Scroll down to also read from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Four Corners Program of March 13 2000 "A Well Founded Fear of Persecution: An insight into the previously hidden world of Australia's detention centres". International Criminal Court for John Howard and Philip Ruddock? In the interests of Justice, you betcha!!
Return to danger … Abdul Azmin Rajabi, who lost two daughters in a grenade attack on his home; right, a woman known as Zahra whose son has vanished since he was repatriated to Afghanistan (Photo: Glen Mccurtayne)
Cynthia Banham
IN THE depths of the harsh Afghan winter early this year, Abdul Azmin Rajabi took an Australian with him on a pilgrimage to the graves of his two daughters.
Mr Rajabi placed his hands on the snow-covered tombstones marking where his children now lie, and told Phil Glendenning, the director of the Edmund Rice Centre: "I put my life in danger to help my family, to help my children, but I couldn't."
Mr Rajabi is one of 400 Afghans Australia rejected under the Howard government's "Pacific Solution". His story, along with many others, is told in a documentary, A Well-Founded Fear, to be screened on SBS next month.
He had reason to fear the Taliban in 2001. His family had connections to the previous communist government, and as if this wasn't reason enough for the Taliban to want him dead, he had given up his Islamic faith and had married outside his tribal group.
The Taliban came looking for him and captured his father, who refused to say where his son was. So he was beaten with electrical cords. "When he came home he was unable to walk or talk or sit," the son says in the documentary.. "His entire body was blackened with bruises."
He died two days later. So Mr Rajabi fled to Australia, leaving behind his wife and children, in hiding in Iran, waiting until they could join him.
How his two young daughters came to be killed by the Taliban a year later is a tragic consequence of Australia's refusal to grant this Afghan father asylum when he came begging for refuge, say the makers of the documentary.
The decision to embark on such a perilous journey to Australia, aided by people smugglers, was a hard one. "I consoled myself hoping that, although separated from my family, at least I would find a way to keep myself and my family alive," Mr Rajabi says.
Mr Rajabi, a member of the persecuted Hazara ethnic group in Afghanistan, arrived on Nauru in late 2001, where his claim for asylum was rejected and he was given no right of appeal.
He tells Mr Glendenning, whose search for rejected asylum seekers is at the heart of the program, that Immigration officials told him it was safe to go back. They offered to give him $2000 to return "voluntarily", or face indefinite detention. "They told us that even if we stayed there for 10 years we would never be accepted."
So in late 2002 Mr Rajabi went back. Four months later he was at home with his family in a town outside Kabul when an explosion ripped through the walls and windows of his house. He describes in the documentary how first there was one bang, then another. Shrapnel tore through the window, killing his daughter Yalda. Rowna, his youngest daughter, died a few minutes later.
It was a grenade attack, believed to be by the Taliban who, according to local medical authorities and newspaper reports, targeted the family.
Mr Rajabi drops his head into his hands and breaks down, unable to go on.
Today he lives with the remainder of his family in Pakistan, where he can't send his sons to school for fear of their safety.
He only came to Kabul so he could tell Mr Glendenning, and Australia, in person, what happened to him. "We could only speak from our heart, which we did," he says of the account he gave to Australian officials seven years ago, but which they didn't want to believe.
Mohammed Rizae is also a Hazara Afghan who was rejected by Australia. He believes this had something to do with the translators used by Immigration officials on Nauru who were all Pashtuns - the same ethnic group as the Taliban.
He was too scared to tell the translators some aspects of his story, such as the fact he is Ishmaili, a member of the pacifist Islamic sect targeted by the Taliban and the nomadic Kuchis, who are also Pashtuns.
Mr Rizae's grandfather had refused to fight the Soviet-backed communists. He was publicly hanged by the Taliban in a bazaar.
But Australian officials told Mr Rizae there were inconsistencies in his testimony, and they were unable to substantiate his fear of persecution because Afghanistan was now safe.
So in 2002 Australia sent him back to Afghanistan, where he was forced to flee to Pakistan because his old enemies returned to pursue him again. Today his province is in the hands of the Taliban.
"Those places where we live are not and never were secure," he tells Mr Glendenning.
Mr Rizae now spends his days moving between Pakistan and Kabul.
There are many other stories.
Gholam Payador, also an Hazara Afghan sent back to Afghanistan by Australia in 2002, holds up a photo of himself and two other Afghans standing together on Nauru. The other men are now dead, he says. One was shot by two men on a motorcycle.
Mohammed Hussain, another Afghan rejected by Australia, also meets with Mr Glendenning. "I was forced to leave this country, and seeking refuge in Australia worsened my crime," he tells him.
A self-described poet who was working in a coalmine, he disappeared soon after he met the filmmakers. Eyewitnesses saw him taken out from his workplace by gunmen who put him into a 4WD vehicle with blackened windows. Mr Glendenning said he is still missing and there are grave fears for his life.
THE Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, has demanded answers to allegations up to 20 Afghan asylum seekers rejected by Australia under the Howard government's so-called Pacific solution were killed after returning to Afghanistan, and others remain in hiding from the Taliban.
The claims are contained in a documentary to be aired on SBS on November 19. The film, A Well-Founded Fear, produced by Anne Delaney, is based on the efforts of Phil Glendenning, the director of social justice agency the Edmund Rice Centre, who has spent the past six years tracing many of these rejected asylum seekers.
About 400 Afghans detained on Nauru were returned to Afghanistan after having their asylum claims rejected. They were told by Immigration officials it was safe to go home, and that if they refused, they would remain in detention forever, according to accounts given to Mr Glendenning.
Another 400 who refused to go voluntarily were eventually found to be refugees and were resettled in Australia or other countries including New Zealand.
Mr Glendenning says he has documented the deaths of nine of the rejected Afghans at the hands of the Taliban, but he believes the figure is actually 20.
Of the other Afghans who returned home, many are hiding in Pakistan, or are forced to move between Pakistan and Afghanistan to evade the Taliban. They include a man whose two daughters were killed in a Taliban attack on his family's home near Kabul, after his asylum claim was rejected by Australia in 2002.
Senator Evans told the Herald he had asked his department to give him a "full briefing" on the matters raised by the Edmund Rice Centre.
He said the department's initial response, "and I am conscious this is the department's response - is that they don't agree with a lot of the claims made".
But he said he was "taking the claims very seriously" and had "asked for further information about the processes that occurred on Nauru and the robustness and integrity of those processes".
Much of the information Mr Glendenning used to locate the rejected asylum seekers was provided to him by sympathetic Immigration officials, concerned at what had occurred under the Howard government.
He believes the Afghans who left Nauru were "lied to" by Australian officials, and he wants the Government to reopen their cases.
"We now have the opportunity with the new Government to put the mistakes of the past to rest," Mr Glendenning said.
Senator Evans said he had an open mind about reopening some of the cases. It would be a big step, he said. "You would want to be convinced there was something very wrong that occurred.
"What some advocates are saying is you ought put them [the rejected Afghans] as a priority in the humanitarian intake over the claims of others. The reason for that priority is that they once came to Australia, were rejected as refugees, and returned to their country of origin," he said.
This would "fundamentally overturn" the basis on which such decisions were normally made, which was on priority of need.
Philip Ruddock was immigration minister until October 2003. Asked for his comments on the rejected Afghans, he said, "I would never say mistakes are impossible." But he added that Australia's asylum system was "robust and credible". He also said the Afghans left Nauru "voluntarily".
"It is the case that Afghanistan is a dangerous place but the [United Nations] Refugee Convention does not say you cannot be returned to a dangerous place," Mr Ruddock said. "The fact that somebody might tragically die [in Afghanistan] may well be as tragic as a road accident in Sydney." _______________________________ | Asia-Pacific | Monday, 27 October 2008
Australia probes Afghan killings
By Nick Bryant BBC News, Sydney Many asylum-seekers had been held on the Pacific island of Nauru
Australia has ordered an investigation into claims that up to 20 Afghan asylum-seekers were killed by the Taleban after being returned home.
A television documentary reports that those who died were among 400 Afghan asylum-seekers denied entry to Australia by the former government.
Their fate was examined by a social research group, the Edmund Rice Centre, which says it has proof of nine deaths.
The policy under which the Afghans were returned home has since been dropped.
The previous Howard government's so-called Pacific Solution policy detained people with asylum claims on islands in the Pacific, preventing them from setting foot on Australian soil.
Incoming Prime Minister Kevin Rudd cancelled the Pacific Solution and the forced returns policy.
Deaths reported The deaths were brought to light by a television documentary due to air on the SBS channel later this month.
About 400 Afghans detained at the Australian detention centre on the Pacific island of Nauru were returned to their homeland, having had their asylum claims rejected.
According to many in their own accounts, they were assured by Australian immigration officials that it was safe for them to return home, and told that they would be held in detention for the rest of their lives if they failed to do so.
But an investigation by the social justice group, the Edmund Rice Centre, has found that some were killed by the Taleban.
It documented the deaths of nine of the failed asylum seekers at the hands of the Taleban and believes the true figure is actually closer to 20.
The investigation also found that many Afghans who were returned home are hiding in Pakistan, or were forced to move between there and Afghanistan in order to evade capture.
They include an Afghan man whose daughters were killed in an attack on his home near Kabul, after his bid for asylum was rejected by Australia in 2002.
Controversial policy The director of the Edmund Rice Centre, Phil Glendenning, has said that much of the information used to locate returned asylum seekers had come from sympathetic immigration officials, angry about the controversial asylum policies of the Howard government, which introduced the Pacific Solution.
The new immigration minister, Chris Evans, has asked his department to look into the claims.
Meanwhile, his predecessor Phillip Ruddock said that "mistakes were possible," but added that Australia's asylum system was "robust and credible".
He said that the United Nations Refugee Convention did not prevent asylum seekers from being returned to dangerous places. March 13 2000
A Well Founded Fear of Persecution
An insight into the previously hidden world of Australia's detention centres.
CHRIS MASTERS: This is a picture of persecution.
These men are asylum seekers.
The images are drawn not from the country they escaped, but, here -- Australia.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: I told them that they are witnessing the death -- my death and God will punish them one by one, because it is inhuman to act this way.
CHRIS MASTERS: Here in Australia they endured a hunger strike, arbitrary imprisonment, repeated forced injections and expulsion towards the country they fear threatens their lives.
MANDY McNULTY, IMMIGRATION AGENT: Tape was placed over his mouth and he was able to push the tape off with his tongue, and he was crying and he began to scream in the aeroplane.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: I am not criminal, I am refugee.
I am not criminal, I am refugee.
CHRIS MASTERS: Tonight we look at how and why Australia is getting tougher on increasing numbers of asylum seekers.
We look at a range of abuses within Australia.
We also reveal how Australia is itself accused of illegal migration -- in this case dumping failed asylum seekers in South Africa.
PHILIP RUDDOCK, IMMIGRATION MINISTER: As many as 10,000 people could be packing up now, in the Middle East, with a view to trying to access Australia.
REPORTER: Nearly 4,000 illegal immigrants landed in Australia last year.
CHRIS MASTERS: Across the world there are more than 20 million displaced people looking for a home.
Working out whether the relatively small numbers who arrive here deserve protection or should fairly be returned to their home countries is an anguished task.
Australia takes a tough stance in managing it.
We are one of few like countries to mandatorily confine people for an undefined time while their claims are processed.
CHRIS SIDOTI, HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONER: This seems to be the whole approach -- keep them out of sight, keep them out of mind, process them as quickly as possible, don't tell them their rights, lock them up and lock them away, and get rid of them as quickly as we can.
JOHN TAYLOR, SENIOR ASSISTANT OMBUDSMAN: We receive sufficient complaints to raise concerns about the circumstances in the new detention centres.
STAFF MEMBER FROM PROCESSING CENTRE: This is the main entry to the Port Hedland Immigration Reception and Processing Centre.
Just going through the main gates into what we call the airlock.
This is where vehicles stop.
CHRIS MASTERS: Our tour begins at Port Hedland in Western Australia.
The Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs has granted unique access to their immigration detention centre.
JENNY BEDLINGTON, HEAD, REFUGEE AND HUMANITARIAN PROGRAM: We were down to 43, I think it was, Richard, a year or so ago, in Port Hedland, and we've now got over 700.
CHRIS MASTERS: The media and particularly cameras are not normally allowed.
Four Corners gained entry having given an undertaking not to identify people who have security concerns.
There is no question the department, DIMA, and the contractor, ACM, have a difficult job.
Nor is it easy for the people who are stuck here.
STAFF MEMBER FROM PROCESSING CENTRE: This is a standard sort of room -- standard accommodation that we have at the centre.
Two beds in all these rooms.
As I said, common room down that end.
This is pretty much it.
They can have a variety of personal articles in here.
CHRIS MASTERS: So how long might they spend in a room like this?
Depends on how quickly the case gets processed and to what extent they pursue appeals.
I guess we'd be talking about an average of about three months, at this stage.
CHRIS MASTERS: The first responsibility of DIMA is to verify the identity of people, ensure they fulfil medical checks and sort through their stories.
While we could not hear the stories of the people currently confined, we were able to locate some of the newly released.
DAWOD JAWAD, FORMER DETAINEE: The situation in Afghanistan is very bad.
As you know, the Taliban has killed children and old men, old women --
HABIB JAWID, FORMER DETAINEE: I can say about 10 years I couldn't see the face of peace in my village because always we had problem.
CHRIS MASTERS: The stories are typical.
They come from Perth's new community of young Afghan males who've gathered for a service to commemorate a martyr.
Most escaped Afghanistan, camped out in neighbouring countries, then found their way to Indonesia.
They were smuggled by boat to Australia and confined in Port Hedland before receiving a three-year temporary visa.
They explain why they failed to apply for a visa offshore in this way.
RAMAZAN MORAD, FORMER DETAINEE: There was no embassy from Australia and we cannot go there, and we compelled to leave Afghanistan, and we have to come illegally.
STAFF MEMBER FROM PROCESSING CENTRE: At this stage, we'll just provide a basic school syllabus, till such time as they're graded.
CHRIS MASTERS: Can we interrupt your class?
And what sort of students are they?
TEACHER: Very eager students.
Very keen to learn English.
CHRIS MASTERS: A view that Australia is a soft target for asylum seekers is easily dispelled.
There is little that is soft about a system that locks up all illegal arrivals, their children too, for an undetermined period.
CHRIS SIDOTI: Now, I look at the quite atrocious mandatory sentencing laws in the Northern Territory -- quite atrocious laws, but I have to say that they are positively benign compared to what the Commonwealth is doing under its own laws in relation to these children.
PHILIP RUDDOCK: It's a position that the Government has taken and former governments have taken, in the face of opposition from a number of advocates, including the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
CHRIS MASTERS: Within the centre, detainees are segregated and isolated.
STAFF MEMBER FROM PROCESSING CENTRE: Essentially, this is our infectious diseases building.
We just keep it if we do have people coming through with hepatitis, or something like that, just keep them separate from the rest of the population.
CHRIS MASTERS: Beyond the need to quarantine potential disease and separate hostile factions, the prisons within a prison minimises the likelihood of people coaching one another to beat the system.
CHRIS SIDOTI: The policy is clearly designed to ensure that those who first come here are kept totally isolated so that they cannot be informed of their rights under Australian law -- and that itself is a human rights problem.
CHRIS MASTERS: The characterless interviewing rooms belie the life and death struggles they contain.
What has to be discovered is whether someone is at risk and needs protection or whether they are evading the normal migration regulations.
Why is it important to be vigilant, and, if you like, sceptical?
JENNY BEDLINGTON: It's very important for a number of reasons, and most particularly with this case load because the great majority of them are arriving without any documentation, so we don't know who they are and we don't know for sure where they came from.
STAFF MEMBER (TURNING ON CASSETTE RECORDER): The following is a record of an interview held on 25 February at Port Hedland between an interviewing officer of the Department of Immigration --
CHRIS MASTERS: What one side seeks is a single life-giving paper, a protection visa.
What the other side seeks is the truth.
STAFF MEMBER: So where are the travel documents you used?
(Translator translates into foreign language)
(Man answers in foreign language)
TRANSLATOR: My passport and my travel documents I have destroyed.
CHRIS MASTERS: DIMA re-enacted a typical interview.
STAFF MEMBER: Is there any reason why you do not wish to go back to your home country?
(Translator translates into foreign language)
CHRIS MASTERS: The so-called protection interview probes the background of an applicant to establish checkable facts and identify plausible risk.
JENNY BEDLINGTON: What we're dealing with in the protection stream are people who are claiming that they may be killed or very seriously harmed if they go back, and if we get that wrong and say that they -- that isn't going to happen, then it's a very serious outcome.
CHRIS MASTERS: The struggle to authenticate the stories is extensive.
Interviewers email questions to DIMA headquarters in Canberra.
21 staff at DIMA's Country Information Service have a database with comprehensive files on 119 countries.
They can check whether indeed a demonstration did occur in Algeria on the date asserted or that a particular minority group in Iraq does suffer persecution.
PHILIP RUDDOCK: We have situations where people pretend that they are a citizen of a country where it's known that refugees might have come from, but they have, in fact, an entitlement to live in an adjoining country where they are essentially safe.
CHRIS MASTERS: If their fear of persecution checks out, they themselves can check out after an average three months.
But under new laws their status is no longer permanent.
A new three-year temporary visa makes the prospect of staying and having their family join them uncertain.
So when they are able to contact their families abroad on the overworked public telephone lifeline, it's often with a sorry story.
KHADIM FAYAN, FORMER DETAINEE: When we come here we promised them to save our life and also save their life.
But temporary visa made a very big problem for us.
CHRIS MASTERS: Back at Port Hedland, as the 40-degree heat climbs through the day the detainees retreat indoors.
STAFF MEMBER FROM PROCESSING CENTRE: There's a children's playground behind you and the volleyball court over here.
Mainly used in the evening.
It's just -- the temperature sort of precludes it being used during the day a lot of the time.
Most of our activity tends to be during the evenings.
CHRIS MASTERS: While DIMA makes the crucial decisions and maintains responsibility for the centres, the running of them is ceded to a private contractor, Australasian Correctional Management.
STAFF MEMBER: We've got nurses on duty from about eight o'clock in the morning through to about five o'clock in the evening.
They're on call 24 hours a day.
We obviously have doctors on call as well.
CHRIS SIDOTI: It's a mixed bag.
On the whole, ACM is doing better than its predecessor as the detention centre manager.
Before ACM, Australian Protective Services -- a government protection authority -- was running the detention centres and I inspected the detention centres at that stage and I had very, very serious concerns.
Not all of my concerns have been addressed, but I have to say that in spite of initial misgivings on my part about letting the contract to a private sector provider, ACM is doing better than APS were doing.
PHILIP RUDDOCK: They have been a very professional organisation, that they have carried out their work in compliance with the protocols that have been developed to ensure that the detention centres provide a secure detention, but also a humane environment for those who are involved.
CHRIS MASTERS: ACM is a subsidiary of the American multinational Wackenhut.
It holds the contract for all six Australian immigration detention centres.
The company also operates prisons on Australia's east coast and across the world.
The Villawood detention centre is significantly different to Port Hedland.
It houses about 250 people, mostly east coast air arrivals.
It sits on the other side of the continent amidst an established western Sydney community.
So, Robin, what is it like living next door to a detention centre?
ROBIN: Noisy. It has been.
When the sirens go off and I can always hear whatever goes over the P.A. system.
CHRIS MASTERS: What do you hear?
ROBIN: If it's muster time, when visitors are coming, phone calls.
KEVIN O'SULLIVAN, FORMER ACM PSYCHOLOGIST: Ironically on the site at Villawood, there's a primary school which is a Moslem school and through the fence, these kids could see the little boys and girls of their own age or slightly older arrive in buses, arrive in cars with their parents, they could hear them play in their playground.
PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, let me say about Villawood, it's an old facility and one which we acknowledge needs to be rebuilt.
It's under enormous pressure because of the large numbers of people that have to be detained.
CHRIS MASTERS: And this time there was no tour.
We had to make do with what we could discover peering through the fence and into the experiences of a small community of former staff and detainees.
FORMER DETAINEE: I think we were in prison. I can't say another thing.
We were in prison. It's a prison.
ELSDIJA EISSA, ESCAPEE: Two years just in the centre in a small place, like the animal in the zoo, you know, and why I'm here, I'm asking myself all the time.
NASER ZUWAY, FORMER DETAINEE: He said to me, "You are animal, we will deal with you like animal."
He doesn't have to say that.
If he has a job, he just do his job.
He doesn't have to say to me, "You are an animal," or "We deal with you like animal," or "We deport you."
CHRIS MASTERS: The centre also has an isolation compound.
Families and children stay in the more open Stage 2 area.
Detainees who are seen as higher security risks are confined to Stage 1.
KEVIN O'SULLIVAN: Stage 1 in contrast to Stage 2 has very little open space.
It's a very cramped environment.
It's surrounded by a fence of razor wire which I found rather disturbing.
CHRIS MASTERS: These 1997 images from the Department's own stock footage bear little resemblance to images that emerged this year from Stage 1.
NASER ZUWAY: They put me, the first time, one week in Stage 1 -- really, I got shocked when I saw myself in Stage 1.
The first night I didn't sleep -- just I think, "Why they put me here?"
I'm in the jail or the detention centre?
P.A. ANNOUNCEMENT: Attention all detainees.
It's muster time.
Come to muster with your I.D. please.
CHRIS MASTERS: People inside and out of Villawood complain of how the phone rings out constantly.
There are headcounts day and night that detainees must attend.
KEVIN O'SULLIVAN: It's most intrusive.
It's also quite humiliating having to present yourself and say, "Yes, sir, I'm here."
NASER ZUWAY: There is a good officer from the ACM and understand, I think -- he didn't care about this thing -- but there is some of them, they make our lives hard.
CHRIS MASTERS: This woman, pregnant and bleeding, had trouble attending.
FORMER DETAINEE: I feel that it's like torture.
They used to come every day -- every day, "Come to muster, come to muster."
CHRIS MASTERS: She complains she begged for proper medical attention but was kept in the centre for two weeks before being allowed to a hospital where it was discovered she had miscarried.
FORMER DETAINEE: When the nurse come, I explain to her that I am pregnant, I am bleeding, I can't eat and I have this back pain.
I can't sleep.
It doesn't matter.
I was crying -- I told her, "Look at myself.
"I am dying. I need some attention."
And she go -- She didn't do anything for me.
PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, the only point I would want to make is that we go to very significant lengths to ensure that appropriate medical care and support is available to detainees -- to the point, I think, where some members of the Australian community start to question whether detainees are in fact being treated more generously than the Australian community, particularly deprived members of the Australian community.
Now, look, if people are -- or if a woman is pregnant and is in a detention environment our objective would be to provide appropriate care and support within the facility and if it requires an evacuation to an appropriate hospital or other institution that -- and the medical advice is that that's necessary, it would occur.
CHRIS MASTERS: A consequence of Australia's comprehensive system where determinations can be appealed to the Refugee Review Tribunal, the courts and the Minister means detainees might stay months.
They might stay years.
DR STUART McDONALD, PRINCESS ALEXANDRA HOSPITAL: If you're a prisoner, you are given a definite sentence with a parole date.
KEVIN O'SULLIVAN: That central variable was that these people did not know what was going to happen to them.
In this respect it was much harder than, for example, working with somebody in jail.
DR STUART McDONALD: So not only are you constantly under the threat of precipitous removal from Australia to what you perceive is a life-threatening situation, but you don't know how long it's going to be going on.
If that's not punitive, I don't know what is.
CHRIS MASTERS: The rationale for mandatory detention does seem to unravel with every passing day.
On one side, the long wait is blamed on DIMA for being authoritarian and inflexible.
On the other side, human rights activists and lawyers are accused of prolonging unworthy cases.
PHILIP RUDDOCK: I mean, what is happening here -- and we need to be very clear -- is that people are arguing that if you delay long enough you should be able to be released into the Australian community.
And therefore if you have sufficient opportunities to be able to take the matters before various tribunals and to the courts, then there must come a time when you'll be released.
Now, I'm not prepared to reward people for that.
CHRIS SIDOTI: Why then are we punishing the individual asylum seekers?
Why are we punishing 5-year-old children, 8-year-old children, because for whatever reason the department has it in its mind that the lawyers and the activists who are taking up their cause aren't doing the right thing?
CHRIS MASTERS: Why should we punish the children too -- PHILIP RUDDOCK: It's not a punishment.
CHRIS MASTERS: ..because our system is slow?
PHILIP RUDDOCK: Sorry, it's not the system that's slow.
It's not the system that's slow.
It is the opportunities within the system for people who want to continue to test in relation to cases that are at best marginal whether or not they can get a different outcome.
CHRIS MASTERS: The Human Rights Commissioner's 1998 report on our policy of mandatory detention condemned it as being in breach of international law.
CHRIS SIDOTI: The government says that it has a different view.
I'm sure that it holds the view genuinely, but it holds it in the face of universal opposition from human rights experts within Australia and internationally.
REPORTER: The Human Rights Commission claims in some cases their treatment is less than humane.
REPORTER: The group's so desperate some sewed their lips together with cotton thread.
REPORTER: Last week, crowded conditions and poor sanitation caused a diarrhoea outbreak affecting 40 people.
PHILIP RUDDOCK, TALKING TO REPORTER: I'm aware that the facility that we use is a gymnasium.
REPORTER: 17 illegal immigrants broke out of Villawood detention centre some time before 1:00 this morning.
REPORTER: Australia's newest detention centre has opened on the outskirts of Woomera in South Australia's arid north.
PHILIP RUDDOCK, TALKING TO REPORTER: There's one road.
If people escape and don't try to use the road they're putting themselves in a very, very vulnerable situation.
CHRIS MASTERS: In the last 12 months, Australia has opened two new detention centres in response to increased arrivals.
Four Corners has found many examples, beyond those we can show, of a system under pressure.
DIMA and ACM are struggling with the case load at new centres like Woomera.
News does not flow freely from centres either remote or hidden.
You don't hear much about the attempted suicides and chemical restraint of detainees.
Which brings us to one particular case study -- the story of three Algerian men who staged a hunger strike at Villawood early in October 1999.
The men had escaped Algeria proclaiming in the main to be conscientious objectors.
They entered Australia by air after spending time in South Africa.
When asylum was refused here, they embarked on a hunger strike.
ELSDIJA EISSA: After they're getting worse so they're losing weight, they'll reach bad condition.
NASER ZUWAY: They're trying to punish these three people to give example to anyone -- the hunger strike don't do nothing -- just you will lose your health and you will lose your protection visa.
CHRIS MASTERS: On October 8 last year, reduced to around 47 kilograms, the men were driven out of Villawood.
According to DIMA they were moved in order to manage their health needs.
An immigration caseworker for one of the men recounts what he told her.
MANDY McNULTY: They said that they didn't want to go -- refused to sign documents allowing their movement and asked for their lawyer to be present, and they were denied an opportunity to call their lawyer.
CHRIS MASTERS: Two of the men have spoken to Four Corners.
Their identity is concealed for their safety.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: You see, we were very weak because we did lost too many weight.
So we were afraid that maybe it is deportation.
MANDY McNULTY: When they got to the airport, they believed that they were being sent back to Algeria because they had refused to sign the documents.
They thought that they were being punished and it was a truly ghastly moment for men who'd been on a hunger strike for a number of weeks and who were in a very weakened state physically and mentally as well.
CHRIS MASTERS: But the destination was not Algeria.
At least not at this stage.
Management does have the power to move detainees to prison without referral to judicial authority.
JOHN TAYLOR: The numbers currently held in prison are sufficient to warrant our investigating that issue.
CHRIS MASTERS: They were flown north to Brisbane.
They were taken first to a prison, the Arthur Gorrie Remand Centre -- as it happens, another ACM facility.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: They took us to jail where the treatment was very offensive.
They took all my clothes.
So I started crying, shouting, but nobody answered me.
CHRIS MASTERS: Within 24 hours they were to be moved again, to the Princess Alexandra Hospital Security Unit.
The intention was for them to be forcibly treated.
This presented the resident medical officer with a dilemma.
DR STUART McDONALD: Well, the law allows that, Chris.
So it is allowed, but that's inconsistent with what the Australian Medical Association's position statement is about the treatment of hunger strikers.
It's ethically inconsistent with treating the patient with respect and dignity.
CHRIS MASTERS: The men were cared for here for two weeks, in which time the doctor, among others, persuaded them to end their strike on an understanding their cases would be reviewed.
DR STUART McDONALD: Other hunger strikers that I've come across are usually trying to manipulate the system, they're trying to negotiate for something, they're bargaining, they're objecting against some perceived injustice.
But these three men were saying, "I'm sorry for the trouble we're causing you, "but we have decided to die rather than face removal from Australia "and subsequent imprisonment, torture and possible death "in Algeria."
Now that threw me.
CHRIS MASTERS: They were moved back to Arthur Gorrie and later returned to Villawood.
There they saw out Christmas and the new millennium.
They knew their cases were being revisited.
They knew of a general rule that asylum seekers are given 48 hours notice of impending removal.
So on January 24 when one of the men was confronted with his worst fear, the presentation of papers authorising his removal from Australia, it was not anticipated.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: I told her that it is illegal and it is animal and inhuman to send people where they can face persecution, or may be killed.
I told them that they are witnessing the death -- my death and God will punish them one by one.
So he ordered the nurse to give me an injection.
I did refuse but she give me an injection on my right hand.
CHRIS MASTERS: He says he was put in a security van without any of the certificates of education and other important papers he brought with him.
He says one of the guards made offensive comments.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: When the car turned I did fall on my left side.
The officer still holding my neck, and in this moment he directed my head to his penis and he showed the nurse how he use it to fuck.
So I was really upset that they are treating me worse than animal.
CHRIS MASTERS: Unwilling returnees have learned that making a fuss at the airport can stay a departure.
This is what the man planned as he was locked in a small room where he was to be handed over to a private South African company that had been contracted to act as an escort.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: So when the officers from South Africa came, there was three officers -- two officer and nurse who is a man.
They give me the second injection.
I was sleeping on my right, they give me injection on my left hand.
They took me to the aeroplane where I spoke to the pilot, but they put me on the last chair.
I started shouting and calling for help, but nobody helped.
In the plane, they took me by force, and give me the third injection in my left hand in the vein.
CHRIS MASTERS: The Algerian man says he was told he would be escorted to his home country via South Africa.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: So when the passengers came into the plane I prolonged shouting and calling for help.
At this moment the pilot came to me and ordered the officers to give me more injections.
So they gave me the fourth injection there.
CHRIS MASTERS: There was a brief stopover in Perth.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: And one passenger came to discuss the matter with officers.
This passenger told them that it is inhuman to treat people like that.
In Perth these officers where I prolonged shouting ordered the officers to give me injection.
When I saw the needle I was sure that my heart will stop.
So I told them I will not take the injection and I will be quiet.
CHRIS MASTERS: Although we don't know what drugs were used to sedate the men, ACM staff say Valium and Phenergan is commonly used.
DR STUART McDONALD: I can't see any justification for it.
I was appalled and ashamed that that sort of treatment can happen in Australia.
To me, it's just beyond comprehension.
CHRIS SIDOTI: Where it's simply a protest -- somebody even screaming out and trying to draw attention to him or herself by way of protest at the expulsion -- the use of sedatives is not justified, and it is not justified by departmental procedures.
CHRIS MASTERS: When people are sedated, particularly for removal, isn't that an example of how chemical restraint is used for the purpose of control?
PHILIP RUDDOCK: No, it's used for ensuring that they don't endanger their own lives.
CHRIS MASTERS: Two days later the second of the hunger strikers was again, without notice, prepared for removal.
Again we have only his account of what happened.
ALGERIAN MAN 2: When they took me to the doctor.
They put me in a room.
And they put two guards in with me.
I knew them, they were from ACM.
They had on their right-hand side an electrical device and they had handcuffs.
And I was frightened because their faces looked like monsters.
I thought, I'm going to die.
MANDY McNULTY: He said that he was told that he was going to be given an injection -- a sedative injection -- and he said, "I'm a Muslim. I want to be in my full mind," and they told him that no, they were going to give it to him anyway.
He put up his hands in a gesture to say "Don't touch me," and five ACM guards jumped on him all at once.
He was lying on his back and the five were on top of him.
One of them had a knee in his face and he actually has a bruise under his eye that's been documented from that knee in the face.
They injected him while he was on the ground.
CHRIS MASTERS: By now aware of the earlier removal, legal representatives and Amnesty International were able to react.
In this case there was a United Nations Committee Against Torture request to stop the removal.
Phone calls and faxes bounced between Sydney, Geneva and Canberra.
Amnesty believed the notification was sent in plenty of time.
DR HEINZ SCHURMANN-ZEGGAL, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, LONDON: I personally phone called Mr Ruddock privately and said, "Are you aware of this letter?"
And he said he was aware that something was in the pipeline but would not take any action until he has either seen the letter or talked to his advisers.
PHILIP RUDDOCK: I'd agree with that, because the dates of the documentation suggest that the decision had been made quite a good time earlier, with more than sufficient time for people to have been able to bring it to our attention.
But I am not going to determine that a removal which has been planned and is being implemented will be aborted on the basis of a phone call.
CHRIS MASTERS: The plane took off again bound for South Africa on Australia Day 2000.
MANDY McNULTY: So the handcuffs were removed and he was tied up with plastic cord, and that's the best description I can get of what was used.
It was tied around his feet, it was tied around his hands and then around his waist and his hands were secured to his waist.
Tape was placed over his mouth and he was able to push the tape off with his tongue, and he was crying and he began to scream in the aeroplane.
ALGERIAN MAN 2: I am not criminal, I am refugee.
I am not criminal, I am refugee.
MANDY McNULTY: "Please somebody help me.
"Help me. Help me. Call the police."
ALGERIAN MAN 2: But nobody heard me.
CHRIS MASTERS: Does the fact that they have failed excuse being heavy-handed?
PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, what are you suggesting?
The fact that people will make it difficult for us to remove them should be a basis upon which they're allowed to stay here.
Is that what you're suggesting?
CHRIS MASTERS: I'm just wondering whether they should have a right to be treated with dignity in the circumstance.
PHILIP RUDDOCK: Absolutely. Absolutely.
People should be treated with dignity and we should allow them to go with as much dignity as possible, and we would invite their cooperation in relation to securing that.
CHRIS MASTERS: The Australian Government intended to return the men to Algeria.
The responsibility was handed over to the carrier that had brought them in, South Africa Airways, and the private South African contractor.
The South African Government say they had no idea the men were coming, that they arrived without the proper papers, and they did not pass Immigration.
DR LINDIWE SISULU, DEPUTY MINISTER HOME AFFAIRS, SOUTH AFRICA: What it means to us is we've also got to be a little more careful about, you know, our transit laws, maybe tighten them up a bit, but I would certainly have hoped that the Australians would have dealt with it differently.
CHRIS MASTERS: The men were then held for as long as three days here in an adjoining hotel under guard.
There are serious questions about the lawfulness of the detention.
CHRIS SIDOTI: Anybody who is removing a person from Australia under a contract with the Australian government is acting as an agent of the Australian government, and if a person is unlawfully detained by an agent of the Australian government, no matter where in the world that occurs, it represents a breach of human rights by Australia.
PHILIP RUDDOCK: The contractual obligations we have with an organisation, as I understand it, that was to secure their return home, and South Africa was a country in which they were to transit and from which the further travel arrangements would be made.
But look, I'd also have to say, South Africa was a country in which these individuals transited also on their way to Australia.
CHRIS MASTERS: So what are you saying?
That they should be South Africa's responsibility?
PHILIP RUDDOCK: No, I'm saying that we have an expectation that our contractors will arrange for them to be returned home.
DR HEINZ SCHURMANN-ZEGGAL: It's a highly questionable area and we don't think that the Australian Government can simply shrug its shoulders and say, "Well, while these people are outside our hands "we've put them properly into these escorts, "we are no longer responsible."
That is nonsense.
CHRIS MASTERS: While Amnesty was now pursuing the case, in desperation the second man cut himself with a knife and later again with a broken glass.
ALGERIAN MAN 2: I was praying to God to get some help from the heavens or from anywhere.
CHRIS MASTERS: South Africa's Department of Home Affairs moved the men to another detention centre, Lindela, in Johannesburg.
Four Corners has learned that Government officials expressed anger that Australia was "dumping its rubbish".
DR LINDIWE SISULU: It has become our problem in a big way, yes, because we now have these two Algerian gentlemen and we are required to apply our minds from scratch as though these are, you know, recently arrived asylum seekers from Algeria.
Um, it indeed has become our problem now.
CHRIS MASTERS: The contracted escort company P & I Associates publishes on its bulletin board what appears to be an admission they have been circumventing regulations, transiting people without the necessary visas.
P & I deny they were doing anything wrong.
The South African Government is not so sure.
DR LINDIWE SISULU: So we are investigating the company, we're investigating what responsibilities, we as a government have towards them.
And I'm just wondering why the Australians would've found a South African company so useful for this particular purpose.
PHILIP RUDDOCK: If she has a view on it I'd expect her to put it to me.
CHRIS MASTERS: Did we dump them?
PHILIP RUDDOCK: If she has a view on it, I'd expect her to put it to me.
CHRIS MASTERS: The men marked time in South Africa, which as you can see, has its hands full managing its own refugee problems.
But the Lindela detention centre, brimming with anything but comfort, was the least of their concerns.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: We are happy that we are still alive, for this moment.
CHRIS MASTERS: A nasty conflict that has smouldered in their home country Algeria for a decade does make the prospect of return dangerous, but that is not in itself grounds for protection in Australia.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: You see, now I am considered like traitor in Algeria.
This is the problem.
I did run away, I didn't protect the regime, I didn't work for the regime, and I didn't want to work for the regime.
I did go to Australia, I did seek refugee in Australia.
Even my story with all the details are published on the Internet.
So you think that Algeria will receive me with flowers?
CHRIS MASTERS: The men were given a comprehensive hearing in Australia.
They complain the outcome of the determination was inconsistent with others and believe they were targeted because they agitated for their rights in Villawood.
They fear the publication of their cases on the Internet by Australia's Refugee Review Tribunal exacerbates their danger.
They also believe their lives are being risked in order to deter others.
ALGERIAN MAN 2: I did flee for a reason.
The military services are killing the people and I object to doing that.
It is against my religion.
I just want to live in a safe place.
CHRIS MASTERS: Nightfall in Lindela and one group of men is moved out.
These are Mozambiquans who will be trucked back across the border.
The two Algerian men hear them sing their way north.
In Australia they were detained for around 16 months.
At Lindela they were held for five weeks before being released.
They will wait in the community a determination about whether they can stay.
They know that another Algerian already sent back to Algeria from Australia has not been heard from.
Australia never follows up on what happens to people when they are returned.
PHILIP RUDDOCK: Look, I mean we're dealing with rejected asylum seekers.
They are people who are free to go home.
We have no particular responsibility, nor do I think it would be feasible to be monitoring the situation of the tens of thousands of people who leave Australia each year when required to do so, because they have no lawful basis to be here.
CHRIS MASTERS: The goodwill among the people invested with difficult immigration responsibilities is clear.
Australia provides sanctuary to thousands of families.
It's also apparent that Australia's system of mandatory detention, condemned by Australia's Human Rights Commissioner, is looking ill.
How else do we explain the lengthy detention of children, the imprisonment of people convicted of no crime, the use of chemical restraint and the cruelty and bungling that surround these expulsions?
PHILIP RUDDOCK: I think the Australia community expect that people who are not refugees, people who have no lawful entitlement to be here, should be removed and removed quickly.
DR STUART McDONALD: It must be accidental.
It must be a system that has gradually built up.
I can't believe that the country that my kids are going to grow up in has purposely created this system, but human rights are the very basis of civilised society.
They are not negotiable.
There is no excuse, there's no rationalisation, there are no exceptions to the violation of human rights.
Recent events have raised concerns about Aung San Suu Kyi’s health and questions about how the pro-democracy movement would cope without her
LET’S imagine a situation: Burma without Aung San Suu Kyi. Undoubtedly, the ruling generals would see this as a dream come true. But for the majority of Burmese, it would come as a great disappointment to lose the leader of the country’s pro-democracy movement.
Aung San Suu Kyi at her Inya Lake home in 1996 (Photo: Nic Dunlop/Panos)
Suu Kyi may be a prisoner, but she still has immense power. She strikes fear into the hearts of heavily armed men, while giving moral strength to the powerless. She is the hope of the people of Burma, who have struggled to survive under the boot of their military rulers for the past 46 years.
Her recent refusal to receive food deliveries raised serious concerns about her health and worries about the country’s future without her.
According to her lawyer and her doctorthe only two people who were able to meet her during her month-long ordeal, which began in mid-AugustSuu Kyi’s protest against her continued unlawful detention had left her thin and malnourished.
It was the first time in two decades that Suu Kyi had subjected herself to a hunger strike. Soon after beginning her first period of house arrest in 1989, she refused food and demanded to be placed in prison alongside her colleagues. After several weeks, she won guarantees that her fellow pro-democracy activists would not be tortured, and ended her protest. Her weight had dropped from 48 kg (106 lbs) to just 40 kg (90 lbs), and she suffered hair loss, impaired vision and a weakened immune system.
At the time, Suu Kyi was still in her early forties. Now she is in her sixties, and the impact on her health has presumably been much greater, even if she merely restricted her intake of food to the barest requirements for survival.
What would happen if Suu Kyi died or became so unhealthy that she couldn’t continue her role as the political leader of Burma’s pro-democracy movement? It is something we need to ask in light of the fact that she has spent 13 of the past 19 years under house arrest, without regular access to proper medical treatment and under immense psychological pressure.
Most people would prefer not to think of Burma’s future without Suu Kyi. Her absence from politics would probably be a death blow to the already weakened democracy struggle, because she has no obvious successor as leader of the movement.
On the other hand, the ruling generals would probably see Suu Kyi’s demise as an end to an era of trouble. After all, she is even now regarded as a threat to their hold on power.
From the generals’ viewpoint, there are many reasons to believe that the future without Suu Kyi would be very bright indeed. For one thing, they would not have to fear a repeat of the non-violent confrontation that she initiated in early 1989, when she called on people to resist unlawful decrees imposed by the junta. The movement continued for months, until July 19, when the regime used an overwhelming show of force to stop a planned Martyrs’ Day march. The next day, Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest for the first time.
Another reason the generals would be happy to see the back of Suu Kyi is that it would probably mean no more electoral upsets like the one the world witnessed in 1990. Despite the regime’s efforts to ensure a victory for the pro-junta party, Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy inflicted a stunning defeat, winning more than 80 percent of seats in parliament. It was Suu Kyi who urged her party to contest the election, despite the fact that she was still under house arrest at the time and not permitted to participate herself. Even within the confines of her home, she showed the generals that she could make life difficult for them.
It was also Suu Kyi who called for a boycott of the National Convention in 1995. She made this decision a few months after being released from six years of house arrest because she deemed the convention convened to draft a new constitution as undemocratic. The generals have never forgiven her for continuing to resist their plans even after they were good enough to give her back her freedom.
In 1998, Suu Kyi once again proved to be a thorn in the side of the generals. That was the year she spearheaded the creation of the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament, a body that directly challenged the junta’s right to rule.
The generals wasted no time in arresting members of the newly formed group.
Since then, Suu Kyi has enjoyed a few brief interludes of relative freedom. Each time, she demonstrated that her immense appeal was in no way diminished by her long absence from the public eye. She campaigned around the country, drawing crowds of thousands eager to hear her speak. Her engaging and courageous speeches inspired hope in the hearts of countless ordinary Burmeseand intense anger among the country’s military rulers, who watched her every move and did everything they could to keep her away from her adoring audiences.
All of these episodes have only served to convince the generals that they need to keep her on a tight rein if they want to carry through their agenda. Last year, they finally succeeded in completing their constitution, which they will use to usher in a new era of military-dominated “democracy” that excludes a democratic opposition. It is doubtful that they would have been able to achieve this long-pursued goal if they hadn’t kept Suu Kyi confined within the walls of her residential compound for the past five years.
Suu Kyi’s reputation as a troublemaker within the military government’s ruling circles has earned her a further illegal extension of her current period of house arrest. Although she should have been released in May under Section 10 (b) of the State Protection Act, which only allows for a maximum sentence of five years, she is still in detention.
The regime is now preparing for the next stage in its transition to quasi-civilian rulethe 2010 election, which is intended to undo the damage of the 1990 vote. But in order to reverse the tide of history, the generals know that Suu Kyi must remain detained and silenced.
If Suu Kyi’s health were to fail prior to the election, it would probably deliver the regime the victory that has eluded it for the past two decades. Her death would not spell the end of the democracy movement, but it would leave it greatly weakened.
Although Suu Kyi has spent most of the past two decades almost completely cut off from the outside world, she is still Burma’s single greatest hope for democratic change. She is also a leader who is widely trusted by people of every ethnicity in Burma, and one who is respected by the international community, which will have a major role to play in helping to restore the country’s economy.
She has the rare ability to speak to the generals in a straightforward, unflinching manner. Indeed, her power derives almost entirely from what she calls “plain honesty in politics.” Her courage, dedication and steadfast adherence to the truth have empowered her to speak for the people of Burma in a way that no one else can at this point in the country’s history.
After 46 years under military rule, Burma is very lucky to have someone who can still command such immense power through the sheer force of her convictions. Without her, life would go on, but the country would be impoverished in a way that makes even its current circumstances seem tolerable by comparison.
Courage Award Winners Death threats were common for Maria Jimena Duzan, who covered the Colombian drug trade for a Bogota daily. The threats turned real for crusading Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was assassinated in Moscow in 2006. These are just two of the 56 valiant women journalists who have received Courage Awards since the IWMF launched the program in 1990.
Aye Aye Win is one of the only women journalists in Myanmar, Aye Aye Win works under the repressive military junta in her country.
Win, 54, is a correspondent for the Associated Press in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. In order to avoid standing out as a journalist, Win occasionally wears clothes to blend in with people in different regions. Additionally, during a demonstration in 1996 when Win was covering a student protest, she changed her hairstyle so that she could not be recognized. This allowed her to evade security and cover the event.
Win has been called “the axe-handle of the foreign press” by other media outlets in Myanmar because she has helped open the door for foreign journalists to report on the country. Her movements are closely monitored by authorities; her house is periodically staked out by plainclothes police or military intelligence agents, and her telephone is often tapped.
She has been harassed numerous times by authorities and was interrogated in 1997 and 1998, when she was taken to the local military intelligence office. Win was not tortured physically, but because the interrogations occurred late at night, she said being summoned was especially unnerving and traumatizing. Win has also been threatened by the state-owned press, which usually carries articles or commentaries that reflect the views of the government. The official New Light of Myanmar newspaper issued a “last warning,” implying that she should cease reporting or they would kill her. The newspaper never mentioned Win by name but referred to her as a female “axe-handle” who works for a Western news media organization. Because she was the only woman journalist working for a foreign news agency, Win knew this threat was meant for her.
Win is known to argue with authorities who criticize her, but she says that as long as she remains accredited as a correspondent she will tell all sides of the story. For example, when pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was travelling around the country in 2000, few journalists dared to follow. Win joined Suu Kyi until she was barred from continuing. She was approached by two plainclothes police officers who recognized her and stopped her from crossing the river and following Suu Kyi. When dissidents and members of Suu Kyi’s party were arrested, Win sought details about the arrests from their family members even though they were watched by secret police. These activities put her high on the "watch list" of the authorities.
In the fall of 2007, Win put herself in great danger by covering violent demonstrations against the military government in Rangoon. She did not do this from the relative safety of her home or even a hotel room overlooking the protest sites as many journalists did; instead, she walked the streets while soldiers were firing at marchers and beating up innocent bystanders.
Win’s father, U Sein Win, was also a reporter in Myanmar; he was imprisoned three times in his pursuit of press freedom. It was during one of his stints in jail, in 1988, that Aye Aye Win stepped in to cover a pro-democracy uprising. She learned about journalism from her father and joined the AP a year later.
Win was first noticed by the government early in her journalism career – around 1989 – because she was the only woman journalist in her country. She became a target of the government in 1995 when she began to cover more political stories after Aung San Suu Kyi was released. There was a lot of tension between the government and Suu Kyi, and covering her political activities and the anti-regime protests became more dangerous.
Win’s husband, also a journalist, is also often heavily targeted by authorities. During a protest against economic hardship that erupted in Rangoon in August 2007 after the government raised fuel prices, Win’s husband was taken away and held in solitary detention for six days and questioned about his work as a journalist. Win had no word on his whereabouts, but she steadfastly covered the story, risking possible detention, imprisonment and even her own life.
In 2004, Win was honored by the Associated Press with the Oliver S. Gramling Journalism Award.
Win was born December 20, 1953, in Yangon, Myanmar. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Farida Nekzad, Afghanistan Farida Nekzad is the managing editor and deputy director of Pajhwok Afghan News and vice president of the South Asia Media Commission. She frequently receives phone calls and email messages threatening her life. Despite working under tremendous pressure at a time when women journalists in particular are being threatened for their reporting in Afghanistan, Nekzad is committed to staying in her country to work toward a free press and greater equality for women journalists.
Farida Nekzad is a champion of press freedom and women’s rights in Afghanistan. She works under tremendous pressure at a time when women journalists are being threatened and killed for their reporting. Despite the danger, Nekzad is committed to staying in her country and continuing her work.
Nekzad, 31, works in Kabul, where she is the managing editor of Pajhwok Afghan News, Afghanistan’s leading independent news agency. Pajhwok provides daily news and features in English, Pashto and Dari to both Afghan and international audiences. In 2004, Nekzad was one of the news agency’s founders.
Nekzad frequently receives phone calls and email messages threatening her life. For instance, during the funeral service of her colleague, Zakia Zaki, who was murdered in June 2007, she received calls on her cell phone saying that she would have the same fate. The callers, who spoke different languages and called from different phone numbers, all said to Nekzad: “Daughter of America! We will kill you, just like we killed her.” They told her that if she continued to support America, foreign troops and democracy, she would be killed, adding that she would by murdered so gruesomely that no one would be able to recognize her.
After her news agency published a story in 2003 about a warlord who had evaded punishment for multiple crimes – including murder, rape and torture – Nekzad narrowly escaped a kidnapping attempt. She worked for two organizations at the time and took a taxi to get from one to the other. The driver starred at her in the mirror and started questioning her about her story, asking her why she wrote it and urging her to not write other stories. Nekzad told him to just drive, but he began driving fast and going the wrong way, so she opened the door and jumped from the moving car. Her arms and knees were wounded, but the car disappeared, so she was unable to identify it or the driver. Nekzad now frequently switches the car she drives, changes her schedule daily and sleeps in different rooms in her home to prevent ambush by potential attackers.
Nekzad first became interested in journalism when she was a teenager while watching interviews with Afghan officials on television. She was encouraged by a neighbor to try her hand at reporting. But when the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 1996, Nekzad was forced to withdraw from Kabul University to take refuge in Pakistan, where she stayed in exile for five years. She continued to study journalism for a period in India.
Upon returning to Afghanistan in late 2001, Nekzad worked as a producer and editor for various media outlets and also became a media trainer. She trained journalists at news media organizations such as IMPACS Radio in 2003 and the Institute of War and Peace Reporting in 2004. In 2003, she also worked as an IWPR staff reporter, covering politics, economic and social issues, women’s rights and the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
Nekzad hasn’t let threats interfere with her reporting; instead, she continues her job and her life as best she can. She says she wants to stay in Afghanistan to promote women’s rights and increase women’s presence in society. Nekzad, who is vice president of the South Asia Media Commission, is also committed to supporting women journalists and encouraging more women to become journalists.
Nekzad received the 2007 International Press Freedom Award by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression and will also receive an International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Project Journalists in 2008.
She was born on November 1, 1976, in Kabul, Afghanistan. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sevgul Uludag, Cyprus
Sevgul Uludag is an investigative reporter for Yeniduzen newspaper in Cyprus. Uludag lives in the northern part of divided Cyprus but through her reporting attempts to ease the segregation between the Greek and Turkish communities. In doing so, she has faced many obstacles, including death threats and violent attacks. But neither hate campaigns nor psychological terror keep Uludag from publishing her articles.
A journalist for nearly three decades, Sevgul Uludag, 49, is an investigative reporter for Yeniduzen, a Turkish Cypriot daily newspaper in the northern part of the divided island of Cyprus. She also writes for the Greek Cypriot newspaper, Politis, which is published in the south. In these papers as well as in the Internet magazine, Hamamböcüleri (Cockroaches), where she is a member of the team of editors, Uludag, who is of Turkish Cypriot heritage, tries to bring the two violently separated parts of Cyprus together and erase the divide of the population. Uludag moves toward this goal by illuminating the violence in Cyprus through her reporting.
In 2002, Uludag began to tackle the issue of missing people and mass graves in Cyprus. She devoted herself to uncovering the fates of thousands of people who disappeared during Greek-Turkish clashes in the 1960s and 1970s from mass executions, abductions and targeted assassinations. Uludag’s reporting started a public debate about missing persons, which is considered a taboo subject among Turkish Cypriots. In addition, Uludag called attention to the fact that both Greek and Turkish Cypriots saw themselves as the victims of the conflict, showing them that all Cypriots are both perpetuators and victims.
Uludag’s reporting eventually led to official searches and exhumations. But her investigations did not come without a price. For instance, a hate campaign against Uludag was orchestrated by military forces based in the northern (Turkish) part of the island through the newspapers under their influence. They ran stories calling her a spy and a traitor, as well as issuing death threats against her. Additionally, Uludag received threatening phone calls from those responsible for mass killings or their families when she was uncovering information about mass graves in Turkish Cypriot villages.
Persecution against Uludag began soon after she became a reporter in 1980. Previously, she had worked as a secretary in a bank. But when she switched to a job as a proofreader and liked the work, she decided to become a journalist. In 1982-83, a Turkish military car frequently parked outside her house simply because Uludag was writing about the taboo subject of why Cyprus should be reunified. Her phone was tapped, and her mail was often intercepted.
Over the years, the threats and intimidation continued. In 1996, a leader of the Grey Wolves, an extremist paramilitary group from Turkey known for violence toward Greek Cypriots, issued a death threat against Uludag. They threatened her because her brother-in-law, also a journalist, was killed, and the Grey Wolves were suspected in his death. Uludag was covering this possible involvement of the Grey Wolves for a weekly magazine. The group issued a death threat against her as well as what they called “the last warning,” which Uludag presumes to mean that they would kill her next time.
In 2000-2003, there was a concerted campaign against Uludag run by two newspapers close to the Turkish military in Cyprus. Nearly every day her photo was published along with accusations that she was a spy and a traitor who needed to be silenced. In April 2003, the daily newspaper Volkan, mouthpiece of the Turkish nationalist movement, published editorials and columns calling for her murder and asking its readers to “cut off the tongue of Sevgul Uludag.”
Uludag dodged an attempted attack in Nicosia at a checkpoint in November 2006 by a group of Greek Cypriot nationalist students. The students were connected with the fascist group Hrisi Avgi, which is the Greek Cypriot version of the Grey Wolves. Its members are against reunification of Cyprus and any kind of contact among Turkish and Greek Cypriots. When Uludag was crossing from the northern to the southern part of the island, she showed her press pass, but the students started shouting at her and rushed to hit her, only to be stopped by police. Although she made an official complaint together with the Cyprus Journalists Union and took a photo of the attackers, the police told her they could not find them.
In 2006 and 2007, Uludag received death threats from people in the city of Caoz where she was reporting about mass graves where Greek Cypriots were murdered. During the same time period, an extremist paramilitary group called the Turkish Revenge Brigade issued a statement threatening all those connected with the search for the missing people in their village, including Uludag.
Uludag has also received a death threat by mail from an extremist group in Australia. When they did not succeed with their threats to stop her from giving news to Special Broadcasting Service, one of two government-funded Australian public broadcasting radio and television networks, they started sending hate e-mail to her.
Uludag has published several books, including Oysters with the Missing Pearls, which brings together stories of missing persons and mass graves from both the Greek and Turkish sides of Cyprus. Oysters was originally published in Turkish in 2005 and has subsequently been published in Greek and English. Uludag’s most recent book, Orphans of Nationalism, was published in 2008. It contains stories of Turkish and Greek Cypriots killed by their own sides.
Also an activist for peace and gender issues, Uludag has trained various groups of women on issues of peace, reconciliation and gender. Together with women from both parts of Cyprus, she founded the non-governmental organization Hands Across the Divide in 2001, speaking out in public for peace in Cyprus.
Uludag was born October 15, 1958, in Nicosia, Cyprus.
England's conviction rates for rapists have dropped to less than 6 percent from 30 percent three decades ago. Anti-violence activists mounted a pressure campaign against officials, even staging a mock trial to charge them with neglect.
LONDON (WOMENSENEWS)--Ruth Hall, a founding member of the activist group Women Against Rape, has joined the chorus of people emitting a collective groan over recent remarks made by British actress Dame Helen Mirren: Scroll down to read "Mirren's Twisted Logic"
In an interview in October's British GQ magazine, the movie star best known for her TV portrayal of a dogged police detective in the "Prime Suspect" series suggested that women who engage in sexual activity with men, but who refuse sexual intercourse, should not expect to be able to bring a court case if their refusal is ignored. In the interview Mirren said she had been date-raped when she was younger but did not contact the police.
"You couldn't do that in those days," she said. "It's such a tricky area, isn't it? Especially if there is no violence. I mean, look at Mike Tyson. I don't think he was a rapist."
Tyson, the U.S. boxer, served three years in prison after he was convicted of raping an acquaintance.
"Clearly, the message is that women are partly to blame for rape and that the criminal justice system is not really on our side," says Hall, whose group has been working to help rape victims since 1976.
The group, known as WAR, staged a mock tribunal earlier this year in a small church in Camden Town, putting members of England's criminal justice system and prosecutors on trial. Survivors, along with relatives and friends, stood up one after the other to offer three hours of grueling, emotionally charged testimony, the only respite a brief tea and coffee break where homemade cakes were sold to help cover the cost of the event.
Activists dressed in the distinctive black robes and white powdered wigs worn by British judges. The accused in the mock trial were familiar names from the top tiers of the national government, including Solicitor General Vera Baird, even though in September she also condemned Mirren's remarks as "dangerous" to efforts to improve rape conviction rates.
The mock charges ranged from criminal negligence to sexual and racial discrimination to perverting the course of justice. And the mock judges delivered an unsurprising verdict: guilty as charged.
Victims' Compensation Reduced Hall and other activists were particularly sensitive to the Mirren interview because its publication followed the revelation in mid-August that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, which awards damages to crime victims as a matter of common law, had reduced awards to 14 female rape victims in the past year because they had consumed alcohol before they were attacked. The average compensation is about $19,000.
Rape conviction rates in the United Kingdom are at a nearly historic low, hovering under 6 percent for all reported rapes, according to a January 2007 Home Office report. During the 1970s convictions were around 30 percent, according to figures cited by the London-based Fawcett Society, a leading women's rights organization.
Improper police decisions to record rape reports as "no crime" because a victim "lacked credibility" was among the reasons cited for low conviction rates in Britain. Alcohol consumption was also named a culprit.
The average number of rapes reported increased over 40 percent from 2001 to 2005, according to the Home Office report. But as more women have reported rape Hall says the criminal justice system and victim support services have "shut the door in these women's faces."
Sally Freeman, a witness at the mock trial, offers her own experience as an example.
Freeman says her 15-year-old daughter was raped in London by a neighbor in January 2005, but the police bungled what in her opinion should have been a clear-cut case.
Slow Police Response They took three months to arrest the perpetrator even though she provided his name, address, phone number and license plate number, she said. "They didn't take forensics from anywhere in the house."
Although the neighbor phoned the girl to meet up the day after he met her, and also phoned her the day following the attack, he denied having met her or contacting her by phone. Freeman and her daughter handed her phone to the police the day they reported the rape, and police took the accused man's phone as well.
With this evidence, Freeman said, "We were so confident we were going to win."
Instead, they found out during the judge's summary that the evidence had been lost by the police. "And they compounded it by bringing charges of sex with a child," Freeman said, instead of the more serious charge of rape, "without telling us they lost the phone evidence."
Freeman said the judge also instructed the jury to disregard her daughter's age, as well as testimony from the accused's girlfriend, who said he left the house the night that Freeman alleges he threatened to throw acid in her daughter's face if she took the case to court. By his account, he spent that night at home.
The accused man was cleared, and still lives in the neighborhood, says Freeman, about five minutes' walk away. Women Against Rape helped her get a written apology from the police, but the man cannot be taken back to court. Groups Press Authorities Women Against Rape and other London-based groups--including Black Women's Rape Action Project, Legal Action for Women and the English Collective of Prostitutes--have complained to authorities about indifferent police response to sex assault.
Hall called for disciplinary action against "professionals who are not doing their jobs" in an open letter to the solicitor general published on the London Times' Web site in February 2008.
Since the revelations of discriminatory reduced payouts, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority has admitted that the policy it relies on to determine financial awards to victims was not implemented correctly.
"A victim of rape should not have any compensation reduced because of their drinking," Justice Minister Bridget Prentice told the Guardian newspaper. She encouraged the compensation authority to re-examine other cases where the policy was wrongly applied.
But the compensation authority, a state-funded body, released a statement in August that it would not automatically review these cases, which made up 1 percent of payouts in 2007, because there is no mechanism in place to do so.
Women who have accepted a reduced award will not be able to appeal the decisions, the authority said.
Women Against Rape has taken on some of these cases on an individual basis. But that's a costly struggle that is draining to victims, Hall said.
"Instead of putting this burden on the victim, we want a blanket change."
Anna Louie Sussman is a Beirut-based journalist and editor of the arts and culture section of The Daily Star. She recently completed her master's in human rights at the London School of Economics.
In her contradictory statements on rape, Helen Mirren seems to think that, without violence, it's not a crime. Try telling victims that
By Julie Bindel
Helen Mirren has fallen into a common trap. She appears to think that there is such a thing as "real rape", which is not the same as "date rape" – that awful term which is, of course, an American import.
In an interview with men's magazine GQ, Mirren said that in her younger days she was raped, "a couple of times. Not with excessive violence, or being hit, but rather being locked in a room and being made to have sex against my will."
How awful for her, not just being raped, but not allowing herself to believe that it was "real rape", presumably simply because she was not left bleeding and injured. I sympathise with her, as I would any woman who endured such horrendous acts of sexual violence.
But I also feel very, very angry with Mirren. How dare she impose her twisted logic upon other women who have endured similar, and want the right to demand justice as a rape victim or survivor? What gives her the right to proclaim that Mike Tyson, who served six years in prison for raping a woman in 1992, is not a rapist, as she said in the interview? How would his victim feel if she read her words? That brave woman who reported the attack to the police and endured a court case to ensure he paid for his crime?
Mirren has decided that men who rape women while out on a date should not be taken to court, even though she fully acknowledges, in a highly contradictory fashion, that it is indeed rape which even if the woman is naked and in bed with a man when he forces her to have sex.
Vera Baird, the solicitor general, was quoted as saying in response that, Mirren's remarks are, "dangerous". She is right. Women should be enabled and encouraged to report rape, whether they know their attacker or not. Actually, Mirren should stick to acting and shut up about atrocities towards women. Earlier this year she was proclaiming that prostitution should be legalised as it would keep women in it safer, when mountains of recent evidence shows that the opposite is true.
Some of the women reading Mirren's words will take notice of her daft views. She is a role model and a highly respected individual. They might think that if they reported a rape by a man they were intimate with that the police will think they are wasting their time. Some might feel shame that they have been devastated by an attack by a man who chose not to beat her up and put a knife to her throat. I hope not, but it is likely that her words will influence some in entirely the wrong way.
But most dangerously, Mirren's ridiculous opinion on this heinous crime might make some men feel that forcing a girlfriend into sex, so long as no marks are left and no violence used, is not a criminal offence. What a shame that such an admired member of society did not, on this occasion, think of the wider consequences before waxing lyrical.
| Asia-Pacific | Monday, 27 October 2008 
OCTOBER, 2008 - VOLUME 16 NO.10 
Aung San Suu Kyi at her Inya Lake home in 1996 (Photo: Nic Dunlop/Panos)
~~ October 2008
Aye Aye Win, Myanmar
Farida Nekzad, Afghanistan
Sevgul Uludag, Cyprus
Monday October 20 2008
London ~~ Tuesday September 02 2008
Julie Bindel 
In an interview with men's magazine GQ, Mirren said that in her younger days she was raped, "a couple of times. Not with excessive violence, or being hit, but rather being locked in a room and being made to have sex against my will."
Sunday October 19 2008, page 5