Refugees Daily - Internal Global Press Review

During the past three years, the only 'laws' applied to us have been force and dictatorship. We are like people smitten with plague, left on isolated islands

Why is hope dangerous?

Central to the policy of exiling refugees to remote islands is the shattering of hope for a future, it is the breaking of people.

Hope is like a secret code enabling refugees to be resilient and to resist the ever-mounting pressure to return to their country of origin, even as life there is impossible.

To achieve this goal, the minister for immigration and border protection, Peter Dutton, appears on TV screens every now and then reiterating that refugees on Manus Island will never come to Australia and will be settled in Papua New Guinea.

The governing system of the prison on Manus and the companies working to implement this are focused on impacting the mind and spirit of refugees in a systematic manner to destroy our hopes for a future.

During the past three years, they have endeavoured to shatter our hopes by any means and to carve into our minds that there is no way ahead, there is no safe future for us.

The immigration officers arrive in the prison every week and repeat: "You have to live in PNG." This is reinforced by security officers, case managers and through notices attached to the bulletin boards inside the prison.

In recent days the immigration officers have frightened us again as after the supreme court hearing that says that the prison is illegal, they have officially declared that we have to live in PNG or return back to where we came from.

They have declared that we will not have any future. However, what is different is that this time they have said to us that we can obtain a visa for another country and leave here.

We understand that this choice is simply more propaganda.

This is one of those choices that, in practice, is not a choice because none of the refugees have the ability to apply for a visa for another country when they are kept in the Manus prison.

We ask the Australian government: "If a country like New Zealand accepts us and we are granted a visa, will the Australian government permit us to go there?" When New Zealand offered previously, Australia refused.

During the past three years, despite all the pressure imposed by immigration on me, I have not submitted my protection case to the PNG government. But it was suddenly announced to me that I had been conferred refugee status and that I have no choice but to live in PNG.

When I asked for reasons as to why and how they concluded I was a refugee they responded by saying that they had collected my personal information from media and PNG had agreed with Australia that I would receive a positive refugee finding.

What becomes glaringly obvious in this is that any claim to this being a real refugee assessment process is false. My rights to offer my case for refugee status have been taken from me, my human rights to make decisions about my life have been stolen.

What shocks me is the fact that the ?social media accounts of refugee advocates are monitored? – they are spied upon

It's clear that the the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection monitors the Facebook pages of refugee advocates, as revealed by the department's head, Michael Pelluzzo, to Senate estimates. Such monitoring is followed up by investigations and the information collated is recorded. Those records were provided to the Senate in an attempt to back up the department's routine accusations that advocates are giving "false hope" to refugees on Manus and Nauru.

I came across my name among the names of other advocates in these records provided to the Senate, along with a copy of one of my Facebook posts that detailed the time I climbed a tree in Foxtrot compound in the Manus prison in protest.

I do not want to respond to the monitoring of my Facebook page, rather what shocks me is the fact that the social media accounts of refugee advocates are monitored – they are spied upon.

One of the fundamental and basic rights of a free and democratic society is respect for freedom of speech; that every citizen has the right to express their political thoughts and views, whether it be on Facebook or in any form of media.

When DIBP accuses advocates of providing hope to 2,000 refugees incarcerated in Manus and Nauru prisons they are indicating that giving hope to prisoners is wrong and is against a law.

If we ask why the DIBP spends money and time on investigating those who provide hope, we can understand that the concept of hope itself is seen as dangerous.

The Australian government, accompanied by the PNG government, has kidnapped us and kept us in limbo, acting against international laws, and denying us access to any court that may bring us justice. The high court of Australia legalised our exile, and the PNG court has not been able to bring justice to us.

We are people effectively deemed outside of any law.

During the past three years, the only "laws" applied to us have been force and dictatorship. We are like people smitten with plague, exiled from a civilised society and left on isolated islands.

For us there is no way ahead towards the future and no way behind to the past.

From the Australian government's point of view, we do merely and solely have two choices, but we are human and our rights as human beings tell us there is a third choice as well, the choice of resistance against torture.
 

TEHRAN (FNA)- United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Representative in Pakistan Indrika Ratwatte praised Tehran's continued support for the Afghan refugees residing in Iran.

Ratwatte said in Islamabad on Sunday that return of Afghan refugees back home is a top priority for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

"Iran has been exemplary host of Afghan refugees for past 37 years," the UNHCR official said.

His remarks came after Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli underlined Tehran's determination to find a permanent solution to the problems of the Afghan refugees, and called on the European Union to help Tehran facilitate Afghan refugees' return to their homeland.

"We have asked the European Union to render the necessary assistance to help Afghan refugees' return to their country," Rahmani Fazli told reporters on Saturday.

He reiterated that the European countries should feel responsible and give the necessary help for the repatriation of 3 million Afghan refugees to Afghanistan.

The Iranian interior minister pointed to Iran's willingness to share the experience and facilities of the European countries in dealing with Afghan refugees, and said, "The EU has invited Iranian experts in different Afghan refugee aid sectors to travel to Brussels and become familiar with EU's new achievements and we have also agreed with the EU's request."
 

KABUL, Oct 3 (Reuters) – For Samihullah, a tailor from a family of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, the first indication that it might be time to leave the country was the insults levelled at him in the bazaar.

Born to refugee parents in the northern Pakistani town of Mansehra, he never gained citizenship but was always considered an Afghan, something which began to count against him as local resentment grew over Afghanistan's deepening ties with India.

Many Pakistanis view India as their enemy at the best of times, and that attitude has hardened in recent months as tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals have risen.

"Afghans used to be called 'Kabuli' in Pakistan, but now Pakistanis call them 'Hindus' because we signed economic agreements with India," said Samihullah, who, like many Afghans, goes by one name.

Married with two wives, one Afghan and one Pakistani, the 32-year-old is among thousands of people who have gone to Afghanistan and are housed temporarily in a refugee centre near Kabul.

Even before the latest clashes between Indian and Pakistani soldiers in the disputed Kashmir region, the climate was more hostile.

"They were telling us, we chose India's friendship so we should go to India. We were hiding in our shops and homes to avoid being arrested," Samihullah said.

After almost 40 years of war in Afghanistan, Pakistan has some 1.5 million registered refugees, one of the largest such populations in the world, according to the United Nations refugee agency. More than a million others are estimated to live there unregistered.

Islamabad, which announced new repatriation plans last year, has stepped up pressure to send people back and numbers have risen sharply in recent months as Afghan-Indian relations strengthened and those between India and Pakistan soured.

"These people were our guests, we kept them in our house. Afghanistan should be grateful to us," said a Pakistani army official based in the southern city of Quetta.

"Instead it ... has become buddies with India, it's like stabbing us in the back."

The treatment Samihullah and others at the reception centre complain of reflects how quickly diplomatic tensions can affect refugees, many of whom must start again from scratch.

"These returnees are coming back after more than three decades in exile," said Maya Ameratunga, director of UNHCR's Country office in Kabul. "It will take a big adjustment."

The United Nations provides $400 a person in emergency help as well as medical and other assistance, but international funds are drying up in the face of a series of global crises.

Longer term reintegration into a country many never knew as home may be difficult.

"Some people are able to go to live with relatives, but others may not have that possibility. So unfortunately what we are seeing is people becoming displaced," Ameratunga said.

"HONOUR AND DIGNITY"

Ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan have long been clouded by mutual accusations that militant extremists find shelter on the other side of the border.

But Pakistani officials deny there has been systematic harassment of Afghans living in Pakistan and say their country has demonstrated great generosity to the refugee population, despite severe economic problems of its own.

"We want them to return home in peace with honour and dignity," said Akhtar Munir, spokesman at the Pakistani embassy in Kabul, adding that there was no connection between the repatriation of Afghan refugees and India.

He said Pakistani police had clear instructions not to harass registered refugees, but added that some Afghans living illegally in Pakistan were involved in crime, and action against criminals should not be seen as mistreatment of refugees.

The spike in the number of returnees has, however, moved in step with escalating friction between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which flared into brief clashes at the Torkham border crossing in June.

A series of economic and political accords with India in recent months and the fanfare around the completion of the Indian-financed Salma dam in western Afghanistan in June has also weighed on relations.

According to UNHCR figures, the number of assisted returns jumped from 1,433 in June to 11,416 in July and 60,743 in August. More than 90,000 have been returned to Afghanistan so far this year, almost all from Pakistan, and the number is expected to pass 220,000 for the year.

Although repatriation is not compulsory, many Afghans say life in Pakistan has become so uncomfortable they feel they have little choice.

Even in areas like Baluchistan in the south, where authorities have long taken a more lenient view of refugees than in the northwest frontier areas, attitudes have changed, particularly in the wake of recent attacks.

"My son was stopped at a checkpoint and an officer tore up his Afghan citizenship card," said Bibi Shireen, who moved to Quetta from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar 30 years ago.

"Now he has no identification and we're scared he could get picked up any day now and sent away because he isn't registered," she said.

Previously, Afghan refugees did not need visas or passports to cross the porous frontier. This has now changed, a step Pakistan says is needed to ensure control of militant extremists on both sides of the border.

Despite the problems, many returnees say they are not unhappy to be back, though they need help with food and shelter as harsh winter months approach.

"We did our best over the past 20 years but could not make a living," said Sheer Banu Ahmadzai, a burqa-veiled mother who left her home in the northern province of Baghlan as a child. "I hope we have the chance to make a living in our own country." (Additional reporting by Mehreen Zahra-Malik in QUETTA; Editing by Mike Collett-White)