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March 18, 2004

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Refugees

This from today's SMH is a disgrace. Effectively Australia is washing its hands of Russian Jewish refugees, arguing they have a right to citizenship in Israel instead. It doesn't matter if they don't want to live in Israel (and sometimes you can understand why). Under the appropriate treaty the Federal Court has ruled Jewish refugees are entitled to "effective protection" because of Israel's Law of Return. It doesn't matter than, as Justice Ronald Sackville points out:

that Syria permitted all nationals of Arab states to enter without visas, with the exception of Iraqis and Somalis. "It would presumably follow that Australia owes no protection obligation to any refugee from an Arab country, except possibly Iraqis and Somalis," he said.
A treaty written after WW2, partly in reaction to the horrors of that war, and Israel's Law of Return, also written to provide a safe haven in light of WW2, have been combined in some torturous legal logic to deny Jewish refugees status in Australia. And it is likely to be the thin edge of the wedge unless the High Court steps in. These are not illegal boat people, trying to jump the queue. These are people that enter via airports and apply for the appropriate visas correctly. As the article points out this also applies to others, such as Nepalese assylum seekers because of Nepal's treaty with India.

Staggering and heartbreaking.

 posted by Simon on 03.18.04 at 12:26 PM in the




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Comments:

I understand your concern but I think there is an argument both ways. Theoretically Australia continues to take in more refugees per capita than all but two countries and so inevitably there must be some effort to limit this by the government to find ways to 'shift' the obligation to other countries. Israel extends citizenship to all those in the article, why should they not take it up - do ex-Russian non-Jews face percecution in Israel? Would they be persecuted if they dislike or even criticize the Israeli government? I would say not. From what I have seen of the Israeli people they have no hesitation in doing so and are generally willing to listen to opposing views so I doubt it.

If you are a refugee you don't get to be picky about where you are going to end up. I have often wondered why, when the UNHCR treaty requires Australia to only accept people arriving directly from countries under which they suffer persecution , we continue to accept a torrent of people leaving Indonesia and then people protest about Australia sending these people to other countries who are perfectly capable of allowing them to live a happy and peaceful life. Where do you draw the line between economic and political refugees.

I honestly have no idea why I keep on ending up taking such a right wing view point on your site :-)

 posted by: bijai on 03.20.04 at 12:49 AM [permalink]




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