Barat Ali Batoor, a Hazara refugee from Afghanistan, told a forum on September 8 about the dire conditions which led him to seek refuge in Australia. The Refugee Action Collective (Victoria) meeting also heard from a trauma couselllor.
Batoor said that Hazaras have been persecuted and massacred for decades. He fled to Quetta, Pakistan, but the Hazara community there was also subject to targeted killings by state-supported militants.
Batoor approached the Australian Embassy, but was denied a visa. He then made contact with a people smuggler and eventually reached Indonesia, where he joined 92 people on an old fishing boat heading to Australia. However, a storm forced the boat back. Eventually Batoor came to Australia under a United Nations High Commission for Refugees-sponsored program.
Refugees are “scapegoats for politicians”, Batoor said. He had hoped Labor in government would be better than its predecessor, but that it is imposing a “brutal regime”.
Dr Raj spoke about why Tamils have fled Sri Lanka, and their experiences in Australia. Tamils fought for their rights in Sri Lanka, he said, but when their protests were repressed some Tamils took up arms and formed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The LTTE was defeated by the Singhalese government in 2009. Although the fighting is over, repression continues and none has been brought to justice for the thousands of people still missing.
Raj said the Tamils in Sri Lanka were violently attacked, imprisoned, raped, bombed and massacred. Refugees who fled by boat, who mostly could not swim, feared the waves.
In Australia, they also suffer, largely from officials’ repeated rejection of their permanent visa applications. It “kills them psychologically”, he said, leading to numerous suicides or suicide attempts.
Samah Murad, a Palestinian journalist from Gaza, told the forum about an Israeli missile attack on a bus which killed his wife and injured his two children. He is one of the few Palestinians from Gaza who have been allowed in to the country. He said he has been “welcomed” by Australians here.
Lily, an Iranian refugee, spoke about the repression in her home country that has caused thousands to leave. She said the regime “uses terror as a tool of control”, with people being arrested, tortured and executed.
While Labor is highly critical of the regimes in Iran and Afghanistan, it refuses to accept significant numbers of refugees from these countries. Participants discussed how to change federal Labor’s policy, including talking to MPs, holding protests at their offices, talking to colleagues at work and on the campuses, and reaching out to unions and churches to stand up for refugees’ rights.