Tamil Justice

Radio Australia – Australia’s PM dogged by a fortnight of asylum seeker politics

ABC – Opposition: Oceanic Viking costing taxpayers $75K a day

Daily Times – VIEW: Where is Australia? —Farish A Noor

ABC – Asylum seekers fear forcible removal

Jakarta Post – Indonesia demands time line for Sri Lankan asylum seekers

The Australian – Indonesia gives Oceanic Viking another week

Brisbane Times – Asylum seekers showdown averted for week

Press Release - TAMIL ASYLUM SEEKERS IN MERAK SAY IOM IS PRESSURING THEM TO LEAVE THEIR BOAT

Refugee advocates in Australia are concerned that the Australian government may be co-ordinating action to try and force the Tamil asylum seekers in Indonesia to leave their boats.

While media statements this morning refer to the threat to forcibly remove the 78 asylum seekers on the Oceanic Viking, a statement from the 250 Tamil asylum seekers stranded in Merak, Indonesia says that the International
Organisation of Migration (IOM) is pressuring them to leave the ship by cutting their supplies. More 

ABC – Asylum seekers fear forcible removal

The Age – Rudd must relent to avoid costly stand-off

The Australian – Tamils ‘concerned they will be removed’

Sydney Morning Herald – Tamils’ horrific treatment makes them desperate to leave

BBC – Indonesia ‘might expel’ refugees

The Australian – Indonesia ‘might expel’ refugees

The Australian – Caucus united on refugees

The Australian – Kids destined for detention: Jakarta

News.com.au – Chilli weapon ruled out in asylum seeker boat standoff

The Australian – The strange and puzzling case of Dr Kevin and Mr Rudd

News.com.au - Boat 37 intercepted off Ashmore Reef with 40 on board

ABC – Navy intercepts another asylum seeker boat

Below is the motion put forward by Senator Bob Brown on 28th October 2009:

15 FOREIGN AFFAIRS—SRI LANKA

The Leader of the Australian Greens (Senator Bob Brown) amended general business notice of motion no. 597 by leave and, pursuant to notice of motion not objected to as a formal motion, moved—That the Senate—

(a) agrees with the recent European Union resolution on Sri Lanka of 22 October 2009, that:

(i) deplores the fact that more than 220 000 Tamil civilians are still being held in camps, and urges the Sri Lankan Government, in line with its public commitments, to return them to their homes and give humanitarian organisations free access to the camps and areas of return to provide necessary humanitarian assistance,

(ii) Tamil leaders should commit themselves to a political settlement and renounce terrorism and violence once and for all,

(iii) the Sri Lankan Government should respect human rights in the conduct of trials of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam members,

(iv) the Sri Lankan Government should cease its repression of the media in the name of its anti-terrorist legislation, and

(v) the Sri Lankan Government should put more effort into clearing minefields, which are a serious obstacle to reconstruction and economic recovery; and

(b) urges Sri Lanka to accede to the Ottawa Treaty (Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction).

Statements by leave: The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (Senator Evans) and Senators Parry and Bob Brown, by leave, made statements relating to the motion.

Question put.

The Senate divided—

AYES, 7

Senators—Brown, Bob, Fielding, Hanson-Young, Ludlam, Milne, Siewert (Teller), Xenophon

NOES, 29

Question negatived.

Click here  for summary

Refer here for full transcript of debate – refer pages 58 and 59

ds281009[1]

Crikey: Time to stand up for human rights in Sri Lanka — at last

Jake Lynch, director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS) at the University of Sydney, 29 October 2009

Sri Lanka Week has shrunk to a long weekend. The trade and investment shindig in Melbourne’s Docklands was scheduled to take place in June, but was called off amid outrage over the Sri Lankan army’s pounding of Tamil areas and UN estimates of 20,000 deaths. It’s back on, from Friday to Sunday, promising visitors “the opportunity to feel and experience the taste of paradise”.

Instead, we should remember 300,000 inmates who are being held against their will in a living hell — the giant internment camp at Menik Farm — in violation of their rights under international and Sri Lankan law. Alarming eyewitness testimony trickles out, of food and clean drinking water in desperately short supply, filthy conditions and — for any who might be tempted to protest to the occasional foreign visitor — the ever-present threat of disappearance.

That’s a fate that has befallen thousands over the years, in Sri Lanka’s dirty war with the Tamil Tiger rebels, which ended just over five months ago. Various commissions of inquiry were set up, only to fail in bringing any of the culprits to justice: a “sham”, in the words of Amnesty International. So the bullies carry on with impunity, and impunity incentivises repetition: we got away with it once, why not do it again? More

Please subscribe to Crikey and support independant media