MORE DETENTION CENTRE DEATHS TO COME.
Despite the Coronial Inquiries into the three deaths in immigration custody at Villawood within a period of ten weeks nothing has changed. More detention centre deaths are imminent.
Serco claims in that they have improved training are to be treated suspiciously. Since the Villawood deaths there was the suicide at Scherger, the suicide at Curtin, both this year, and a horrific suicide attempt at Curtin in February (a third attempt where man plunged through plate glass), and there has been a rise in suicide attempts, multiple suicide attempts and a horrific rise in self harms, therefore the only thing that has changed is the situation has got worse.
Serco and DIAC, subject the final report from the Coroner, however in relation to admissions to the Coroner and on the preliminary findings, should be charged with criminal negligence, manslaughter, torture and other unlawful acts - their culpability and vicarious liability are evident.
The Coronial Inquest into the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre 'suicides' has admissions of inadequate training and mental health services. We have argued this for two years. We have argued this about Christmas Island, Curtin Detention Centre, Northern Immigration Detention Centre, Scherger Detention Centre, Villawood and others.
We have provided leaked information and documents about suicide watches as high as 50, 55 and 100 at detention centres. We have leaked information about the rate of incidences of self harms and suicide attempts however once again justice is delayed and diminished by everyone waiting till after the event - when deaths arise.
A Coronial Inquest into the suicides of three detainees at Villawood Immigration Detention Centre has heard of inadequate training and mental health services. Indeed, this continues.
Within 10 weeks Josefa Rauluni, David Saunders and Ahmed Al Akabi died.
The nature of DIAC's relationship with SERCO is dangerous - and criminal. Both DIAC and SERCO must be criminally charged.
Josef Rauluni believed he faced persecution, prison and torture in Fiji - after a one and half hour standoff with SERCO he 'died'. SERCO stands by at rooftop protests in Darwin, during solitary and en masse hunger strikes at Curtin, Scherger, Christmas Island. Curtin Detention Centre Asylum Seekers and personnel have confirmed to me they are abused - physically and mentally, intimidated and threatened, and that staff have little or no requisite training. Asylum Seekers are regularly threatened, ridiculed and humiliated.
This is why we have called for UN Observers, for unfettered media access, for medical and mental health specialists on site, and more importantly for SERCO to be terminated as a contractor and even more importantly for an end to all the forms of murderous mandatory detention.
DIAC lies when it claims it presumed SERCO personnel had appropriate training. DIAC's William McGuinness' imputation that there was a presumption of SERCO personnel properly qualified is misleading and appalling - for two years we have stated to DIAC and to the various news media that the personnel are unqualified.
The Coroners Inquest into the death of Ahmed Al Akabi believes Villawood lacked adequate mental health services. For goodness sake, what's changed? Aside the fact that detention centres manifest clinical disorders and psychotic episodes, there continues in the detention centre network inadequate mental health services and under- and ill-trained personnel. There are no suicide prevention programs, no crisis support, no psychosocial counselling, just a vacuum of inhumanity brutally damaging the trickle of humanity it incarcerates.
In terms of identifying people at risk in detention centres, indeed all are at risk - this is self evident and does not requrie Coronial Inquiries and rather just some humanity. The Australian Government is now a human rights violator, and its discrimination, racism and criminality is on show for posterity.
By the time of the Coroner's findings end of the year it is likely there will be more detention centre deaths in custody, and then more excuses and more hollow promises.
THE HUMAN RIGHTS ALLIANCE
Gerry Georgatos Convenor, Human Rights Alliance
Researcher, Australian Deaths in Custody
Contact: 0430 657 309
gerry_georgatos@yahoo.com.au
Working towards a Better Future.
We acknowledge and respect the traditional custodians whose ancestral lands we are now part of. We acknowledge and remember the horrific atrocities inflicted upon them. This is and will forever be their land.
Comments
Looks to me most of them are economic asylum seekers
Gerry are you saying we should open the doors and just let every one in?
If a asylum seeker leaves the country they are running from eg Sri Lanka where they were Tammel Tigers and land in India there lives are no longer under threat why should they be able to leave a country where they are safe and keep comming to Australia? looks to me most of them are economic Asylum seekers.You cant tell me the closest safe country to Iraq Afghanistan Sri Lanka is Australia.Did you know that 85% of asylum seekers stay on government hand outs for 10 years is this fair?
When I walk down the streets of Sydney I see people from all over the world,to call our government racist is just dumb, lets face it if Australia was racist your family and you would be still in Greece and would not of been allowed into the country hey Gerry.
Hi Steve, my response.
Steve, I know full well, you don't, the racism that I grew up with in Sydney, and I am born and bred Australian - however my parents' extraction as you more than allude to, and the colour of my skin was a problem for many while in youth and school years, and unless we bow down to a particular obliging to inter-generational premises that are underwritten by prejudice and various resentment to other perceived cultures, such as many of the Aboriginal peoples have endured then life can be pretty tough.
Steve, my parents came here as unskilled migrants as part of a labour recruitment drive and my father had to do his time on various projects - and others who likewise came here, not all, however finished up here as a labour resource and subsequently catapulted by wage slavery debilitated in the end of their days, others with mesothelioma all tubed up - no-one should have to live like that. Most are grateful to Australia and have nevertheless little objection to Australia for they see their suffering as a blessing for their children, who are more educated in many ways than their parents and hence will not be duped into the sacrifices they endured.
In terms of the multicultural picture you paint of Sydney, the bringing of peoples together is a great thing, and trans migration of peoples and their right to go wherever they want to in this little world, that can at times seem bigger than it is the narrow eyes of humans are natural and the history of humanity, only dimmed by little mindedness when we capture all meaning within our generation alone. However let us not paint Sydney as the great welcome to peoples that you impute, let us quickly remind ourselves of the Cronulla race riots, the fact that our parliaments do not represent the Australian demographic - that 90% of parliamentarians are Anglo-Celtic/Saxon in origin, and 80% of them have a 100 familial history in this country - let us remind ourselves of the plight of many of our Aboriginal brothers and sisters in the remote, semi-remote, rural and semi-rural and in the urban fringes of such metropolises as Sydney where homelessness blights many of them, and let us remind ourselves of Australia's inherent xenophobia, islamophobia, fear of others - and let us remind ourselves that we are not yet far removed from the Yellow Peril policy, the White Australia policy, and we still linger within the Stolen Generation policies, and we live the Military Northern Territory Intervention, the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act, and the nightmare of Australia's unique mandatory detention network.
You say that 85% of Asylum seekers stay on government-hand-outs and after ten years this remains, this is quite not true however you are correct that they have a disproportionate high unemployability rate for a quite some time after detention, and that post-release there trauma is acute and abject after what they've gone through pre-release - let us remind ourselves of the lengthy incarceration, the bullying and intimidation and physical and mental abuses they have endured via ill trained and under trained personnel and which I know for a fact and have been one of the folk leaking the documents and disseminating the facts Australia-wide - let us remind ourselves that six deaths have occurred in detention centre custoy in Australia in the last year, and five of them were suicides - let us remind ourselves of the thousands of suicide attempts, multiple suicide attempts, self harms, self injuries and the thousands who have gone on hunger strikes and have been emaciated to the point of collapse - Australia's policies towards our Asylum Seekers are mired in discrimination and racism and we have fallen in a heap on racism. Steve, there is a direct correlation between the brutal trauma of incarceration and the myriad of abuses and their maltreatment and the high unemployability among Asylum Seekers and their collapse into disability payments for a period of time - this is not rocket science. With prisons, we have doubled the prison population in Australia between 1991 to 2011, however the Australian population has not doubled, and this is because we have a society harsh on others, on the most vulnerable as we demand more for ourselves, and it comes at the expense of the voiceless, the weak, the downtrodden - people come out of prisons worse than they went in - post release from prisons there are more deaths in the equivalent periods pre release and yet Australia has one of the world's worst deaths in custody records - and now we have added to this stain on the Australian landscape the phenomema of Immigration and Detention centre deaths in custody.
My parents had every right to migrate, and our Asylum Seekers have every right to seek Asylum and which is lawful - however what is impropriety is the Australian government trying to change the laws of the land and the laws we have agreed to internationally because they did not get their within the framework of the laws well considered by many and now the few, our parliamentarians seek to usurp this and hence further perceptually the values of Australian, our morality, by making it 'illegal', and rewriting our apothegms, which once welcomed Vietnamese and Cambodian boat peoples in greater numbers than contemporarily.
Iran, Pakistan have not turned away the millions of refugees who have nowhere to go, and who are within the borders of Iran and Pakistan - and Quetta has now become a by-word in our vocabulary and as well known as Sydney to most Australians - they may not be able to provide for them, being impoverished nations - however they do not turn these millions away as a country of Australia's incredible social wealth tries to turn away a trickle of humanity that has risked all to flee persecution and civil strife.
Let us get the facts straight, they are not economic migrants, and this term is a misguided misnoma - they may not necessarily have starved - what they are fleeing is persecution, is the prospect of arrest, civil strife, war, the prospect of death and which is a reality and let us remind ourselves of the Asylum Seekers who DIAC deported and now we have found some of them were persecuted and killed.
As long as Australia owns mandatory detention, as long as our government runs the gauntlet of mandatory detention centres, more than 30 now, as long as Australia treats people from the Middle East, from the sub-continent, and so on differently to how it views and treats people from for instance most of Europe or the northern Americas, then this is a racist country - look carefully at our migration intake and break it down - look carefully at our resettlement numbers and break them down - look carefully at who is in our prisons and why, and how we treat peoples in this country and why.
People are not the property of people, yet people act as if people are the property of people, freedom is not a property however at best people are the property of freedom. How about when we walk the streets we don't see black, brindle, white, or discern various cultural settings in persuasively prejucial ways that divides and fragments humanity, how about we just see humanity and its common good and tap into that common good.
Our days are numbered and we are not here for as long as the ways many carry on with misrepresent - and hence we just realise we not to drop all the nonsense and just live this life, numbered in days, with one another, rather than waste any day jugding one another, bringing one another down, hurting one another.
Yes, of course Australia should put out its welcoming hand to as many folk as need our hand, and we take theirs and get on with life.
Kindly, Gerry.
Bowen verse Manne.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-17/protesters-chase-bowen-from-asylum...
Still not answering
Gerry you are still not answering the question do we open the doors to asylum seekers and let every one in that comes on a boat?
Every morning I thank God he made me a White man
Gerry answer the Question should we open the doors and let every one in?
Gerry would Pakistan or Iran turn away asylum seekers if they were Hindu or Christian?
The bringing of people together may be a great thing in Australia how great would it be in Pakistan or even Israel.
Gerry don't tell me about racism I am a white man that has worked in the Middle east ,Africa,Asia,South America and the Pacific you got no idea what racism is I have had guns stuck in my face by police and given a lecture on what white man has done to their country while corruption runs their country. I was taken to court in Africa then when I was winning the case the judge said we will break for lunch when I returned after lunch the court was empty the case was never finished because whitey was going to win .I have been made stand a back of ques because I am white and Christian in Africa.I have had my business shut down in the Pacific because I worked hard and made money and the white man made them look stupid.I have had black man come and try to burn me out of my house at night only because I was white but when I ran them down in my Four wheel drive in my front yard and burnt their houses down they got upset but a few hundred dollars to the head of Police got me off that one. What ever racism you as Greek decent copped in Australia it has nothing on how white man gets treated in Black man countries you got no idea what racism is Gerry.I had a Arab try to run me off the road in the Middle east he followed me to my house and pulled a knife on me I got the better of him and broke his nose (It was that big I could not miss) and knocked out his front teeth I was locked up for three months given just enough food to stay alive and was beaten and abused for being a white man the put on a plane then all this was denied by the authorities.In the Phillippines I had a Taxi driver pull a gun on me because he did not like white man the funny thing about that I shot him in the knee with his own gun then paid off a cop to get me on a plane out of there.The difference between me and all you sooks is I stand up and fight for my rights. the other side of racism is when you are in remote parts of the world you are treated like a king because you are white to the point you feel embarrassed don't think I am all bad I have built Toilet blocks in villages put running water in villages only to have the locals wreck it,there is something that appeals to people in PNG about putting rocks in the toilet.I have had shoot outs with people in PNG trying to abduct me for money because I am white shit If they just asked me for money I would have given it to them.
Gerry I grew up in Australia as a Irish man, remember all the Irish jokes well in the 70's my school did not tell Irish jokes because I would punch any one who did after a year of knocking people out that all stopped, Gerry you all need to tuffen the fuck up,My body is full of scares from shootings stabbings and whippings because I am a white man that stands up against racism, every morning I look in the mirror I thank God he made me a White man.
Gerry I think you need to travel the world to really under stand what racism is and then you will realize how small racism is in Australia Mate you got no idea what racism is.
Gerry, how many boat people do you want to let in?
Yes Gerry how many boat people do you want to let in? at the moment we have 5000 people a year how many do you want 10,000 or maybe 1,000,000 at what point do you stop.Then what do you do? process then off shore?Steve has a point when asylum seekers flee their countries for safety why do they pass through countries where their lives are no longer at risk to get to Australia looks like they are economic asylum seekers that arrive on Australian shores.Where do we cut funds to pay to support all these asylum seekers that jump the ques maybe we can cut the old age pension or maybe you want to cut funding to the traditional owners of this country.It is easy to knock Government policy but what is your solution would love to hear what you would do and where you will get the money from!
Questions answered many times over
I think Gerry has answered the questions many times over.
The seeking of asylum at all times is lawful and moral
Hi Steve and Yothu, I will try where I can to answer your questions.
Steve, we should let as many folk in as we can. Be they 50,000 a year or more - we should do what we can in terms of our capacity - we are not anywhere near the numbers and welcome that we are capable of.
I believe you are incorrect in terms of your assertion of Pakistan in terms of Hindus and Christians. Indeed, even though there isn't much by way of resettlement in Iran and Pakistan they have millions of folk within their borders predominately from Afghanistan and they have not turned them away even they live it rough and tough - and let us remind ourselves that Quetta has become as well known a place to most Australians as has for instance Sydney or Townsville. Pakistan even though it does not have Australia's social wealth and right now is languishing in the problems of the 7.1 million flood victims it is still not turning people away from at least staying within their border even though they can give them very little, unlike Australia which incarcerates, brutalises and has the 'tow them back' mentality.
In terms of Israel, and others well the coalescing of peoples would be great - and Israel and Palestine would benefit greatly by living together, or side by side and realising in the fact that our days are numbered on this Earth and the territoriality stuff that national identities are decimated by is wasteful of these numbered days. It's tragic that in our lifetimes we will not see the Palestinian crisis resolved and people living free of these horrific squatter camp like existences - and well life in Ramallah and Jerusalem and the Gaza will main impoverished and tough - we will not see Palestine this week achieve statehood at the United Nations, because if they did it would mean they could bring to the fore what they will argue as human rights violations and abuses against Israel. From my vantage I would love to see Israeli's coalesce a peace rather than division with Palestinians. Maybe the Palestinians will achieve Observer Status at the UN and maybe this will be a sliver of the way forward - I don't know. In my book there is no such thing as an Israeli or a Palestinian, and there are only people - it will take someone with a calling to humanity to lead Israelis and Palestinians into the coalescing of humanity however these voices at this time are limited.
Steve, I don't agree with the way you have navigated through various issues with other people - for me you can be outspoken, and a conscientious objector, and I am very outspoken where needed as I will not dilute or compromise my convictions and beliefs and this is life-long enmeshed in my constitution, however your way is not my way, and some of what you've felt you've needed to do I left behind to my school yard days when I dealt in ways I shouldn't have with racism, discrimination or bullying - by standing up in ways maybe you have. Violence does breed violence - and recriminations and retribution and the simmer of hate are a legacy that an unfolding human rights language and various social justice does not need and is only delayed by.
I respect your Irish heritage, and I have studied some Irish history, and all humanity has had its struggles, however we move on, we learn, we unfold - yes the Irish were the first slaves to the Americas, even before the tragedy of African slavery to the Americas, and yes Irish folk were hounded into the ground, however I'm more for MO CARA (Ourselves Together) - I do understand the struggles of the Irish 'Ourselves Alone' however as much as I respect much of the what had to occur to overthrow various oppressions we are somewhere else in terms of time and location. It's always time for all of us to come together in this great impost of interrelationships - and part of that is to understand humanity in terms of its right to transmigration - peoples should be able to go to wherever in the world they wish and whenever.
In terms of some of the imputations you've generated in terms of places you've been - well let us remind ourselves of the various oppressions, and of the radical nature of these oppressions, peoples endured - Brittania decimated peoples throughout the world in its tyranny of acquiring with the utmost disregard of others - for the peoples of the lands they ravaged the British were the great slum builders in history.
In terms of all your travels Steve and your reference to me to travel the world, well I've done my fair share, and from early on in my youth. I've been around, and well the world does come to us in ways through the various news media and media that much of what you describe, and even if they perceptually modify it, is relayed to us.
In terms of the comment of you're glad you see a 'white man' everytime you look in the mirror well you've just described disparity, disadvantage, and the reasons for the immolation of initiative for the many. I'd like everyone to see 'the common good' everytime they look in the mirror, and of course someone like me believes there is some good in everyone, and this is what we have to increasingly tap into.
To Yothu, to best answer your questions I believe that we need to take in as many folk who need us, and in terms of as many as we can manage to take in - be it 50,000, be it 100,000 in any one year. If we have a capacity for this then great - and I doubt people will come by boat risking their lives if we lifted our numbers to capacity and hence in effect our resettlement numbers. We've got to move away from national identities premised by social engineering and move towards humanity.
I am prepared to say, as I believe it, that the issue for many is that many of our Asylum Seekers are Middle Eastern, or from the sub continent and the colour of ones skin, their cultural setting is what's sparked off ignorances - xenophobia and islamophobia, and swarthy skins do upset some folk - and my skin is swarthy.
Our parliamentarians are predominately Anglo-Celtic/Saxon in terms of extraction, and hence do not represent the Australian demographic. 90% of our parliamentarians are Anglo-Celtic/Saxon and 80% of them with over a 100 year familial history in Australia, and therefore aside time's mitigation and other presence of circumstances, inter-generational premises, sub texts are passed on as for many is inter-generational poverty, abject and acute, from origins-of-thinking we should now be removed and relocated from.
Yothu, Asylum Seekers do not jump queues, in many places there are no avenues for help, and the seeking of Asylum at all times is lawful and moral. Yothu, Asylum Seekers in places like Quetta and so on are not safe, even though Pakistan morally allows them to stay it cannot provide or protect them with a full suite of rights, Pakistan's economy is endemically impoverished and due in good part to colonialism, as is indicatively the dilemma that many of our Aboriginal brothers and sisters endure.
(I haven't proofed this, hope it makes sense!)
Peace, Gerry.
Blaming the white man will only make you burn up inside
Looks like you are the racist one Gerry you have a problem with Anglo-Celtic/Saxon just remember who made this country great and who died for it in World War one and two how racist you are Gerry to be quoting the colour of peoples skin.
Basically you want to open the gates to boat people then you say "I doubt people will come by boat risking their lives if we lifted our numbers to capacity" that statement shows us what a fool you are Gerry and where does the money come from to support these people????
You have studied Irish history have you Gerry well good on ya.You got no idea what it is like to walk in a Irish mans shoes so cut the crapp.
Gerry what countries have you lived in for longer than 6 months (this will be good)and as a man with swarthy skin( as you put it) you got no idea what is to be treated like a white man.Now Pakistan is the way it is because of colonialism try again Gerry Ireland were treated worse than Pakistan and we got over it so you can't blame white man for Pakistan it might have more to do with their culture and religion thats why they split with India,Gerry you are showing us how racist you are now we can all see you hate the white man it must be your way of getting back at the way you were teased when you were a kid get over it Gerry and grow up.
One last question when you wake up in the morning and see a man with swarthy skin(never heard swarthy skin before are you sure you did not just make that one up?)in the mirror do you thank God or do you cry? And Gerry what,s your real name it,s not Gerry is it? like most people of Greek decent they change their first name to a white mans name you should be proud of the name your parents gave you I feel your hurt Gerry, If you need some one to talk to I can help I don,t care if your skin is swarthy or any other colour But blaming the white man will only make you burn up inside it is not healthy I feel sorry for you Gerry Please let me help you to over come your racism
Gerry all your articles are racist to white Australia
Gerry all your articles are racist to white Australia do you have a hang up about being Greek .Gerry you need to talk to someone to find inner peace you have many layers of racism in you,you need to get rid of the hate it will eat you up and make your life sad this is not good for you Gerry I can see you crying out for help I was going to ring you as you left your number on other posts but thought I should ask you first so I didn't catch you by surprise,so Gerry would it be alright to call you sometimes a open ear can help, Look after yourself and drop the racism towards the white man it is not healthy for you.
God Bless
Michael B
Drop your hang ups about being white, accept what we did
I happen to know Gerry. One thing for sure is he knows racism and what it does to people, the man has been a lot of places and has lived most of his early life overseas and he has worked with Aboriginal communities and just google him. I don't think he is saying anything negative about white people, he is a white man to many other cultures. I see him describing the reasons for why somethings are in the word.
I find it incredible that one of you would claim the Irish had it worse than the Pakistanis. Yeh sure like Gerry and you say bad things happened to Irish people and I didn't know what Gerry claimed that the Irish were slaves to America before the Africans but worse things have happened. Millions died at the partition of India and Pakistan and the English treated the people like slaves where this was different for the Irish because other than the accent between English and Irish the differences were not as deep as someone that looked like heathen rather than serf to the English. Irish still had the chance to educate themselves and get ahead and go to lands other than their own for a new life. How many Pakistanis could come to Australia during the 18th century?
Gerry is a good man and as tough as nails who helps the homeless and the downtrodden and helps all people improve their lives.
I think you guys should drop your own hang ups about being white, get on with accepting what we in the past have done to others.
Let us respect this about Gerry, he answers comments from anyone online or any blog on the internet and uses his real name all the time never hides as anonymous and he takes this time out to talk to anyone even those that judge him or attack him.
Michael B.
Gerry is on the money
I think Gerry is on the money.
Sue.
Let's work on putting our national goals and interests first
Let's work on withdrawing from the UN Refugee and Human Rights and Human Rights Conventions in order put the national goals and interests first. They are just expensive exercise for the taxpayers, and most of our soldiers are dying for someone else's wars. Enough of the open door policy and socialist goals. I am sure you're parents didn't build this country to hand it over to economic immigrants who are taking our jobs, homes and country!!!! Also, stop taxpayers funds of the do-gooders and refugee activists IMMEDIATELY!