of-vietnamese-asylum-seeker-children-hangs-in-the-balance,10117

You can read more by Shira Sebban at shirasebban.wordpress.com.

How asylum seekers are treated in the Australian court system- my latest article published in Eureka Street

Asylum seeker’s long wait for judgement day
Shira Sebban | 17 October 2016

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=50089#.WAXxbjJ7HXT

Close-up. Arrested man handcuffed hands at the back

Finally he is having his day in court. After 13 months languishing in limbo in immigration detention, he has been given the opportunity to be heard. Hopefully, it won’t be long now before his case is determined and his torment resolved.

Or so I originally thought. But in today’s Australia, asylum seekers are not treated the same way as you or me. Not only must they not commit a criminal offence, but ‘all adult illegal maritime arrivals’ have to sign a strict code of behaviour, which describes the high standards they are expected to maintain at all times.

It expressly stipulates, for example, that they not ‘engage in any anti-social or disruptive activities that are inconsiderate, disrespectful or threaten the peaceful enjoyment of other members of the community’. An ostensible breach, no matter how minor, can lead to the cancellation of their bridging visa and indefinite detention.

His trial date was set long ago. For months he has been agonising over its possible outcome. At the same time, he knows he is one of the lucky ones. Having ‘arrived illegally by boat’ in late 2012, at least his protection visa application is well under way — unlike later arrivals who have no chance of receiving such an invitation at all.

Moreover, assessed as ‘exceptionally vulnerable’, he has been fortunate enough to qualify for legal funding. His supporters — friends he made while living in the community or those, like me, who visit him regularly in detention — have cobbled together a suit, shirt and tie, belt and shoes, for his court appearance, replacing his detention centre standard-issue attire of tracksuit or t-shirt and shorts.

He scrubs up well, I think, when I see him for the first time — not as originally planned in the courtroom itself, but in the bowels of the building where, handcuffed and accompanied by two immigration detention centre guards, he has been confined for the second day in a row to a tiny cold cell behind glass.

I stand cramped with another supporter in the doorway, as his solicitor attempts to comfort him, assuring him that permission has been sought from the judge to allow him to come upstairs. After all, he is technically out on bail.

At least he is now in the courthouse. That morning as I rushed to meet him at the appointed time, he had called me from the detention centre. Apparently, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection had not notified the centre authorities that he was expected in court that day and so no provision had been made to drive him there.

His barrister having successfully obtained an adjournment to the afternoon, he is eventually accorded the dignity of sitting in the courtroom like a human being. But there is another problem: his lawyers have not even had the opportunity to confer with their client face-to-face until now.

In a humane gesture, the judge offers them the use of the courtroom, retiring to his chambers until they are ready to proceed. The rest of the day passes in a flurry of discussion — everyone is aware that the precious days allotted to his court case are fast slipping away. If a way forward is not agreed upon soon, a new trial date will need to be found, which, given the busy court schedule, would mean a delay until some time next year, while he continues to wait in detention.

By the end of the afternoon, a resolution has still not been reached and it is agreed that he will need to be brought back to court for a third day. His lawyers appeal directly to the guards that tomorrow he be escorted to the courtroom as the judge has requested, rather than confined to a cell.

‘You will need to put your request in writing,’ comes the reply. Despite the lawyers’ insistence that they have sent countless such email requests, it is apparent that unless the judge’s instruction is clearly stipulated, the all-powerful Immigration Department may choose not to comply. After all, the protections provided by Australian law do not apply to immigration detainees, even if they have not been convicted of a crime.

Meanwhile like any accused, it has not been easy to live with his fate hanging in the balance. For him, however, the stakes are even higher. While he knows he can only ever be granted a temporary protection visa, the court case has introduced yet another uncertainty. How will it affect his chances of being allowed to stay, if only for a relatively short while?

Only time will tell. For now, all he can do is wait.

Saving The World, One Life At A Time

Vietnamese refugees flee after the fall of Saigon in 1975. This image was taken from the ship USS Midway, and is part of the Mike Baxter collection.

Saving The World, One Life At A Time
By Shira Sebban

New Matilda, October 15, 2016 Asylum Seekers

https://newmatilda.com/2016/10/15/saving-the-world-one-life-at-a-time/

Social media may have changed the world, but it’s also made campaigning to make at least one life better a genuine reality, writes Shira Sebban.

I recently started an online crowd fund to help the families of two Vietnamese citizens, sentenced to jail for trying to seek asylum in Australia. Between them, they have five children aged 4-14, none of whom will be able to attend school without the help of Australian donors.

Mother of three, Tran Thi Lua, has lost her appeal against a 30-month jail sentence imposed by the Vietnamese government for helping organise an “illegal departure” to Australia in a fishing boat last year.

Lua’s case has been complicated by the subsequent arrest of her husband, Nguyen Long, by Indonesian authorities, who accuse him of fishing in their waters. He has been detained in Indonesia, his boat and gear confiscated.

Meanwhile, the father of the other two children, Nguyen Minh Quyet, who skippered the boat on its ill-fated Australian journey in July 2015, has lost the use of both his legs while detained in jail in Vietnam.

“The prison officers refused to allow him medical treatment,” his wife, Pham Thi Thu Thanh, said. “When I protested and demanded he be taken to hospital, they threatened to paralyse his arms if I would not shut up.”

While Quyet has also lost his appeal, he has been allowed to remain at home, cared for by his wife, until he is well enough to return to jail to complete his two-year sentence.

As an Australian, I feel morally responsible for the families of these asylum seekers, who were abandoned to such a harsh fate by our government. They were among the 92 Vietnamese intercepted in two separate incidents by the Australian navy last year.

Several members of the two groups have since been incarcerated. Undaunted, Australian authorities have continued to return Vietnamese intercepted in the Timor Sea under the government’s Turn Back the Boats policy.

In the face of continued government intractability, it is easy to feel overwhelmed: what can one person do to help? For help I must.

True, in the current political climate, I often feel as if I am in the minority, with most Australians seeming to agree with our government’s stance, adamant that “we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances under which they come”. Whatever happened to befriending the stranger?

Thanks to the generosity of some fellow Australians from various cultural backgrounds and walks of life, I was recently able to send $1,500 to each family to help pay for school fees and other expenses, only to discover that the donation had attracted the attention of the Vietnamese police.

mrs-lua-and-family Mrs Lua and her family, pictured in Vietnam recently.

“They keep coming to my house to ask me about the money,” Lua said. “They ask where it comes from, what it’s for, who sent it. I told the police that it’s from foreigners who feel sorry for my situation and decided to help me so my children can go to school.”

To make matters worse, she maintains that the police have now prevented her from going to the beach to dig for clams to sell at the market, which has been her only source of income since her husband was detained in Indonesia. “I asked them why people from overseas would help me, while the Vietnamese government does nothing to help and even causes more problems…. It makes me very upset that foreigners care so much, yet the government sees them as enemies.”

Lua is only too aware how her jail sentence will impact on her children’s future, depriving them of education and work opportunities. “In Vietnam if one person commits what is considered to be a crime, the whole family pays.”

Both Lua and Thanh are now too scared to talk to me, the police having come to their homes to threaten that if they continue to speak to people overseas who will say “bad things” about the government online, then both of them will be taken to jail immediately.

The police intervention, however, has made me only more determined to help these families. It all started two months ago, when I first decided to take action, running an online fundraising campaign in support of the family of another Vietnamese failed asylum seeker. More than a hundred fellow Australians contributed to raise over $10,000 to prevent four children from having to leave school and live in an orphanage.

The children, aged 4-16, had seemingly been condemned to a dismal future after their mother, Tran Thi Thanh Loan, lost her appeal for leniency on the basis of being their sole carer.

She was set to begin a three-year jail sentence following the attempt to seek asylum in Australia. Their father, Ho Trung Loi, was already serving a two-year sentence in a jail seven hours’ drive from the family’s home and is not due for release until mid-2017. Maintaining that no-one in her family could afford to look after the children, Loan was told they should leave school and go to an orphanage.

Unable to bear the thought of this family suffering even more, and not wanting to see them further torn apart, I decided to contact their lawyer, Don An Vo, in Vietnam via Facebook, to ask how much it would cost each month for the extended family to care for the children until their father’s release from jail next year.

According to Loan, the family originally left Vietnam because the state had seized their land, they had lost their livelihood due to Chinese incursions into fishing grounds, and also because of institutionalised discrimination against Catholics. While Australian authorities claim they were fairly assessed, she said a translator was not provided for the group, none of whom spoke English. They only realised they were being returned when they reached port in Vietnam.

Initially too embarrassed to accept help, Loan calculated her children’s living and education expenses to be around AUD$425 per month, or about $5,000 for the year. Within a few weeks we had raised more than double than amount, thereby ensuring not only that Loan’s children are well provided for, but also that their parents can get back on their feet once they are released from jail.

The good news is that following an international public backlash, Loan has been granted a temporary reprieve, her sentence delayed for one year until her husband’s release. Her lawyer has since put me in touch with the families of other failed asylum seekers.

I had never believed before that one person could really make a difference. But social media has changed that, as has the possibility of making personal contact with asylum seekers, whether online or face-to-face.

A drop in the ocean? Perhaps, but we cannot give up. For as the ancients taught, “whoever saves a life is considered as if they saved an entire world”.

My latest article on how asylum seekers are treated in our detention centres

Forging friendships in adversity

By Shira Sebban – posted Wednesday, 31 August 2016

They are a disparate, albeit tight-knit group. Laughing and chatting, they take up an entire long table, crowded together, as they eat their chicken curry customarily with their hands, the delectable aroma wafting through the air of the low security reception area.

The chef sits among them, her long, green manicured nails gleaming. The loyal, indefatigable partner of one of the detainees, she visits him and their friends daily, bringing in the traditional Sri Lankan Tamil dishes, which she cooks at home so they can enjoy a communal meal … until she was banned from Villawood Immigration Detention Centre for a month. Her crime? Apparently, she was preparing such generous quantities that the men could not finish all the food. Reluctant to let it go to waste, they were trying to sneak the leftovers into their rooms, which is against centre rules.

“Never mind,” she tells me when I commiserate with her, “I’ll be able to get some rest now”. Over the next month she continues to prepare the curries as usual, only now giving them to a friend to take in on her behalf.

Once, arriving early, I enter the reception area to find myself surrounded by a sea of welcoming faces. I am accompanying their queen, after all, who is temporarily on crutches following surgery. This is her first visit after ten days convalescing alone at home, supported by nuns and church group volunteers: Having befriended her at the centre, they have been driving her to medical appointments and bringing her meals several times a week.

Apologising for not having responded to messages, she explains her phone was stolen, a thief having broken into her apartment. Still unable to cook, she has brought in three pizzas and a couple of small plastic bottles of coke for the detainees to enjoy, complying with centre requirements restricting the amount of liquid allowed.

A guard approaches. “Are all these people on your list?” she asks officiously. Detainees are only allowed into the reception area if their names are recorded on a visitors application form at least 24 hours ahead of time, with a limit of four detainees per visitor. “There are only two of you and there are far too many Indians in this room.” She gestures to the crowd of men waiting patiently behind the glass door behind us. “They’ll have to wait until someone else arrives.”

A few minutes later, she returns with the identity card of a Middle Eastern man whom I recognise. “Is he on your list too?” she asks. An affirmative response makes no difference – he still has to wait until the next visitor arrives before being allowed to join us.

One of the Tamil detainees has grown a heavy beard since my last visit. Normally impeccably neat, I originally did not feel comfortable asking this slender, soft-spoken man why he is no longer shaving, only to discover that this is his way of protesting: Try as he might, he has been unable to obtain security clearance to visit a lonely Sri Lankan friend, confined to a psychiatric hospital. The following week, the beard has vanished: a fellow detainee has told him his appearance is not appropriate in polite company, although permission to visit his friend has still not been granted.

Visitors and detainees alike, hailing from across the third world, gather to sing happy birthday to the queen’s partner. The church volunteers have baked a cake – cream sponge covered in hundreds and thousands – multiculturalism is alive and well in the detention centre too.

The young couple joins in the celebrations. They have been separated by the Immigration Department for over 18 months since he was detained, his temporary bridging visa cancelled for having ostensibly breached the Code of Behaviour.

Depicted as a promise to respect Australian laws and values, the Code, which “all adult illegal maritime arrivals” must sign, was first introduced in late 2013 to alleviate concerns that asylum seekers on bridging visas were allegedly committing criminal offences. It describes how they are expected to behave, expressly stipulating, for example, that asylum seekers not “engage in any anti-social or disruptive activities that are inconsiderate, disrespectful or threaten the peaceful enjoyment of other members of the community”.

In other words, unlike Australian citizens, an asylum seeker can be detained for anything from a traffic infringement to spitting in public or hosting a noisy party.

Once detained, it can take a long time for a case to go through the courts. Even if an asylum seeker is ultimately found to be innocent, they still need to apply for a new visa, involving an interview, more paperwork and indefinite waiting.

One day, hopefully life will resume once more – with one difference: the couple plans to take in at least one of the other men they have befriended in detention. As 19th century English Reverend Charles Caleb Colton said: “The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.”

About the Author

Shira Sebban is a Sydney writer and editor. A former journalist with the Australian Jewish News, Shira previously taught French at the University of Queensland and worked in publishing. She is also a director on the board of her children’s school.

My article about helping the family of failed Vietnamese asylum seekers published in the Guardian

Australian immigration and asylum Opinion
We’re a disparate group of Australians doing the work our government won’t
Shira Sebban

When I heard that a woman who attempted to seek asylum in Australia but had her boat returned to Vietnam was about to be sent to jail, leaving her kids with no parent and facing life in an orphanage, I started a crowd fund

‘Tran Thi Thanh Loan earns a few dollars a day by buying fruit from local orchards, which she sells in front of her parents’ home.’ Photograph: Supplied by Shira Sebban

Wednesday 24 August 2016 15.27 AEST Last modified on Friday 26 August 2016 09.21 AEST
The four children of a Vietnamese woman, who will be sent to jail for trying to seek asylum in Australia, were set to be forced to leave school and live in an orphanage. But the Australian people have done something the Australian government couldn’t – or wouldn’t – and have raised enough money to ensure the children can stay at school and be cared for by relatives.

The mother of the children, failed asylum-seeker Tran Thi Thanh Loan, is set to begin a three-year jail sentence imposed by the Vietnamese government for helping organise an “illegal departure” to Australia in the family-owned fishing boat last year. Their father, Ho Trung Loi, is already serving a two-year sentence following the attempt to seek asylum in Australia – in a jail seven hours’ drive from the family’s home – and is not due for release until mid-2017.

Loan recently lost her appeal for leniency on the basis of being the sole carer of her four children, aged from 4 to 16. Maintaining that no one in her family could afford to look after them, she was told they should leave school and go to an orphanage.

“They have been crying a lot and clinging to me,” she told the Australian. “My youngest child keeps saying ‘Mummy, don’t go’. My older children are worried. They feel the pressure and are scared of having neither parent around. They have asked if they can be sent to prison with me.”

I could not bear the thought of this family suffering even more and did not want to see them further torn apart. So I decided to try and contact the family’s lawyer, Don An Vo, in Vietnam to ask him how much it would cost each month in order for the extended family to care for the children until their father’s release from jail next year.

The family was among the 92 Vietnamese asylum seekers intercepted in two separate incidents by the Australian navy last year. Assessed at sea and found not to warrant protection, they were forcibly returned after the Australian government received written assurance from its Vietnamese counterpart that returnees would not be punished. Several members of the two groups have since been incarcerated.

The children of Tran Thi Thanh Loan, pictured with their new school purchases made from funds provided by a crowd fund in Australia. Photograph: Tran Thi Thanh Loan
According to Loan, the family originally left because the state had seized their land, they had lost their livelihood due to Chinese incursions into fishing grounds, and also because of institutionalised discrimination against Catholics. While Australian authorities claim they were fairly assessed, she said that a translator was not provided for the group, none of whom spoke English. They only realised they were being returned when they reached port in Vietnam.

Via Facebook and the help of a friend of the family’s lawyer, I was able to get in touch with Vo and Loan. Initially, Loan was too embarrassed to accept any help, but finally convinced by her lawyer, she calculated that her children’s living and education expenses amount to 7,000,000 Vietnamese dong per month, which is roughly equivalent to AUD$425, or about $5,000 for the year. But there was another complication – she did not have a bank account and would need to open one before I could send the first monthly payment.

There have been several reports in the media about these failed asylum seekers being sent to prison despite assurances to Australian officials they would not be punished. So far, the Australian government seems not to have done anything about this injustice. Indeed, Australian authorities have continued to return Vietnamese intercepted in the Timor Sea. That’s why I decided I had to step in.

I had never believed before that one person could really make a difference. But social media has changed that. Earlier this month, I launched an online fundraising campaign for Loan’s children, with the target amount of $10,000 in order to ensure not only that they are well provided for but also that their parents are able to get back on their feet once they are released from jail. We are well on the way to achieving our goal. We are a disparate group from various cultural backgrounds and walks of life doing the work that our government won’t.

Loan has told me that she and her children are currently living with her parents after her house was destroyed and land confiscated by the Vietnamese government. She earns a few dollars a day by buying fruit from local orchards, which she sells in front of her parents’ home until lunchtime. She moves to another site in the afternoon, for which she pays rent, in order to sell the rest at a lower price because it is no longer as fresh. The good news is she has just been granted a temporary reprieve, her sentence delayed for one year until her husband is released from jail.

“Your help and kindness has made me feel much more confident and less stressed now,” Loan wrote recently on Facebook. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping my family.”

Article about refugees now on Eureka Street

Humanity meets bureaucracy on asylum seeker Fast Track
Shira Sebban | 14 August 2016

‘I just want to lead a normal life like everyone else in this room.’ Sobs rack his body as he pleads with the immigration officer on whom his fate largely depends.

Hand writes in notebook It is hard to believe that this nondescript civil servant has so much power. Clad in a jumper, briefcase in tow, he looks more like a suburban accountant than an authority figure.

Yet, under the Fast Track Assessment process now being used to clear the backlog of protection claims, he, or a fellow Australian Immigration and Border Protection officer, will most likely be the one to decide whether the trembling man seated opposite him will be allowed to stay, albeit temporarily, or forced to return ‘home’ or to a ‘safe third country’ where he has ‘right of entry’.

‘Should you be found not to engage Australia’s protection obligations, the government may share your biographical details with the authorities of your country of origin,’ the official intones.

‘If you give them information about me I will be killed,’ comes the chilling reply.

His support person can do nothing. She is not allowed to speak. Sitting beside the man she has come to consider a friend, she hopes that somehow she can give him the strength to endure this ordeal. As he strives to answer the probing questions about his tormented past, his growing distress is evident. He cannot help but relive the harrowing experiences of his youth.

‘Is this you?’ the official asks, thrusting a document in front of him. The photo is of a young, proud and handsome man. ‘You look very different now.’
The support person asks permission to leave the room to bring him some tissues. Upon returning, she sits there, hand over mouth in shock. While she has been visiting him in detention for six months, he has never told her the extent of his family’s suffering under the Iranian regime.

“She asks a guard if he can see his psychologist, and fortunately, her request is granted. A fellow applicant was not so lucky: told after his interview that he was to be moved to Christmas Island, he slit his throat.”

True, he had shared memories of the Iran-Iraq War, recalling rockets and warplanes overhead and being bundled into an open car boot with his siblings as the family made their escape. His hometown of Khorramshahr in Khuzestan Province, located in southwestern Iran near the Iraq border, was devastated, the 1986 census recording no one remaining from a pre-War population of about 150,000.

He had told her that Ahwazi Arabs — the largest Arab minority in Iran, who reside predominantly in resource-laden Khuzestan — are marginalised as impoverished, second-class citizens. Their oil-rich and fertile ancestral lands are expropriated without compensation, and their water supply diverted and polluted, depriving them of clean drinking water, even though they live in one of the hottest populated places on earth.

But she did not know about the arrest, torture and public execution of family members; the beatings he endured — to the point that his own mother did not recognise him — and his jail sentence for fighting for his people’s political, economic and cultural rights; the hiding from authorities; his desperate escape when, helped by friends, he fled by plane to Malaysia and then by boat to Indonesia and on to Australia. By then, he no longer had a passport, Malaysian people smugglers having broken their promise to return it. He recalls the 14-day passage to Australia as a nightmare: seriously ill from the diesel fumes, he was grateful to be rescued by the Australian Maritime Authority and taken to Christmas Island.

As far as the Australian Government is concerned, that fateful journey deems him to be an ‘illegal maritime arrival’. Fast Track is expressly for the approximately 30,500 ‘people who arrived illegally by boat’ between August 2012 and December 2013. They are the lucky ones, who can still be invited to apply for a temporary protection visa. Those who arrived later will not be granted a visa at all.

The immigration official claims to know about the Ahwazi Arabs’ plight, and is more interested in whether he can provide ‘genuine, original’ documented evidence of his ‘identity, nationality and citizenship’. After all, this is probably his only chance to provide his protection claim in full.

Alternating between Farsi and English, he does his best to comply, producing a file, which the migration agent sitting next to him has helped to compile. He knows he is fortunate: only those assessed as ‘exceptionally vulnerable’ are now eligible for legal funding. When he has difficulty understanding, he relies on the translation provided by the interpreter seated at the end of the table. Coolly elegant, the young, sophisticated woman, originally from Teheran, seems worlds apart from her fellow countryman, with little in common aside from their shared language.

In contrast, the support person recalls having an immediate affinity with this charming, soft-spoken man whom she visits each week. Enriched by their friendship, she admires his resilience, his efforts to improve, learning English and updating his professional qualifications online. Yet, as he often reminds her, ‘You have the advantages of education and freedom.’

Finally, the interview ends. He is emotionally spent. The process has been respectful, if dispassionate, his story finally heard. Promising to send the required character references, he gets up to return to his room. The support person cannot leave him like this: he is too vulnerable, his reopened wounds too raw. She asks a guard if he can see his psychologist, and fortunately, her request is granted. A fellow applicant was not so lucky: told after his interview that he was to be moved to Christmas Island, he slit his throat. ‘There’s only so much a person can take,’ he explained while recovering.

Weeks pass in a flurry of activity as final documentation is supplied. Intended to process claims ‘more efficiently’, Fast Track only allows limited time to respond.

Gradually he stops asking for advice. Life returns to what passes as normal in the surreal world of the detention centre. He resumes his activities — exercise, reading, eating, sleeping — some detainees call it ‘time-wasting’ — while he waits in limbo.

Fear of uncertainty still troubles him: what if his application is refused? She strives to offer comfort: under Fast Track, he may still get a second chance, with some rejected claims referred for limited review by the recently established Immigration Assessment Authority. Hopefully, he will be recognised as a refugee and granted a temporary visa. Then he too will be able to realise his dream to live in freedom, if only for a short while. For as the government constantly reminds us: ‘Settlement in Australia will never be an option for anyone who travels illegally by boat.’

Shira Sebban is a Sydney writer and editor, passionate about exploring the challenges life throws at us through her writing. A former journalist, she previously taught French and worked in publishing.

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Tag: refugees