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on 17-11-2013 08:55 PM
Are the people OK do you know Donna? I hope so.
Here is some more news
Asylum policy of deterrence threatening families
Asylum seekers being detained on Christmas Island and off shore on Nauru and Manus Island are being subjected to a regime of coercion and intimidation and living in appalling conditions in a deliberate bid to force them to go home.
Well-placed sources working in the offshore detention system report that inadequate healthcare and, contrary to government policy, forced family separation or threats of separation, has created a toxic mix of despair and fear among the asylum population.
The Abbott government policy of deterrence is being felt in every corner of the detention system from the moment people get on boats in Indonesia right through to the hot, cramped tent camps and World War II bunkers asylum seekers are forced to live in on Nauru and Manus Island.
Children are being used as a bargaining tool to get people to return home. In a letter received this week from an Iranian on Christmas Island, he says he has been told he will be separated from his pregnant wife two months before she gives birth. ''I have requested from the Immigration officers to discuss my situation, however, they keep telling me to go back home if you want to be next to your wife during delivering the baby,'' he writes.
Several sources have described harrowing scenes on Christmas Island last month when Immigration officers forced two unaccompanied Sri Lankan children aged 12 and 14 on to a plane to return home. They were part of a group of 84 Tamils who had arrived on the Coco Islands after 34 days at sea and within 48 hours were put on a plane and sent back to Colombo.
also from IAThe hardliners in the Immigration Department are in control and family separation is the tool of choice. Senior correspondent Barry Everingham reports.
