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airport action from Germany's No border Camp participants
German anti-deportation group in an action that targets Germany's national carrier Lufthansa, gathers in airport departure hall of one of the country's Lufthafens. The banner text reads Luftransaction.

No Deportations!, says Anti Deportation Alliance

Activists and advocates form National Anti-Deportation Alliance (NADA)

In March 2003 Australia's Immigration Department began intimidating Iranian asylum seekers to sign repatriation papers.

They threatened the (mostly) men that they would be deported within 28 days - against their consent.

Following a national phone conference of representatives of refugee advocacy, support and action groups on Saturday May 17, 2003, in which 37 people from around the country participated, several action working groups were formed to engage in developing many still developing forms of urgent actions around the country, responding to the overt and brutal intimidation and threats made by ACM/DIMIA and the Immigration Minister to deport asylum seekers in detention centres as well as those living in the community on TPV's.

The 37 participants represented many refugee groups from all Australian States and territories. They resolved to form the National Anti-Deportation Alliance (NADA).

What's on this page

This page lists the participating NADA groups and organisations and provides downloadable documentation relating to the national anti-deportation action group.

Related pages

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.

12 January 2005: The man with the gag: witnessing a forced deportation - It had to happen sooner or later: someone on a flight, bound, gagged and muffled, moved under the highest secrecy, deported by force, not only with duct tape over his mouth, but the entire story covered up. Using the Christmas holidays, the absence of the lawyers, the expected silence of those advocates that can block their work...

18 August 2003: Two NADA News broadcasts on 3CR Community Radio - Two members of the National Anti-Deportation Alliance, recently formed in Australia, talk on-air at 3CR Community Radio in Melbourne, discussing the highly questionable practice of forced deportations and chemical restraints.

15 March 2003: Self harm: answer to Government torture and powerlessness in detention - Indefinite incarceration of people without a criminal charge is one of the world's most severe breaches of International Human Rights conventions, yet this is what Australia does with the asylum seekers who, under the 'stitched-up' Migration Act, have been excluded from becoming successful in their determination by Australia as refugees. This page highlights the situation of some of the Iranian asylum seekers held in detention centres around Australia.

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Open Letter from all Iranian detainees in Baxter IDC

Baxter IRPC
Baxter, Port Augusta SA

Friday 22 August 2003

Dear Prime Minister and all Australian People,

This letter is from all us poor Iranians here at Baxter, which is our prison. I have told this letter to my friend on the telephone because now we have no time. It is Friday night and we are all very frightened because they tell us that tomorrow we will be deported by force to our country.

So tonight we cannot sleep. We pray that something will save us and we try to help each other. We are real human beings and fathers and sons and husbands. We did not leave our country and our family for getting rich or big adventure. We must leave because our government is a dictatorship that tortures and kills its own people like it was in Iraq and we see on television how they open the graves of the poor tortured people. All the governments and the United Nations know that the Iranian government has no respect for human rights.

We ask for help from the government in Australia. We ask that you see that we cannot go back to Iran because we are too afraid of the torture and prison we will have to go to. Many of us have already lost family or have brothers and fathers in prison in Iran. Because we have not always explained our situation in the best way for DIMIA officers to understand, they say that we have failed and are not real refugees and the court cannot help us.

In our country, we tried to have democracy and freedom but we have been put in prison for it. Then we came here because Australia is a democratic country, but they put us in prison, too. How can we show you that we are not bad people?

Sometimes, some of us have been too stressed and sometimes we broke something in detention. We are sorry for that. We are not violent people; only sometimes we cannot endure this prison hell here any more.

Now nobody is coming to Australia anymore and your government has fulfilled its wish. But we have suffered for almost 3 years for this policy and we have suffered enough. If it would be possible for us to go home, we would have gone a long time ago even before your government offered us money to go away. But we cannot. If you will not let us stay here, please send us to some other country. A poor country or any country. We will go anywhere but we cannot go back to Iran.

We need your help in this terrible situation. Please help us and stop this deportation of us. We beg you from our heart. Signed by some of the Iranians.

Some Iranian residents
in the Baxter detention centre

Affiliated groups

Resources

Some pages on our website have more information about what Iranian asylum seekers are faced with upon return. Government torture: indefinite incarceration and deportation is a page with some material outlining Iran's forms of torture, while Cry Freedom includes some letters by Iranians.

Files available for download

National Anti-Deportation Alliance Documents

Other Action & Resource Documents