Introduction
Australia is a nation that is well known to have people of different ethnic backgrounds due to immigrations from various countries and international students. When a country or community has people of different ethnicity there are bound to have their own traditions and customs thus will bring about culture shock when interacting with one another. Australia has been faced with a lot of racial discrimination claims from the beginning when the white settlers entered the country. The original occupants of Australia were the aborigines and the Torres Strait Islander. It is a well known fact that Australia is known for their harsh and cruel treatments of refugees.
Asylum seeking is basically a human right situation. Since 1976 many Cambodians and other Asians arrived in Australia using boats in order to seek asylum due to fear of persecutions and looking for better economy. In 1989 these asylum seekers began to be detained due to the increase of fear by the citizens that they will erode their culture. It is a fact that detention of these refugees was a political issue but to many it was a considered to be a discrimination issue. According to article 51 of the immigration act of 1958 in the constitution the refugees had a right to enter Australia to seek asylum. In 1989 this act was amended due to the increase of the arrival of the boat people, in that any immigrant arriving in Australia should have a visa or a permit that allows them to enter the country. Any immigrant who does not have these requirements should not be permitted or is detained in Australia. The constitution of Australia permitted the government officials to detain any immigrant entering the country (Starkoff’, 2005).
According to the UNHCR the asylum seekers should be handled without any form of biasness and when they are held up in detention it should be for a small period of time (Bolkus, 1995, p.11). This is however is not practiced by the Australian government because the refugees who enter the country using boats and do not have any form of permit are treated harshly and held up in detention for longer periods. While the visitors who arrive in Australia with their visas and over stay their visit are not mistreated like the refugees from Asian countries. In 1996 the Minister of Immigration Philip Ruddock wanted the Refuge Review Tribunal to be abolished because it was taking too long to process the detainees in the country while the number of the refugees continued to increase.
The situation at the detainee camp is very bad in that in 2000 a number of the refugees at the Curtin air base camp who consisted of people from Iraq and Afghanistan rioted (Mares, n.d., p.9). In the riot the detainees started hunger strike where some also refused to drink water while others went as far as to sewn their mouth shut. They kept asking where the human rights were and wanted to have their freedoms. This tale was told by Dr Mohammed Taha Alsalami who is a prominent Muslim figure and one of the founding members of human rights in Iraq. This issue became an international headline that was reported by various media in the world. Dr. Mohammed was called by DIMA with the negotiations with the detainees so that they can stop the hunger strike. The negotiations were very fruitful because the hunger strike was called off as some of the officers were charged with child assault, some were able to get permits that enabled them to stay in Australia such as Ahmed Al-Kateb and the living conditions of the camp improved significantly (Marr’s, 2007).
In conclusion, Australia is one of the countries that had freedom of immigrants to enter the country which was later thwarted due to the rise of refugees in the country. Article 51 of the constitution about the immigrant had to be amended in 1989 in order to reduce the number of refugees and illegal immigrants in the country. This led to the detentions of the refugees who arrived by mostly boats. These people were mistreated and held for longer periods in the detention areas. The people were also being racially discriminated against compared to the illegal immigrants from the United States and the United Kingdom. This was a political and a legislative issue.
Reference
Bolkus, S. ( 2 March 1995). Refugee Bills reinforce human rights commitmenr. Australian , 11.
Mares, P. (n.d.). Borderline Australia treatement of refugees and asylum seekers. reportage , 9-34.
Marr’s, D. (2007). Articles on Ahmed Al-Kateb. The Sydney Morning Herald .
Starkoff’, D. ( 2005 , April Friday, 01). Stick to Media Watch. Retrieved from http://www.dbs.id.au/blog/law/marr-high-court.html
