Border protection nonsense does not exist if you're a refugee on the run

Project SafeCom Inc.
P.O. Box 364
Narrogin
Western Australia 6312
Office (08) 9881-5651
Mobile 0417 090 130
Web: https://www.safecom.org.au/

Border protection nonsense does not exist if you're a refugee on the run

Media Release
Wednesday April 8, 2009 10:30am WST
For Immediate Release
No Embargoes

"The fact that a boat with 40 Iraqis can arrive unannounced even while the Rudd government continues its spin and nonsense about coastal surveillance and border protection, provides many lessons for politicians who want to keep using smoke and mirrors, including the untruth that arriving within Australian borders is 'illegal'," WA Human Rights group Project SafeCom said, when news broke about a boat sailing straight into Flying Fish Cove on Christmas Island, undetected, and unannounced, this morning at 4am, whereupon its passengers presented themselves to authorities as asylum seekers.

"These Iraqis have just killed Australia's politicians' farcical notion of "illegality" stone dead, and shown without the shadow of a doubt, that boats with asylum seekers arriving here have NO intention whatsoever to be called names. These people came to seek asylum and even detention, and it's clear beyond doubt that the world knows that if you come to Australia, you'll get locked up and this happens on Christmas Island, but they were not afraid of that," spokesman Jack H Smit said.

"Let's start to be open and stop the stream of misinformation, equally so for the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus, and the Immigration Minister Chris Evans, and admit that it's an International Right to seek asylum, even in Australia," Mr Smit said.

"And next, let's get some openness from the Immigration Minister about the increasing slowness in the Department's processing of the asylum seekers on the island - before the detention centre is full, before the threshold of having been detained exceeds SIX MONTHS for several if not many of the arrivals from last year - a threshold which will come in the next couple of weeks", Mr Smit concluded.

Jack H Smit
Project SafeCom Inc.
[phone number posted]

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