Australia paid 'people smugglers'

Australia 'paid off people-smugglers' to return boat with 65 refugees
Gianluca Mezzofiore By Gianluca Mezzofiore
October 28, 2015 13:00 GMT 129  

Australian officials allegedly paid off people-smugglers to divert dozens of New Zealand-bound asylum-seekers to Indonesia in May 2015, putting their lives at risk and potentially breaching anti-trafficking laws, a new Amnesty International report has shown. Witnesses say Australian officials working as part of Operation Sovereign Borders, a maritime border control operation, paid six crew members $32,000 (£20,000) to take 65 asylum-seekers to Indonesia, and even provided them a map showing where to land there.

While the Australian government has repeatedly denied paying people-smugglers, crew members of the boat and asylum-seekers confirmed to the human rights group that the transaction took place. Documentary evidence from the incident, including photos and a video taken by the passengers, seem to confirm it.

"Australia has, for months, denied that it paid for people smuggling, but our report provides detailed evidence pointing to a very different set of events," said Anna Shea, refugee researcher at Amnesty International. Indonesian police also showed Amnesty researchers the money the confiscated from the six crew. The boat's passengers were from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar, including four women, one of which was pregnant, two seven-year-old children and a one-year-old baby.

After two interceptions on 17 and 22 May, Australian officials transferred most of the passengers − who had paid $4,000 (£2,600) each for the voyage − into a Border Force vessel. During their time in the Australian ship, the asylum-seekers complained that they were held in small, cramped cells with no access to health care or doctors.

On 30 May, the passengers were transferred to different and smaller boats and the six-strong crew were given instructions to go to Rote Island in Indonesia. However, with little fuel aboard, the boats soon ran into trouble. It was then rescued by Indonesian police.

Amnesty also conducted research into a second turn-back incident in July 2015, in which passengers intercepted by the Navy and Border Force were put on a new boat bound for Indonesia.

The rights group called for a Royal Commission to investigate and report on allegations of criminal and unlawful acts committed by the Australian government officials. The report, which seems to fit a wider pattern of a "push-back" or "turn-back" policy pursued by the Australian government, comes out as former prime minister Tony Abbott called on Europe to take on the country's border security policies or risk "catastrophic error".

"The Australian experience proves that the only way to dissuade people seeking to come from afar is not to let them in," he said in London during the second Margaret Thatcher Lecture in his first speech after being forced out by his own party.

Abbott previously stated that the main purpose of Operation Sovereign borders, a military-led initiative to stop anyone from reaching Australia irregularly by boat, was to save life at sea.

But Amnesty have documented what they call an "alarming pattern" of illegal push-backs by the Australian authorities. "Operation Sovereign Borders, far from saving lives, has become synonymous with abuse of some of the world's most vulnerable people," said Anna Shea.

"Australia must once and for all start taking its international obligations towards refugees seriously. All people seeking asylum deserve to have their claims fairly dealt with."

In response to the report, the Ministry for Immigration and Border Protection told the BBC that "people on intercepted vessels are held lawfully in secure, safe, humane, and appropriate conditions by the personnel of the Australian Border Force (ABF) and the Australian Defence Force (ADF)".

"To suggest otherwise, as Amnesty has done, is to cast a slur on the men and women of the ABF and ADF," the statement said.

Australia's refugee policies

Australia's refugee policies: a global inspiration for all the wrong reasons
Antony Loewenstein

 ‘The sad reality is that Australia’s refugee policies are envied and copied around the world, especially in Europe, now struggling to cope with a huge influx of refugees.’ Photograph: Jure Makovec/AFP/Getty Images

Australia first introduced onshore detention facilities in 1991 at Villawood in Sydney and Port Hedland in Western Australia. Mandatory detention came in 1992. Bob Hawke’s government announced it was because “Australia could be on the threshold of a major wave of unauthorised boat arrivals from south-east Asia, which will severely test both our resolve and our capacity to ensure that immigration in this country is conducted within a planned and controlled framework”.

More than 20 years later, the rhetoric has only worsened against the most vulnerable arriving from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sri Lanka. Policies that years ago seemed unimaginable, such as imprisoning refugees on remote Pacific islands, are the norm and blessed with bipartisan support.

The sad reality is Australia’s refugee policies are envied and copied around the world, especially in Europe, now struggling to cope with a huge influx of refugees from the Middle East and Africa. Walls and fences are being built across the continent in futile attempts to keep out the unwanted. A privatised security apparatus is working to complement the real agenda. Australia is an island but it has long implemented remote detention camps with high fences and isolation for its inhabitants.

As a journalist and activist who has publicly campaigned against Canberra’s asylum policies for over a decade, this brutal reality is a bitter pill. In early 2014 I called for UN sanctions against Australia for ignoring humanitarian law and willfully abusing refugees in its case both on the mainland and Nauru and Manus Island. I still hold this view but must recognise facts; the international mood in 2016 for asylum seekers is hostile. As much as I’d like to say that my homeland is a pariah on the international stage, it’s simply not the case.

When Denmark recently introduced a bill to take refugees’ valuable belongings in order to pay for their time in detention camps, this was remarkably similar to Australia charging asylum seekers for their stay behind bars. Either directly or indirectly, Europe is following Australia’s draconian lead.

Consider the facts in Europe: after Sweden and Denmark reintroduced border controls, a borderless continent is now in serious jeopardy. The Schengen agreement – introduced in 1985 to support free movement between EEC countries – is on the verge of collapse. In early January, the European Union admitted it had relocated just 0.17% of the refugees it pledged to help four months earlier. In 2015 more than 1 million people arrived by boat in Europe.

This mirrors Australia’s lacklustre efforts to resettle refugees in its onshore detention camps. Figures released by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in December found that asylum seekers had spent an average of 445 days behind barbed wire. In both Australia and Europe there’s general acceptance of these situations because those seeking asylum have been so successfully demonised as potential terrorists, suspiciously Muslim and threatening a comfortably western way of life.

Germany, a nation that took in more than 1 million refugees in 2015 despite being unprepared for the large numbers, is now facing a public backlash against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s welcoming stance, leading to fear and rising far-right support. Australia has taken far fewer people with little social unrest and yet still unleashed over two decades a highly successful, though dishonest, campaign to stigmatise boat arrivals. The result is the ability of successive Australian governments to create an environment where sexual abuse against refugees is tolerated and covered up. A politician is unlikely to lose his job over it.

Europe and Australia promote themselves as regions of openness. It’s an illusion when it comes to refugee policy. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, despite his bombastic and discriminatory attitude towards refugees and Jews, is increasingly viewed across Europe as providing necessary warnings of the continent’s struggles. EU officials in Brussels told the New York Times that Orban was often right but wished he hadn’t couched his comments in conspiracy theories. Too few in Hungary are publicly resisting this wave of racism.

“Whenever Hungary made an argument the response was always: ‘They are stupid Hungarians. They are xenophobes and Nazis,’” Zoltan Kovacs, a government spokesman, told the Times. “Suddenly, it turns out that what we said was true. The naivete of Europe is really quite stunning.”

Brussels has proposed an Australian-style border force to monitor the EU’s borders and deport asylum seekers. Germany and France support the move. This proves that the most powerful nations have little interest in resolving the reasons so many people are streaming into Europe (such as war and climate change) and prefer to pull up the drawbridge. Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott encouraged Europe to turn back the refugee boats and it seems Brussels is listening. Europe is also copying Australia’s stance of privatising the detention centres for refugees.

None of this worries Rupert Murdoch’s Australian. In light of the New Year’s Eve sex attacks in Cologne, the paper editorialised in early 2016 that Europe must avoid “reckless idealism” and embrace an “enlightened world” where gender equality is accepted by all. The outlet has not expressed similar outrage with the immigration department’s blatant disregard for refugee lives. It’s also unclear how pushing for military action in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and other Muslim nations, pushed by the paper for years, contributes to an “enlightened world”.

It’s comforting to think of Australia as a global pariah on the world stage, pursuing racist policies against asylum seekers from war-torn nations. But it’s untrue. Canberra’s militarised “solution” to refugees is admired in many parts of Europe because it represents an ideology far easier to process and sell than identifying and adapting to changing global migration patterns.

None of this should stop activists fighting for a more just outcome, in both Australia and Europe, but today it’s more likely European officials will ask Australian officials for advice on how to “stop the boats” than chastise it for mistreating a raped refugee.

Australia has become an inspiration for all the wrong reasons.

PFLP condemns Jo Cox assassination

PFLP condemns Jo Cox assassination

PFLP condemns the assassination of British MP Jo Cox and calls to confront racism and fascism Jun17 2016

jo-cox-pal The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine condemned the assassination of the British Labour MP Jo Cox at the hands of a British racist extremist, emphasizing the need to address the racist discourse of colonial powers, and to confront the growing threat of fascism and the extreme right in Europe and around the world.

The PFLP considers that the attack on MP Jo Cox, a supporter of Palestinian rights, and other progressive voices, as well as repeated attacks on refugee centers in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, are not isolated incidents or mere security concerns, but rather reflect an intensified state of extreme right ideology and sharp polarization in the industrialized Western societies. The Front urges Palestinian and Arab communities to build broad alliances to confront these crimes and defend the people against attack.

The Front declared that the world capitalist system, led by the United States as the center of imperialism, is responsible for the rising manifestations of fascism in Europe. Capitalism and imperialism destroy communities, peoples and countries, and create millions of refugees and migrants from among the displaced popular classes, and then these same systems encourage a racist offensive and represses those who defend their human and natural rights.

The PFLP said that there is no difference between the racist criminal who killed MP Jo Cox and the Zionist criminal who ran over and killed the struggling American martyr for Palestine, Rachel Corrie, in Gaza in March 2003.

Jo Cox suspect had ties to pro-apartheid and neo-Nazi groups

 MP Jo Cox

Thomas Mair’s earliest apparent connections to the far right date back to a time when there were still parts of the world ruled by white supremacists.

In the mid-1980s, the man who is now suspected of fatally shooting and stabbing the Labour MP Jo Cox, was subscriber number 1,201 to SA Patriot, a magazine published by supporters of apartheid in South Africa.

Alan Harvey, SA Patriot’s editor now living in “exile” in the UK, wrote recently on an online newsletter that Londoners had “brought shame and humiliation” on Britain by “electing a non-white Muslim”, Sadiq Khan, as mayor.

He told the Financial Times on Friday that SA Patriot was “neo-imperialist” rather than “neo-Nazi”. “We were not rightwing enough for a lot of people,” he said. Mr Mair took only eight or nine issues before letting his subscription lapse.

By 1999, Mr Mair’s leanings appear to have shifted still further to the right. That year, his name appeared on invoices from the National Alliance, a US neo-Nazi group.

Among the texts Mr Mair ordered to be sent to his Yorkshire address were a book on improvised munitions and a copy of a Nazi Party pamphlet with a section written by Joseph Goebbels.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, the US civil rights group that published the invoices on Friday, said its database indicated Mr Mair had sent $620 to the National Alliance in total.

There seems little to indicate whether Mr Mair had any links to the far-right in the years that followed. He lived in a nondescript semi-detached house on the Fieldhead estate in Birstall. He appears to have suffered mental ill-health. According to a 2010 local press report, he was referred from a centre for adults with mental health problems to tend a country park as a volunteer.

Duane St Louis, Mr Mair’s half brother, told reporters he had mental problems, which he believed to be obsessive compulsive disorder. Scott Mair, his brother, said Mr Mair was a peaceful man without strong political views. “My brother is not a violent man,” he was quoted as saying. “We don’t even know who he votes for.”

Two police officers remained on guard outside Mr Mair’s semi-detached house on the Fieldhead estate in Birstall. He lived in the red brick home on his own. The gardens are neatly maintained with topiary bushes and there are net curtains in the windows. There is a drive to the side with a row of garages. It backs on to an industrial estate.

Labour politician who was born and slain in the Yorkshire town she represented
Fieldhead was built after the second world war and is home to several hundred families. There is a row of shops and a primary school. The local housing association still owns many properties but some have been sold privately. An older three bedroom home costs around £90,000.

There are also newer homes. In 2011 a charity secured government funding to demolish 150 flats that were hard to let and had been plagued by antisocial behaviour. Kirklees Community Association replaced them with 77 family homes. Housebuilder Keepmoat built a further 62 homes for private sale.

According to unconfirmed witness accounts, Ms Cox’s assailant shouted “Britain first” or “put Britain first” during the attack. The far-right Britain First group said it was “obviously … not involved and would never encourage behaviour of this sort”.

Nothing suggesting Mr Mair was actively involved with a particular group has emerged.

Another Yorkshireman, a British National Party member and former soldier called Terence Gavan, was jailed for six years in 2010 over a homemade arsenal of explosives and firearms, including nail bombs and a booby-trapped cigarette, that could have been used to attack Muslims.

Gavan wrote in one notebook discovered by police: “The patriot must always be ready to defend his country against enemies and their governments.’’

The North Kirklees area, home to both Gavan and Mr Mair, was described as the “jewel in the crown” of BNP support in the mid-2000s by former leader Nick Griffin. It had three councillors there and captured 3,685 votes — 7.1 per cent — in Batley and Spen in the general election 2010.

However, the local BNP branch folded in 2013. David Exley, a former BNP councillor who lives in Birstall, told the FT that many activists quit because of Mr Griffin’s leadership. “He was just in it for himself,” he said. He said the killing of Ms Cox was “terrible”. “She was democratically elected and she should be allowed to do her job.”

Some BNP activists left for the English Democrats, he said, while others supported the UK Independence party. The BNP did not contest Batley and Spen, Ms Cox’s constituency, in 2015.
Source:FT

Suspected killer of British MP Jo Cox had ties to neo-Nazis in US
By Reuters and VICE News
June 17, 2016 | 3:20 pm

The man arrested over the shooting and stabbing murder of British parliamentarian Jo Cox had ties to a neo-Nazi group in the United States, and had bought guides on assembling homemade guns and explosives, according to a US-based civil rights watchdog that tracks hate groups.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) published records showing that Thomas Mair, 52, who allegedly shot and stabbed Cox multiple times Thursday, was a "longtime supporter of the National Alliance" (NA), once known as the US's premier neo-Nazi organization.

Mair reportedly spent more than $620 on books and literature from NA, including guides titled "Improvised Munitions Handbook," "Chemistry of Powder & Explosives," and "Incendiaries," according to receipts published by SPLC.

The receipts also showed Mair purchased a copy of Ich Kampfe — German for "I do battle" or "I struggle," and an obvious reference to Adolf Hilter's Mein Kampf —a handbook issued to new enrollees in the Nazi party in the early 1940s.

Mair also subscribed to S. A. Patriot, a South African magazine published by pro-apartheid group White Rhino Club, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Cox, a 41-year-old lawmaker for the opposition Labour Party and a vocal advocate of Britain's European Union membership, died of her injuries on Thursday afternoon. She was attacked while preparing to meet constituents in Birstall near Leeds in northern England.

Media reports, citing witnesses, said the attacker had shouted out "Britain first", which is the name of a right-wing nationalist group that describes itself on its website as "a patriotic political party and street defence organisation".

Police said a 77-year-old man was also assaulted in the incident and suffered injuries that were not life-threatening.

Cox's death has caused deep shock across Britain and the suspension of campaigning for next week's referendum on the country's EU membership. The deputy leader of Britain First, Jayda Fransen, distanced the group from the attack, which she described as "absolutely disgusting". Leader Paul Golding also promptly condemned the attack.

One witness said a man pulled an old or makeshift gun from a bag and fired twice. "I saw a lady on the floor like on the beach with her arms straight and her knees up and blood all over the face," Hichem Ben-Abdallah told reporters. "She wasn't making any noise, but clearly she was in agony."

The lawmaker's husband Brendan said: "She would have wanted two things above all else to happen now: one, that our precious children are bathed in love and two, that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her."

The rival referendum campaign groups, Remain and Leave, said they were suspending activities on Friday. Prime Minister David Cameron said he would pull out of a planned rally in Gibraltar, the British territory on the southern coast of Spain.

Cameron said the killing of the mother-of-two, who had worked on US President Barack Obama's 2008 election campaign, was a tragedy.

"We have lost a great star," the Conservative prime minister said. "She was a great campaigning MP with huge compassion, with a big heart. It is dreadful, dreadful news."

It was not immediately clear what the impact would be on the June 23 referendum, which has polarized the nation into pro- and anti-EU camps.

But some analysts speculated it could boost the pro-EU "Remain" campaign, which in recent days has fallen behind the "Leave" camp in opinion polls.

Gun ownership is highly restricted in Britain, and attacks of any nature on public figures are rare. The last British lawmaker to have been killed in an attack was Ian Gow, who died after a bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) exploded under his car at his home in southern England in 1990.

தமிழ் அகதிப் படகு நோக்கி துப்பாக்கிச் சூடு!

இலங்கை அகதிகளை அச்சுறுத்த இந்தோனேசியா  துப்பாக்கிச்  சூடு! 

மன்னிப்புசபை கண்டனம்

துப்பாக்கி சூட்டை நடத்தி, இலங்கை அகதிகளின் உயிர்களுக்கு ஆபத்தை உணர்த்தி அவர்களை படகுகளுக்குள் தள்ளிய இந்தோனேசிய அதிகாரிகளின் நடவடிக்கையானது, சர்வதேச நீதியை மீறும் செயல் என சர்வதேச மன்னிப்பு சபை குற்றம் சுமத்தியுள்ளது.

பெண்கள் சிறுவர்களுக்கு எதிராக இவ்வாறான அச்சுறுத்தல் தந்திரோபாயங்களை நிறுத்தி, அகதிகளை படகில் இருந்து இறக்கி, ஐக்கிய நாடுகள் அகதிகளுக்கான அதிகாரிகளை சந்திக்கசெய்யவேண்டும்.

சர்வதேச மன்னிப்புசபையின் தென்னாசிய மற்றும் பசுபிக் பிராந்திய பணிப்பாளர் ஜோசெப் பெனேடிக்ட் இதனை கூறியுள்ளார்.

அகதிகளை சந்திப்பதற்கு ஐக்கிய நாடுகளின் அதிகாரிகள் தயாராக இருப்பதாகவும் பெனேடிக்ட் தெரிவித்துள்ளார்.

படகில் இருக்கும் ஐந்து பெண்கள், படகில் இருந்து குதித்து கரைக்கு செல்ல முயன்றபோதே அச்சுறுத்தும் வகையில் துப்பாக்கி பிரயோகம் ஆகாயம் நோக்கி மேற்கொள்ளப்பட்டது.

On June 16, 2016 Tamil women refugees from Sri Lanka jump out from their stranded boat onto the beach in Lhoknga, Aceh province (AFP Photo/Prossa)

LHOKNGA, Indonesia (AP) — Authorities in the Indonesian province of Aceh are preparing to tow a boat with more than 40 Tamil men, women and children out to sea Friday after rescuing it last weekend.

It would be the second attempt in the past week to remove the vessel from Indonesian waters after it suffered engine trouble and was discovered stranded last Saturday.

The migrants have been at sea for about a month and were trying to reach the Australian territory of Christmas Island.

The province is refusing to let the migrants, which include nine children and a pregnant woman, land despite Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla asking Aceh officials to provide shelter. On Thursday, six women tried to leave the boat as it sat in shallow waters but police fired warning shots.

"We did not allow them to land because Indonesia is not their destination and they are fit," said Frans Delian, a spokesman for the Aceh government. "We advised them to not continue their journey to Australia but back to their country."

Immigration officials said the people were from Sri Lanka. Amnesty International said in a statement that the group left from India in an Indian-flagged boat and may have fled Sri Lanka, where members of the Tamil minority have suffered persecution.

Delian said their situation is different from stateless Muslim Rohingya boat people who were helped by Indonesian authorities last year after fleeing persecution in Myanmar. Southeast Asian nations including predominantly Muslim Indonesia were reluctant to help until facing international pressure over the plight of Rohingya adrift at sea with minimal supplies of food or water.

Rights groups urged the Indonesia government to let the migrants disembark.

"Indonesia won praise when it helped Rohingya refugees in Aceh," said Andreas Harsono, Indonesia researcher at Human Rights Watch. "It is a shame that the Indonesian and Aceh local government refuse to assist these Tamil boat people."

The International Organization for Migration has had a team at the site since last weekend including a translator and medical personnel and is prepared to provide temporary accommodation. However they have been denied access to the migrants.

Aceh police chief Maj. Gen. Husein Hamidi said the Tamil migrants have been given food, water and fuel. They could be towed out to sea at high tide later Friday, he said.

The boat was beached and heavy machinery was used to try and refloat it while all the migrants were still on board.

The vessel was first towed back into international waters on Sunday after repairs were made to its engine. It returned on Monday and the migrants asked for additional fuel, according to Indonesian authorities.

The office of Australia's Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton declined to comment on the situation.

Australia has riled Indonesia, and been criticized by human rights groups and the United Nations, for its tough refugee deterrent policy of turning back asylum seeker boats that attempt to reach Christmas Island from Indonesian ports. Indonesia considers Australian warships towing foreigners in boats into Indonesian waters an affront to Indonesian sovereignty.
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AP writers Niniek Karmini, Stephen Wright and Margie Mason in Jakarta and Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia contributed.
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