DEPORTED TO DANGER - Edmund Rice Centre

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family who need help too…. I have depression and a lot of headaches. I am often sick. Afterbeing away for so long and in detention centre, I feel ashamed that I am a burden to myfamily and I cannot help them very much.Baghdad is bleeding to death. Everything is destroyed, the people are very tired anddepressed. How do I come to terms with all the death and destruction I see every day?Baghdad was once a great and beautiful city now it looks like Kabul…destroyed. Thepeople have lost hope and they are humiliated beyond belief.5 Sharif: Bedoon 5 from KuwaitSharif is a Bedoon from Kuwait. Because Bedoons are not recognized as citizens inKuwait, he is stateless and has no claim on citizens’ rights there. Many other Bedoons inthe same situation have been allowed to stay in Australia, but Sharif’s application forrefugee status was rejected.After arrival in Australia, he spent three years in immigration detention. Then Sharifwas told that he could live safely in Syria. He had had more than enough of the conditionsin detention and took up what he understood as an offer of a safe place in Damascus. Hewas given an Australian Certificate of Identity, which the Australian government issues torejected asylum seekers for one-way travel from Australia.This Certificate of Identity he sent to a friend who purchased a visa for travel toSyria. The documents were sent back to the detention centre and held there by theauthorities until Sharif’s departure. He did not see the visa document until a member of theflight crew handed it to him 15 minutes before arrival in Damascus.He was shocked to find then that he had a Syrian visa valid only for a few months.There was also an instruction to report to the Public Security Department within 15 days ofarrival. He presented the document to Syrian Immigration along with the US$200Australian officials in the detention centre had told him to put inside the document to giveto Syrian border guards. He saw police take other detainees to jail on arrival. He soonunderstood that very soon he would be illegal in Syria. Removed from Australia as anunlawful non-citizen, he would now be an unlawful non-citizen in Syria.For three years Sharif lived underground in Syria, where he realized that the mannerof his arrival from Australia increased the risks to his safety. Renting a small flat, he paiddouble rent to the landlord and paid neighbours as well so that they would not report him tothe police. His brother in a First World country sent him US$200 a month to help himsurvive. He ventured out only in the evenings or to visit a Mosque nearby.While his successful application for asylum in a First World country was beingprocessed in 2004, he was arrested and taken to jail where he was beaten and tortured.When the First World Embassy was alerted, a senior official visited the jail and negotiatedSharif’s release. Within a week the stateless man had found a home, reunited with hisfamily in a First World country.5 For exlpanation of this term, see , Statelessness, p. 468
6 Martin: Rwandan 6Martin is a young Rwandan whose parents were killed in the 1994 genocide. Agedeleven, he escaped first to Mozambique, then by boat to Kenya where he lived on the streetsfor five years. Realizing that life was going nowhere and fearful of persecution in Rwanda,Martin stowed away with five others on a ship and ended up in Melbourne. He was then 16years old. He has never been to school, has never had a job and was lucky to be alive whenour interviewers spoke to him in 2004.On his arrival in Australia, the shipping company called the ImmigrationDepartment in Melbourne and Martin was sent to a detention centre where he remained fortwo and a half years. DIMIA rejected his appeal for refugee status and the RRT upheld thedecision. Martin lodged an appeal for a hearing before the Federal Court. However, beforethe date for the hearing arrived he lost the energy to face it, exhausted by his struggle forrecognition. He decided to give up trying and leave, because, he told us: bad things werehappening in my head.Asked about his understanding of why he was deported, he answered: I had nodocument and they say they don’t believe me. I didn’t understand…I never had aninterpreter. They said my language is Kenyan-Swahili not Rwandan-Swahili. They say I amnot who I say I am. They recorded my voice. On the evidence of the language reportapparently, he was rejected for speaking a Kenyan version of Swahili. This was only to beexpected when he had lived on the streets in Kenya from age 11 to 16, formative years inthe development of an accent.In 2002 he was sent back to Kenya, handcuffed to the seat on the plane from thedetention centre to Perth. Then he was escorted under guard to Johannesburg and on in aKenya Airlines plane to Nairobi, where he was met by an Australian Christian Brother and alawyer at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. They have no idea how he got throughImmigration in Nairobi. He had some emergency travel documents from the Australianauthorities but these were taken from him at the airport and once again he became stateless,without proof of identity.At customs, with Brother Sean and the lawyer watching, Martin was bailed up byplain-clothes police who said they had to detain him. They also expressed a close interest inhow much money he had (about $80 US). Somehow he managed to talk his way through,and spent his first hours out of detention at the Brothers’ house which he left the next day.A month later Martin left Kenya, trying to find some other more friendly Africancountry, running the risk of detention or worse as he crossed more borders without papers.He knows English fairly well and eventually was able to contact Australian friends whodiscovered that in an attempt to enter South Africa he and his companions were detained inthe notorious Lindella prison.He was detained again later when other young asylum seekers, in trouble with thepolice for petty crimes, occupied the house that had been rented for him by Australiansupporters. After harrowing experiences and court appearances he was eventually released.At present he is living in an African country where he does not feel safe because of his6 An earlier account of Martin’s story by Brother Sean McManus has been recorded in the COPAS CaseStudies, October 2002 available on www.opeast.org.au. This interview was conducted in July 20049
Page 4: IV RESEARCH QUESTIONS 261. Has the
Page 8: Government Policy, Assessment, Evid
Page 14 and 15: accent and the unpredictable behavi
Page 16 and 17: IIBACKGROUND1 Government PolicyBord
Page 19 and 20: As an alternative, Mr Sidoti also c
Page 21 and 22: political, economic, social and cul
Page 23 and 24: The US State Department declared on
Page 25 and 26: Under the Hudood Ordinance criminal
Page 27 and 28: implementation of the accord. After
Page 29 and 30: description may be found in the foo
Page 32 and 33: I was immediately sent to prison on
Page 34 and 35: IraqC12 details problems at the Jor
Page 36 and 37: opposed to the West, his comments a
Page 38 and 39: accept any money offer. But finally
Page 40 and 41: Table I indicates that on arrival 5
Page 42 and 43: smugglers’. Of the ten recorded i
Page 44 and 45: Plate 6.An example of a Certificate
Page 46 and 47: Convention on the Reduction of Stat
Page 48 and 49: the run in terror of the Syrian sec
Page 50 and 51: 5. Is the manner of conducting asyl
Page 52 and 53: said UNHCR would protect us. The UN
Page 54 and 55: week we did it again. This time he
Page 56 and 57: In order to secure the rights of pe
Page 58 and 59: Appendices1 Table II: Safety on arr
Page 60 and 61: Table II (Continued)SAFETY STATUS O
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8. Was there anything that prevente
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