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Archived pages 2004During the year 2004 what was now established as a "national movement", the refugee movement matured, established itself as a powerful lobby group and it extended itself and more people embraced the work done around Australia. It was also the year where one of Channel Nine's Big Brother TV show's participants catapulted himself and the issue into the spotlight with a gagged protest on live television. Merlin Luck taped up his mouth and refused to budge when producers in a panic tried to persuade him "to act normal" and stop embarrassing the show. Below are the pages we added to the website during the calendar year 2004; they are divided into a section on refugee issues and issues related to the wider debate about Howard's Australia and Australia's invovement with the conservative US Bush administration. Royal CommissionThe call for a Royal Commission into detention and the treatment of refugees, asylum seekers and immigration detainees has always been relevant, especially since the 2001 Tampa stand-off. With Downloadable Petition Form! Blog archives18 October 2006: The Project SafeCom Blog Archives - This is the page that brings together all entries from our Blog. They are manually entered, so please accept apologies if sudden and new entries are not posted to this page immediately. 2004 pages1. Refugee issues, policies
19 December 2004: 2004 Press Clippings - Thanks to the folks at RAR, who, while we at Project SafeCom doggedly edited and published our Almost Daily News and Updates since TAMPA in 2001, subscribed, read and noted the online weblinks of those articles, we are now able to bring you all the news as one-line links to their original locations. 10 December 2004: Human Rights Day in Australia leaves much to be desired - Project SafeCom's 2004 Human Rights Day statement: the situation in Australia leaves much to be desired, mainly but not only as a result of Australia's detention policies, and not only in factual terms but also in how the government 'flowers up' in statements to the public about what's going on in Australia. 28 October 2004: Procter: From 'temporary' to permanent' Protection Visas - Nicholas Procter argues that It's Much More Than a Quick Political Fix. "If TPV holders already disoriented by trauma, sometimes years of detention and then the relentless insecurity of temporary status in Australia, find that once again they are facing mixed messages, it will be disastrous. Trust is a fundamental requirement for mental stability..." 24 October 2004: A Canberra Rally: Stand up for Refugees - The re-election of the Coalition Government poses an enormous challenge for refugee activists. Yet it is one we must rise to meet. A page about a rally in Canberra on Tuesday 16 November 2004, the first sitting day of the new Parliament. 30 November 2004: Stand up for Refugees Canberra: the photos - Twenty-four photos of the Stand up for Refugees Rally on Parliament House on November 16, 2004, the opening day of the new Parliament. Project SafeCom was there, and we showed we want to be counted! 23 October 2004: Tahir Cambis & Helen Newman: ANTHEM - "This film will incite indignation, shame, anger and sadness. It will also nurture compassion, caring, and hopefully a conscience for those who would benefit from finding one. ANTHEM doesn't just shake the fence, it completely destroys it." 30 September 2004: Bucking the Obligations: avoiding ICC Statute implementation - The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the 20th century's most important creation in the struggle against impunity for the worst crimes known to humanity. However, as it starts operating, Party States are failing to implement the ICC's Rome Statute and produce flawed legislation, and they're not ratifying and implementing the Agreement on Privileges and Immunities. Including Australia. 28 September 2004: Lost in Translation: The dangerous undercurrents of refugee politics - A lengthy investigation by the Weekend Australian Financial Review has illuminated some of the troubled byways of the refugee saga, byways that stretch from Sydney to the hide-out of Osama bin Laden. 16 September 2004: J Winston BSM, I stopped the boats: My Place Is Now Assured - When the inevitable statues will be built, all over the boundless plains of this Island Continent, they will surely have these immortal words on each base - "He stopped the Boats!" 2 September 2004: Betty Cuthbert and the Vietnamese Refugees - Olympic legend Betty Cuthbert 'stands up and runs with' The Hao Kiet Vietnamese Refugees: another high profile Australian has started barracking for refugees, and the statement by Project SafeCom stirs up residents on Christmas Island.
31 August 2004: Dark Horses: Surprise candidates for the 2004 Federal Election - This page was created in order to list unexpected candidates for the 2004 Federal election, who may well become surprises, influencing the final outcome. Independent candidate for Gwydir, Bruce Haigh, is just one of those. Below is his press release announcing his candidature. 29 August 2004: Cork vs ACM: Operation Long Haul, a Forced Deportation - Sometimes reports of forced deportations appear at unlikely places, in this case a transcript of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission of an unfair dismissal claim against Australasian Correctional Management (ACM) after a deportation of 31 immigration 'removees' from Australia. 26 August 2004: Tampa Day 2004 in Perth - A page, detailing four events taking place on 26 August 2004 in Perth, organised by several groups and organisations.
9 August 2004: Sara Strong, A personal reflection on refugees and asylum seekers in Australia - "The people who come to Australia, risking their life in a leaky boat, often without food or adequate water, don't come because they like our climate and our scenery...."
1 August 2004: Nicholas Procter: Paper plates and throwaway cutlery - Working with some of the most marginalised of mental health consumers - asylum seekers released from immigration detention centres and living in rural South Australia - Nicholas Procter makes a cogent case for a return to practical strategies in this paper, subtitled "Aspects of generating trust during mental health initiatives with asylum seekers released from Immigration Detention Centres." 28 July 2004: What exactly is the Mujahedin-e Khalq? - The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK or MKO) was founded in the 1960s by a group of college-educated Iranian leftists opposed to the country's pro-Western ruler, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Although the group took part in the 1979 Islamic revolution that replaced the shah with a Shiite Islamist regime, MEK's ideology, a blend of Marxism and Islamism, put it at odds with... 17 July 2004: "Jack's long-range w.w.war", The West Australian Weekend Extra West Australian Newspapers' Norman Aisbitt reports on the activities at 'the lions den' in Narrogin, the office of Project SafeCom, and the home of Jack Smit, our coordinator. 9 July 2004: Children in Detention: A Parliamentary E-Brief - "The mandatory detention of all asylum seekers who arrive unauthorised in Australia -- a measure introduced in 1992 -- has attracted a great deal of attention and debate over the last few years..." 8 July 2004: Between Anguish and Hope: A World of Refugees - Mark Raper SJ delivers the 2003 Rerum Novarum Lecture. "...our country has dramatically changed its core foreign policy directions. Australia has recently intervened military in other sovereign states. Australia has broken with time honoured international conventions for the protection of refugees and the preservation of human rights." 7 July 2004: ABC RN Background Briefing: The Detention Industry - "This is a lucrative business, we're talking here about detaining men, women and children in prison-like conditions, as a business. And so certainly from the perspective of companies that are engaged in this kind of work, they would be looking to you and saying, Well we can expand into this market." 1 July 2004: An Activist in Parliament: Kerry Nettle of The Greens - Kerry Nettle is The Greens' Senator for New South Wales. Senator Nettle has been instrumental in developing The Greens response to the Howard government's anti-terrorism, 'security', and War-related legislation - and has been working relentlessly in her diverse portfolio, not afraid to oppose the major parties when it needed to be done. This is her politician's page on our website. 19 June 2004: World Refugee Day: Forcing the Deportation Issue - A short introduction to the movie documentary at the Fremantle Film and TV Institute by Project SafeCom's Jack H Smit on the World Refugee Day 2004 weekend. 12 June 2004: The Curious Ambivalence of Australia's Immigration Policy - The 2001 Alfred Deakin Lecture, delivered by Marion Lê OAM, who is the 2003 Human Rights Medal winner, a winner of the Austcare Paul Cullen Award, and was presented with the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1990. 12 June 2004: You're welcome, if we're interested - an article by Klaus Neumann, author of Refuge Australia: Australia's Humanitarian Record. "Will the winner of this coming election pursue a more compassionate policy once the immediate risk of forfeiting votes has passed?" 10 June 2004: Our own custom-made Evin Prison at Baxter - In Australia we have our own "Evin Prison", where we keep, for the rest of their lives if need be, a considerable number of Iranians. An article by Jack Smit, Project SafeCom's Coordinator. 30 May 2004: Catching Illegals Down-Under Part Two - This is the second page about the use of the term "illegals" in the Australian print press. In May 2004 a complaint was lodged by refugee advocates against the Sydney Morning Herald's use of the word "illegals" in a headline on April 30. This page is about that complaint.
17 May 2004: Children in Detention: I'm sorry, We Failed to Protect you - This article was written by The Romero Centre's Freddie Steen on the day the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission report into Children in Immigration Detention was released. The Report suggested the release of all children within four weeks, and roundly condemned the Australian government for its damaging asylum seeker policies. 8 May 2004: Cheap, savvy, effective: Virtual communities safeguarding human rights - "The internet enabled activists who have never met before to unite under a common issue, to rapidly set up support groups, to plan public action and to target media attention by using a keyboard, as they formed virtual communities. Activists made available online information about allegations of human rights abuses from inaccessible detention centres behind razor wire and electric fences, often within minutes of being reported." A paper by Barbara Rogalla. 4 May 2004: The Ethics of Nursing in a Detention Centre - "The whole reason we have detention centres is political, it would be naïve to think otherwise. The real paradox for health professionals is that Australian detention centres actually cause ill-health to asylum seekers. This has been clearly established by the work of many clinicians...."
20 April 2004: Afghani Asylum Seekers and Refugees in the Republic of Indonesia - Hassan Ghulam, who went to Indonesian holding camps such as the one on Lombok, states that UNHCR needs to consider revising its approach and methods, to bring them into line with contemporary expectations and technology. 20 April 2004: The Missing refugees: did they embark from Indonesia? - Recently we received a request from friends in Indonesia, who asked our help to find out what happened to six refugees who were with them in Indonesia, but who have been missing since December 1999. 12 April 2004: Chilout's Young Ambassadors: a delegation to Parliament - "Port Augusta schoolgirl Bonne Martinot visited Canberra for the first time in March 2004 to personally plead for the release of her Middle Eastern friends from immigration detention." 11 April 2004: The Flotilla of HOPE, a journey of compassion to Nauru - On Saturday May 15 2004, the Flagship 'Eureka' of Flotilla of Hope set sail for Nauru, leaving Australia from Sydney Harbour after the goodbyes at Pyrmont Point, sailing via other places such as Brisbane, and then on its way to Nauru. The Flotilla reached Nauru on World Refugee Day 2004, but the boats were repelled by the authorities. Here are the stories of its voyage. 7 April 2004: Supporting TPV Holders: Partnering Mental Health and Migration Law - Nicholas Procter calls for the structure of individual mental health support to be built around the processes of seeking asylum and coping with rejections and setbacks during the processes attendant upon applications for refugee status. 4 April 2004: Australia and "the queue", a Project SafeCom study - Because most boats attempting to reach Australia's migration zone sail from Indonesian ports, many of them embarking from an Indonesian refugee camp, Australia's failure to fully address the refugee load jointly with Indonesia and its Jakarta UNHCR office, is partly responsible for creating "the boat people problem". 1 April 2004: Australians Welcome Refugees, The Untold Story - A report compiled by Margaret Reynolds, to the 60th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, April 2004, highlighting the extensive work of Australians supporting refugees. The "Untold Story" contains personal testimonies of many Australians who have rejected official detention policy to offer friendship and practical support to people in detention. 30 March 2004: One Man's Decision: a story about The Refugee Review Tribunal - What if a one bureaucrat's decision determined whether your family will cliff-hang indefinitely in legal limbo not knowing if eventually you are going to be able to enjoy life and freedom or be condemned to harassment, trauma and maybe death? 23 March 2004: Mental Illness? What Mental Illness? - asks Carmen Lawrence - "It is imperative that we ask ourselves how we would feel in similar circumstances, if our freedom were taken away. To imagine how humiliated we would be if we were forced to be strip-searched at regular intervals; how hurtful it would be to be treated as liars and cheats." 20 March 2004: Tony Kevin still says: SIEV X: Lies, lies and more lies - We will keep on talking publicly about SIEV X and asking questions about it. In that way, the truth will out, new whistleblowers will come forward over time, and the guilty will finally be held to account. This is a major story that is a long way from over. 20 March 2004: TPV Service provision by State shows disappointment for WA - Western Australia is on the record as the worst service provider for refugees on Temporary Protection Visas, comparable with the other States: WA only provides one out of eight identified services, Rental Bond Loans, shows a table provided by Senator Kerry Nettle. 18 March 2004: Force Feeding Hunger striking asylum seekers - Legal and ethical implications of medically enforced feeding of detained asylum seekers on hunger strike. If called upon to treat hunger strikers, [Australian] medical practitioners should be aware of their ethical and legal responsibilities, and that they should act independently of government or institutional interests. 16 March 2004: The Rules: Nursing in a Detention Centre - DIMIA and ACM are now acutely paranoid about human rights and refuge advocacy groups and their influence. Let me illustrate this point. A disabled child arrived one December and I was told by both an immigration and ACM manager to do nothing for him other than what I would do for any able-bodied child as he would probably be released soon. 15 March 2004: The Democrats and refugees, 1977-2002 - "For twenty-five years the Australian Democrats have adhered to our core principles of social justice and human rights. We have fought for human rights on many levels including working on individual asylum seeker cases, opposing cutbacks to the rights of refugees and fighting for legislation, which would ensure a fair outcome..." 15 March 2004: Senator Jacinta Collins and A Certain Maritime Incident - With the tabling in the Senate of the Report of the Senate Select Committee on A Certain Maritime Incident (23 Oct 2002), Senator Collins contributed with two important speeches. "The pattern of behaviour record that this government refers to, was provided to the government on request by the government in a fashion designed by the government to suit the government." 15 March 2004: Concluding Statements, A Certain Maritime Incident - The reality of the inquiry into the children overboard affair is that at best there are inconsistencies and contradictions in the evidence given before the Senate Inquiry by the most senior of Defence and PMC officials. At worst there are fundamental omittances, half-truths, untruths and cover-ups.
28 February 2004: Stephen Smith MP, The International Refugee Crisis - Presentation to the UNYA Conference in Perth by Stephen Smith MP, Shadow Minister for Immigration. "Australia should comply with the letter and the spirit of the obligations Australia has voluntarily assumed by signing the Refugee Convention and other relevant international instruments..." 28 February 2004: Mark Raper SJ: To Build Peace and Bring Hope - Mark Raper SJ delivers the Jesuit 2004 Lenten Lecture. "Each of us carries the responsibility of upholding the principles of justice and common decency - it falls on ... ordinary people ... It is the cumulative effect of their sustained effort and steady endurance which will change a nation where reason and conscience are warped by fear into one where legal rules exist to promote our desire for harmony and justice". 28 February 2004: No Liability: Tragic Results from Australia's Deportations - Reports of death, disappearance, imprisonment and torture, of fear-filled lives spent in hiding, privation and despair have filtered back to Australia about some people Australia has removed after disallowing their claims for protection...
20 February 2004: The SIEV X National Memorial Project - The SIEV X National Memorial Project is an Australia-wide Young People's Art Collaboration, to design and build a memorial to the people of SIEV X, on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra, the national capital. 19 February 2004: Julian Burnside vs Amanda Vanstone - It was a full house when Julian Burnside QC, one of the most vigorous opponents of mandatory detention, went face to face against Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone at a Rotary breakfast held at the RACV Club in Melbourne, and directly accused her of crimes against humanity. 16 February 2004: Frederika Steen: Through the Nauru Looking Glass - "A significant and growing number of ordinary Australians are appalled. They act - individually and in small groups, from places around Australia, to show compassion and to compensate for what they perceive as official sadism and inhumanity. From the grassroots of Australian society we continue to challenge a Government that has eroded our international reputation for fairness and decency and called into question our values as a society."
11 February 2004: Robert Sparrow: What are Borders? - For many in the movement opposing mandatory detention they are simply expressions of the State. Yet this position cannot give us a coherent and critical politics. Rethinking 'Borders' is essential to the project of a genuinely democratic society. 14 January 2004: Catching Illegals Down-Under Part One - A new, and seriously important opportunity has developed to "nail down" journalists and writers in Australia who engage in forms of distorting the facts in relation to refugees and asylum seekers. 12 January 2004: Hazara Es, and stuck on Lombok - Hunger strikers and refugees stuck on Lombok are all refugees "pushed back" from Ashmore Reef by the Royal Australian NAVY in October 2001, the lead-up to the last Federal Election. 11 January 2004: Signing up for Death: the hunger strike on Nauru - The hunger strike has slowly fizzled out after more than four weeks. But if those 'unlucky ones' who are not 'selected' for re-determination stay behind on the Island, there will be another disaster in the future. Only if they receive an offer of protection status in Australia ... further disaster can be averted. 10 January 2004: Albury-Wodonga: The Second Annual RAR Conference - Rural Australians for Refugees getting together at Charles Sturt University in Albury-Wodonga. To help our contacts, we put up the program schedule on the website, and we're leaving it here... 5 January 2004: 'Boat People are Queue Jumpers' and other statements rebuffed - These are really "John Howard's Myths", keenly peddled by Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock, the front bench as well as many backbenchers from the 2001 election onwards. Here they are rebuffed by the Edmund Rice Centre. 2. Opinion, democracy and peace31 December 2004: US Election 2004: What went wrong in Ohio? - Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff, titled Preserving Democracy - what went wrong in Ohio. The US committee reviewed claims of a rigging of the US elections, and has tabled and published its report. This page brings together a multitude of claimants' groups statements. 27 November 2004: Deep lying Rights: A Constitutional Conversation Continues - The Hon Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG, the 2004 Robin Cooke Lecture, delivered on Thursday 25 November 2004 at Victoria University of Wellington. 23 October 2004: Doing Advocacy: Dissent, Dissonance or Dilly-Dally? - Queensland Public Advocate Ian Boardman speaks at the UnitingCare Centre for Social Justice: "...advocacy has been under fairly sustained attack in recent years and because even when it is not under attack, it is rarely appreciated by those to whom the advocacy is addressed..." 16 October 2004: The Blog Feeds for Newsreaders - Our Blog Feeds are capable of being read by the Firefox' Live Bookmarks. This page displays the most recent Blog entries, and links to all Blog items just below that. It also explains some things about the techno-side of News Syndication using RSS Feeds. 7 October 2004: Baghdad Year Zero: Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia - Journalist Naomi Klein: The fact that the boom never came and Iraq continues to tremble under explosions of a very different sort should never be blamed on the absence of a plan. Rather, the blame rests with the plan itself, and the extraordinarily violent ideology upon which it is based. 29 September 2004: The Shape of the Argument: The 3rd Overland Lecture - David Marr delivers the lecture: "After nearly a decade of sustained bullying from government [...] the media is in a quandary, has lost its edge. Not everyone, not everywhere. But it has happened. What I am exploring here is how that loss of confidence has come to shape public debate..." 2 August 2004: George Monbiot, An Activists' Guide to Exploiting the Media - Every battle we fight is a battle for the hearts and minds of other people. The only chance we have of reaching people who haven't yet heard what we've got to say is through the media. 3 July 2004: Tony Fitzgerald QC launches Margo Kingston's Not Happy, John! - This book launch at Gleebooks in Sydney has created a true storm in the teacup of the Howard administration. Retired judge Tony Fitzgerald QC, in launching the book delivered a blistering attack on both sides of politics and attracted the wrath and ire of Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone. 17 March 2004: Reflections on the Global Justice Movement after Mumbai - An article by Marco Hewitt, Perth WA upon returning from the Mumbai World Social Forum. "George Monbiot believes we may be on the verge of a new 'metaphysical mutation', a rare moment in history which sweeps away old systems and revolutionises the way people think, the world over." 14 March 2004: Assoc Prof Chris Nash: Freedom of the Press in Australia - "The Australian constitutional framework for freedom of the press is weaker than in other liberal democracies, the commercial pressures are strong and the legislative and financial impact of recent national governments on public media alternatives has been detrimental."
12 March 2004: News Overboard: The Tabloid Media, Race Politics, and Islam - Iain Lygo's book 'News Overboard' examines media and government manipulation of news relating to Muslims and refugees. "This book is a stinging left hook to far right columnists and shock jocks who are powerful political players masquerading as journalists." 14 January 2004: Carmen Lawrence: Ideas to save our withering democracy - a manifesto to protect and enhance our democracy: Despite the otherwise general equality in voting power, many are suspicious that not all citizens are equally able to influence their representatives; the health of our democracy requires greater involvement and participation from party members and the community at large. |
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25 May 2004: 
