Soubhi Iskander is a Socialist Alliance Senate candidate for NSW in the 2010 federal elections. He was born in Sudan and has been a socialist for more than half a century. Despite being jailed and tortured, he remains a committed and active socialist and now is the editor of 麻豆传媒 Weekly鈥檚 Arabic supplement, The Flame.
Iskander is furious but not surprised at the scapegoating of refugees and recent immigrants in the current federal election campaign.
Asylum seekers & refugees
A group of sixty refugee rights activists visited the Villawood Detention Centre on July 25 to take part in a planned soccer match and BBQ with refugees. It was organised by Socialist Alliance and Greens members and supported by the Construction Forestry, Energy and Mining Union (CFMEU) and Union Aid Abroad (APHEDA).
We wanted to show solidarity with refugees and highlight both the ALP and the Liberal鈥檚 inhumane refugee policies. However, when we arrived we were turned away, deemed a 鈥渟ecurity threat.鈥
Prime Minister Julia Gillard鈥檚 July 5 announcement that she would solve the refugee crisis by being tougher on refugees did what former PM John Howard failed to do in his 11 years of conservative rule. She has made former One Nation MP Pauline Hanson feel at home.
Hanson announced she wasn鈥檛 emigrating to Britain, as planned, saying she was in 鈥渢otal agreement鈥 with Gillard鈥檚 plan to 鈥渟weep political correctness from the debate鈥, the Australian said on July 6.
Gillard鈥檚 main proposals cast refugees as a problem to be solved 鈥 and blame the refugees for that problem.
In a July 7, press conference in Dili, Luta Hamutuk a prominent civil society activist group in Timor Leste condemned the new Australian policy on refugees as "racist".
In a July 6 speech to the Lowy Institute Gillard announced that her government was pursuing a regional agreement for offshore processing of "unauthorised arrivals".
Thirty one Rohingya refugees in a detention centre in Darwin ended their 12-day hunger strike on June 25. They were protesting against the Australian government鈥檚 delay in processing their asylum claims, an average of nine months after their boats鈥 interception.
Refugee advocates have launched the 鈥淏ring them home, minister Evans!鈥 campaign in response to the news that 92-year-old Irene Joseph, deported to Sri Lanka with her 68-year-old son on March 5, had collapsed and almost died in the village where they now live.
Joseph is permanent resident of Australia and had lived here since 1979. In 1996, when she re-entered Australia after a holiday, she was mistakenly issued with a temporary visa.
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