Immigration And Humanity
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday July 23, 2002
The unrelenting position of the Federal Government against asylum seekers who, it says, claim to be Afghans but are not, is well understood. The insistence on knowing the true identity and background of asylum seekers is reasonable, since the immigration system cannot work fairly any other way. Yet, as the case of the Bakhtiari family shows, applying theory to practice is not always easy. The public is utterly confused over the identity and background of Ali Bakhtiari, his wife Roqiah and their five children. These include the boys Alamdar, 14, and Montazar, 12, who, after their part in the June 29 breakout from the Woomera detention centre and three weeks on the run, are back inside. The Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, says the Bakhtiaris are not who they claim to be Hazaras, members of the persecuted Hazara minority in Afghanistan but are Pakistanis with no legitimate claim to be refugees. Supporters say Ali Bakhtiari was properly granted refugee status after he arrived in Australia in 1999 and so should his family, who followed him.
They also say the decision not to grant refugee status to Roqiah Bakhtiari and her five children was based on a faulty test. They say that an illiterate, traditional wife in an Afghan village might well not be able to name Afghanistan's currency or her province's main towns when questioned by Australian immigration officials. Ali Bakhtiari's lawyers question the reliability of a Swedish language laboratory's assessment of a tape of his first interview (that he is not from Afghanistan) and contend another expert opinion they have obtained from the University of Arizona (to say his recorded voice is indeed that of a Hazara living in Afghanistan) should be preferred. A spokesman for the Government says it has a witness who says Ali Bakhtiari is not a Hazara farmer but an electrical plumber from Quetta in Pakistan. Getting to the bottom of such cases is not easy. Many people originally from Afghanistan live in Pakistan. Witnesses, though honest, can be mistaken. Voice analysis of interviews can help, but might not always be reliable.
Mr Ruddock has generally refused to discuss individual cases to protect the confidentiality of asylum seekers. But the Bakhtiari case has become so politicised that such considerations are now outweighed by others. Above all, the Australian public must have the full facts about how this case has been dealt with. Despite the strong public support for a strict immigration regime, there is widespread disquiet at aspects of it, especially the unjustifiable policy of keeping children in detention. The Bakhtiari case and others like it also raise broader questions. Even when the Government is right to refuse asylum, a point of diminishing returns can be reached it becomes inhumane to keep people in detention and impossible to send them back from where they came. Sometimes exceptions must be made, not to break the rules, but to ensure they can continue to be applied in a workable system.
© 2002 Sydney Morning Herald
Share This