Fleeing Pakistan Violence, Hazaras Brave Uncertain Journey

April 27, 2013

Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

Ali, a Hazara originally from Quetta, in western Pakistan, now living in Karachi. The 26-year-old said he was quitting his accounting studies to leave for Australia.

By DECLAN WALSH

KARACHI, Pakistan — Stranded in a dingy hotel in the heart of this port city, waiting for the smuggler’s call, Hussain felt at once trapped and poised for freedom.

Behind lay his hometown, Quetta, the city in western Pakistan that has become a killing ground for Sunni sectarian death squads that hunt Shiites. So far this year they have killed almost 200 people, and Hussain was nearly one of them. Lifting a pants leg, he displayed an eight-inch scar from a bomb blast in January.

But great danger also lay ahead. Hussain was headed for Australia, where thousands of his fellow ethnic Hazaras, Shiites who have borne the brunt of the recent violence, have sought refuge. The illegal journey — across Southeast Asia by air, ground and sea at the mercy of unscrupulous human traffickers — would be long and perilous. Several hundred Hazaras had died on that route in recent years, most when their rickety boats foundered at sea.

For Hussain, it was worth the risk.

“I’d rather die in the boat than in a bomb blast,” he said, twisting a cup of coffee nervously in a restaurant near the hotel. “At least this way, I get to choose.”

Hussain, 25, is part of a growing exodus of young Hazara men who are fleeing Pakistan as it has become apparent that their government and military cannot, or will not, protect them from violent extremists.

In Quetta, where most Pakistani Hazaras live, the attacks are led by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a fanatical group that views Shiites as heretics. With their distinctive Central Asian features and historical links to anti-Taliban forces, the Hazaras make an appealing target. After a decade of intermittent attacks, bloodshed is suddenly surging: two Lashkar suicide bombings this year killed almost 200 people, up from 125 in 2012.

That toll set off a long-overdue security crackdown, but the attacks resumed last Tuesday with a suicide attack on a Hazara politician that killed six people. To young men like Hussain, whose family runs a clothes shop, the next bomb is only a matter of time.

“We can live without the basics of life — gas, electricity and so on,” said Hussain, who asked to be identified by just part of his name in the hope of avoiding arrest on his journey. “But we can’t live with the fear.”

Hussain’s older brother was shot and killed by militants in 2008. His own brush with death came on Jan. 10, after a powerful blast ripped through a snooker hall near his house. As Hussain rushed to help, he was caught in a second explosion that killed rescue workers, police officers and journalists. He blacked out.

“I don’t remember the sound of the blast,” he said. “Just the feeling, like a sort of sonic pulse.” He awoke in the hospital with 36 stitches in one leg and learned that three of his closest friends were among the 84 dead.

It was becoming clear that the Lashkar killers could operate with impunity. “They take their time. They select. Then they shoot,” he said.

The final straw came on March 7, when the military summoned Hussain and other Hazara traders to a meeting in Haideri bazaar, a popular market. As soldiers stood guard outside, an army colonel offered the merchants some sobering advice: they needed to buy handguns, he said.

Some people reacted angrily, and began berating the military officers, demanding better protection, Hussain recalled. But he went home to make a phone call. Two years earlier, his younger brother had left for Australia, where he had gotten a job in a fast food restaurant. Now Hussain needed to hear his voice.

“Just come,” the brother said.

Three days later, Hussain had agreed to pay $6,000 to a trafficker and was on a flight to Karachi, on the first leg of a journey across Asia that would be as emotionally wrenching as it was sudden.

In the plane, he found himself comforting a weeping 16-year-old boy, also Hazara, who said he had been forced to leave by his parents. In the shabby Karachi hotel, he shared a room with “Master,” a 41-year-old shoe trader from Quetta, also bound for Australia.

With thinning hair and a quick grin, Master, who would give only his nickname, had an avuncular manner. But when conversation turned to the three bewildered daughters, aged 7, 9 and 13, he had left behind in Quetta a day earlier, the smile faded and his eyes welled up.

“I will bring them to Australia,” he said in a cracking voice. “This country is no longer for us Hazaras.”

As with many other Hazaras aiming for Australia — from Afghanistan as well as Pakistan — their starting point was Karachi. From there, the journey is arduous and uncertain. Refugees first fly to Thailand or Malaysia, often via Sri Lanka, after their agents bribeimmigration officers and Pakistani border officials. The trek continues by land and sea across Malaysia and Indonesia, in cars and trains, dodging police patrols, overnighting at flophouses.

Some migrants are arrested by police officers and border guards along the way and deported back to Pakistan; others are extorted or abandoned by the traffickers, or robbed on the roadside. In many cases, they end up paying thousands of dollars more — in bribes to crooked border officers or supplemental fees to smugglers — so they can keep pressing toward Australia.

The last leg is the most treacherous. In Indonesia, migrants buy tickets aboard small, overcrowded boats bound for Christmas Island, a small Australian territory about 240 miles off the Indonesian coast, where they apply for political asylum. There, they join other boat people — Sri Lankans, Iranians, Afghans, Iraqis.

Safe arrival is by no means guaranteed. Between late 2001 and last June, 964 asylum seekers and boat crew members from various countries are known to have lost their lives on this passage, said Sandi Logan, a spokesman for the Australian government’s Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

Habibullah, a 22-year-old student from Quetta, was nearly one of them. Last October, he joined 34 Hazara men on a boat bound for Christmas Island. Within 24 hours, the boat had sunk in a storm. Mr. Habibullah, who has only one name, says he was the sole survivor, picked up by an Indonesian fishing boat after three days clinging to floating debris.

In a harrowing written account of those events sent by e-mail, and in a phone interview from Indonesia, Mr. Habibullah described a traumatic ordeal.

He spoke of long hours in the water, whipped by waves and fearing sharks, desperately calling out to distant passing ships. But most anguishing, he said, was the sight of fellow passengers slipping under the waves, some calling out to their wives or parents.

Mr. Habibullah, suffering extreme thirst and sharp kidney pain, sustained himself by thinking of his home in Quetta. “I remembered my past, surrounded by my parents,” he wrote. “And I realized they were with me.”

It is impossible to confirm Mr. Habibullah’s account independently. But Hazara community leaders in Quetta confirmed that several men accompanying Mr. Habibullah had died, and some of their photographs have been published on blogs.

Mr. Habibullah sounded despondent. Conditions at the government detention center in Indonesia were grim, he said, and he was struggling to gain an asylum hearing from the United Nations refugee agency. Nine months after leaving home, and having spent $15,000 on bribes, transportation and smuggler’s fees, he had not reached Australia.

Still, he understood why other Hazaras wanted to make the journey. “It’s worth it,” he said.

The Australian government has tried to deter the boat people. Last year, it began transferring asylum seekers to detention centers on two remote Pacific islands while their cases are heard. Human rights groups and United Nations officials have condemned conditions at the camps, and Australian news media have reported several suicide attempts there in recent months.Responding to the criticism, Australian officials say they have increased their humanitarian refugee quota to 20,000 this year, a 40 percent increase. At the same time, in countries like Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, the Australian government has started an advertising campaign seeking to persuade potential refugees to stay at home.

Yet still they keep coming. In the first weeks of April, according to official figures, the Australian Navy intercepted 10 boats carrying 760 people, most bound for Christmas Island. The majority of cases from Afghanistan and Pakistan were ethnic Hazaras, whose numbers have grown to about 25,000 people in Australia, officials say.

Before leaving Karachi, Hussain and Master took a stroll along the beach, dipping their toes in the Arabian Sea and meandering among the young families on the sand.

Hussain stressed that if not for the extremist threat, he would not be leaving Pakistan. Ten months earlier he had married his sweetheart, a local teacher, whom he had left behind. His family made a good living from its clothes business. And patriotism ran in the family — his grandfather had served in Pakistan’s army.

“This could be the last time I see Pakistan,” he said, staring out at the waves.

His younger brother had warned him of a daunting journey ahead — “Expect it to be hell,” were his words — and so he was relying on the religious items around his neck: a small leather pouch containing two folded Koranic inscriptions, from his father and his wife, and a black pendant inscribed with the words “Y’Allah Madaat” — “Oh God, help me.”

Over the following weeks, he sent several messages: from Bangkok, where he was staying in a cramped room with 16 other refugees (“Waiting, waiting, and so on,” he wrote), then, in late March, from Indonesia.

Master had been arrested in a car headed for a port in Malaysia, Hussain said. But he had managed to escape, and had arrived in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, where he would seek a boat to Australia.

This month, a boat carrying about 90 people, most of them Hazaras, sunk en route to Australia. Hussain was depressed, but undeterred. “I’m looking forward,” he wrote. Then he added: “May God help me.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/world/asia/fleeing-violence-in-pakistan-hazaras-brave-uncertain-journey.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

“Another Boat Tragedy” by Habib Manavi – the lone survivor

April 19, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

By Habib Manavi – edited by our staff

Another tragic incident happened in Indonesian Waters on April 11, 2013. There were almost 72 people on board on the boat – all ethnic Hazaras from war-torn Afghanistan. Only fourteen of them managed to escape the likely death after being rescued by fishermen, the rest are unknown to this date and most likely have fallen prey to the evil of sea and the reluctance of rescue agencies. BASARNAS – the Indonesian rescue agency had not only been informed by their counterpart in Australia but also by the survivors who had been captured by Immigration authorities once their foot touched the shores but an immediate search and rescue response did not take place, why? no one has the answer.

According to survived asylum seeker the boat capsized on Thursday at around 12 noon after nearly 10 hours of resistance against the rough waves. The Fourteen fortunate souls had gripped themselves to boat wreckage which eventually saved their lives whilst others were floating on the water and by evening had gone out of sight. There wasn’t any tool or water safety kits which could have helped them in resisting the waves. They had nothing with them and their phones were being confiscated once they  boarded the boat.

The unexpected help came after 24 hours, not from a rescue agency but some fishermen agreed to transport them to the nearest shore only if they pay $100 each to them.The fishermen handed these survivors to the local police station which arose the hope that they would be helped and measures would be taken to rescue the rest left at the sea but unfortunately none happened. Their belongings and money, they had with them in their little stitched pockets, were taken – steal is good word, by the Indonesian Police and in return they were told they could flee.

The ill-fated asylum seekers after being looted by police reached Bogor and approached International Organisation for Migrants (IOM) to get some sort of help from them but were refused straight away.

“We thought, IOM will help us and admit us to hospital as we were very sick, our face had burned down and infected, but surprisingly even looking at our obvious physical sickness, they (IOM) refused to provide any medical assistance” summarized a survivor in his own words.

This boat tragedy once again question marks the capability and ability of Indonesian rescue agencies who receive fund and logistic support from Australian counterpart. Despite knowing the fact that there was a distressed boat, BASARNAS, did not bother to send its team for rescue and search of the area. This apathy and irresponsibility utterly demonstrates the very indifference attitude of the authorities towards asylum seekers.

At present, the fourteen survivors are in Cisarua, Bogor – terrified, mentally paralyzed and also frightened that the smuggler may harm them for revealing their names to media. If they don’t receive any humanitarian assistance from the concerned organizations, they might again put themselves in waters.

Habib’s own story of survival can be read here: http://hazaraasylumseekers.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/sole-survivor-of-boat-tragedy-habib-writes-his-memoirs/

Boat tragedies

April 02, 2013

Once again we have witnessed the tragedy of people dying in their attempts to reach Australia.

This time it was Hazara families.

This tragedy brings out the best and worst of responses.

Reactions are varied from compassion and commiseration to some of the most hateful and brutal of comments.

Most of this is driven by ignorance of the reasons   people take a risky boat journey.

So here are some facts.

Right now in Quetta, Pakistan, many Afghan Hazaras have fled after being driven out of Afghanistan by Taliban and Pashtun militia.

Now they are being bombed and killed daily by Lashvi-i-Jangvi another terrorist group.

This is why families are trying to get to Australia.

For those who have a husband and father in Australia, there is a waiting list of five to ten years  for family reunion and years even for a spouse visa.

To fulfil the visa requirements, Australian immigration demands that people travel to Islamabad 900 km away to do health checks with an Australian Approved Panel Doctor and that they have DNA testing at great expense with swabs taken in the presence of an Australian immigration officer.

Many have no documents so cannot fly but have to take the dangerous bus journey 900 kms overland.

The roads are controlled by Taliban who extort taxes from the bus drivers.

When they see Hazaras on the buses they take them out and kill them.

In addition Australian immigration is asking that the wives go to Kabul, another dangerous overland journey back into the country from which they have fled   to get their taskeras (birth certificates) stamped.

Immigration and politicians know the problems because lawyers and migration agents keep telling them.

So when the politicians and media talk about sending people to Nauru and Manus to stop the dangerous boat journeys ask them what they are doing to stop making these dangerous boat journeys the only choice for people fleeing for their lives.

If your choice is being bombed or killed by Taliban on a bus or street in Quetta which you have witnessed happening  or taking a chance on a boat to Australia which you have never seen before what would you choose?

If our politicians really cared they would start managing the arrival of asylum seekers, process their refugee applications fairly and settle those people who proved that they had valid claims – as we promised to do when we signed the refugee convention.

We have done it before and we could do it again if we changed the toxic debate on asylum seekers and refugees.

Craig Beifus, Mount Riverview

Plight of the Hazara fails to move stone hearts in Canberra

March 31, 2013

Supporters rally in Sydney’s Martin Place for freedom for the Hazara people. Picture: Bradley Hunter Source: The Australian

IN the world of refugees there are many deserving causes, but the Hazaras of Afghanistan and western Pakistan make up a large proportion of asylum-seekers boarding leaky boats to Australia.

The Hazaras are among the most educated of Afghan tribes and are a marked people, their distinctive Mongolian facial features a target for hatred. As the educated elite of Afghanistan, they have often found themselves the victims of discrimination and persecution and ethnically or religiously targeted assassinations.

Waves of hatred and violence have been directed against them and thousands have fled their homelands in western Afghanistan in the past 20 years as the Taliban hunted them down because of their intellect, their independence and their Shia Muslim faith.

In August 1998, in Mazar-e-Sharif, the Taliban massacred more than 2000 Hazaras in three days: many were shot in the streets or in their homes; 30 were shot in hospital beds; some were boiled to death in steel containers.

Land confiscation, mosque burnings, bombings and beheadings have been commonplace.

An estimated 500,000 Hazaras have fled to seek refuge in and around the city of Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, in the wilds of western Pakistan. But the pogroms continue.

Last year 400 mainly Hazara Shia Muslims were murdered in western Pakistan – making it possibly the bloodiest year in living memory for the Shia population of Pakistan.

This year Sunni terrorists have made good on their promise to launch attacks within Hazara neighbourhoods in Quetta if they did not flee the city by the beginning of 2013.

In January, a bomb exploded outside a Quetta billiard hall popular with the Hazara refugees. The initial blast killed several people, but, 10 minutes later, as people rushed to the aid of those wounded in the attack, a car bomb exploded just outside the club, killing dozens more.

When the dust settled, 96 people, mostly Hazara Shias, were dead. Numerous business owners in Quetta’s main markets have been shot dead in their shops.

Pilgrims going to Iran by bus have been killed by roadside bombs; ordinary citizens have been offloaded from local buses and shot dead by the side of the road.

Hazaras no longer feel safe even buying basic supplies at the city’s main vegetable market, and instead get others to do their shopping for them.

Already this year more than 230 Hazaras have been killed. Their militant Sunni attackers, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, acknowledged by Australia as a terrorist group, have declared: “It is our religious duty to kill all Shias and to cleanse Pakistan of this impure nation. It is our mission in Pakistan that every city, village and other place, every corner be cleansed of the Shia and the Shia Hazara.”

What has this got to do with Australians? Just one example should be enough.

Said Zaher and Zahra Alawi are Hazaras who came to Australia as refugees and have been proud Australian citizens since 2007; their contribution to our community has been exemplary.

For some time, fearful of what may soon befall those still in Quetta, they have been trying to sponsor seven family members to join them here.

However, the Australian Immigration Department summarily rejected the family’s sponsorship application, claiming their relatives didn’t meet refugee criteria and that it was safe for them to stay where they were.

The department took just two days from receiving the application to say no.

It’s impossible to see how this family cannot be considered refugees under any definition. They are also potential victims of genocide by any definition.

They were persecuted by the Taliban in Afghanistan. They had their ancestral lands confiscated. They joined the Afghan army and worked with NATO forces that include Australia and have been subsequently targeted by Taliban sympathisers. Family members have been murdered in Afghanistan and now in Quetta, and their own lives have been threatened.

In the January Quetta bombing, all the windows in their home were blown in – the school their children had just returned from was destroyed.

They live a life under siege in a ghetto of death. With black humour, they say: “There is no space left in the graveyards.”

The Said Zaher and Zahra Alawi families have done the right thing by trying to use the right channels to bring their loved ones to Australia. Their sponsorship of the family members would be at no cost to the Australian taxpayer and there is a community of support waiting for them in Brisbane.

We supposedly take the issue of human rights seriously and so we should; but are these just words confounded by our lack of action? What are we saying to these people; getting on a leaky boat is worse than genocide?

Our immigration department and our immigration policies should represent the best of our values, not dishonour them.

Sue Boyce is a senator for Queensland

Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/plight-of-the-hazara-fails-to-move-stone-hearts-in-canberra/story-e6frg6zo-1226609092972

Hazaras flee ‘systematic genocide’ in Pakistan

March 30, 2013

Despite the risks of the long, slow boat trip to Australia – made starkly evident by the Christmas Island disaster this week when two asylum seekers drowned – hundreds of ethnic Hazaras in Pakistan are planning the same trip.

Facing what they have described as a ”systematic genocide” in Pakistan, more and more Hazaras are trying to leave by any means possible.

Fairfax Media understands the 95 asylum seekers on board the fishing boat that capsized off Christmas Island were all Pakistanis, some Hazara and others Pashtun. A boy aged four or five and a woman in her 30s died.

Hazaras, easily identifiable by their Asiatic features, have for generations been the target of sectarian violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Sunni extremist groups, in particular Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, have vowed to eliminate them because they are Shiite Muslims.

For hundreds of years, Afghan Hazaras have fled for the relative safety of Quetta, on Pakistan’s restive western border. The latest wave of refugees has been driven out of Afghanistan by Taliban violence.

But Quetta is no sanctuary. This year there has been an alarming increase in the rate and severity of attacks on Hazaras in Pakistan. In eight attacks, 216 Hazaras have been killed and more than 300 injured.

The deadliest was when a bomb in a snooker hall on January 10 killed 94 people. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility.

In Pakistan, Hazara representatives told Fairfax young Hazaras, especially, feel they can no longer live in Pakistan.

”Young Hazara men are trying to go by boat, trying to get to Australia,” Yasin Changezi says.

”This is something that is normal, that everybody in Quetta, all of the youth, try to do. Money is not a problem for them but finding a legal way to leave Pakistan is a very real problem.”

Sajjad Hussain Changezi (no relation) says most asylum seekers paid about 700,000 Pakistan rupees ($6800) but up to 1.2 million rupees for the chance to go to Australia.

After a flight to Malaysia, Indonesia or Thailand, they board boats from Indonesia. The risks are known.

”They calculate it. They openly say: ‘If I stay in Pakistan, there’s a bullet for me. If I try to go to Australia and I drown, I was already dead in Pakistan anyway. But I might make it and perhaps I can start a new life,”’ he says. ”More and more people from our community are making that decision.”

The diaspora website Hazara.net says more than 300 Hazara have died trying to get to Australia by boat. Sajjad believes the number may be more than three times that.

”Whenever a ship capsizes, it carries about 200 people, so many passengers,” he says. ”And we know of multiple occasions when the boats … have capsized in the waters between Indonesia and Australia.”

Last year, Afghanistan and Pakistan were two of the largest sources of asylum seekers coming to Australia. The number of Afghans who arrived on Australian shores rose 79 per cent to 3079, while Pakistanis jumped 84 per cent to 1512.

Australia’s Immigration Department does not release statistics on ethnicity but the vast majority are understood to be Hazara. There are now 50,000 Hazaras living in in Australia.

Almost all of Pakistan’s 600,000 Hazaras lived in two tiny, fortified enclaves within Quetta. Travelling outside the walls of Mehr Abad, or Hazara Town, means risking being shot or kidnapped.

Even inside the population is not safe. The snooker hall bombing inside Hazara Town has shaken its residents, Fatima Atif says.

”We live in an open jail, we have been completely isolated and nobody can move out without fear for their life,” she says. ”We don’t get chances to go for education, for business, for any kind of activity, not even to see someone. We don’t have any freedom.”

Sajjad says Hazaras are victims of a ”systematic genocide”.

”We are specifically targeted because of the way we look,” he says. ”There is an assumption that every Hazara is a Shiite.”

For Hazaras in Quetta, there are few opportunities for work or study. Hazara-run businesses are forced to shut down, or their owners kidnapped. The University of Balochistan formerly had 300 Hazaras enrolled, now it has none, after buses carrying Hazara students were blown up.

”I’ve not lost my siblings but I’ve lost two first cousins, many friends and many second cousins,” Sajjad says. ”And I have a friend whose brother was drowned trying to get to Australia. I know a family, the whole family, the mother, the sister, her daughters and sons, all were drowned – except one son, he survived.”

Atif lost a cousin. ”Imran drowned in August but some in our family is still hoping he might be alive,” she says. ”He has not been announced as dead, he is just lost.”

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi , based in Punjab and with links to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, openly boasts that it intends to keep attacking Hazaras.

”We are neither afraid of Governor’s rule nor the Pakistan Army and we will continue to kill Shiite Hazaras in their homes,” spokesman Abu Bakar Siddiq says.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has been proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the US, Britain, Australia and Pakistan but its operatives move about unhindered and attack with impunity in Balochistan.

They publish threats in newspapers and have distributed pamphlets in Hazara Town warning they intend to kill all Hazaras. They even advertised a mobile number people could text if they saw Hazaras in the street in Quetta, so Lashkar-e-Jhangvi operatives could attack them.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court has taken the extraordinary step of investigating unbidden violence against Pakistan’s Shiites, in particular Hazaras.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry says authorities had been cowed into inaction by terrorist threats.

”Action should have been taken against Lashkar-e-Jhangvi a long time ago,” he says.

The Pakistan director for Human Rights Watch, Ali Dayan Hasan, says government inaction suggested it was indifferent to, or even supported, the extremist violence.

”The Pakistani authorities are just indifferent bystanders to slaughter at best, or callously supportive of those perpetrating these massacres at worst,” he says. ”This is a crisis that neither Pakistanis nor the world can afford to ignore any more.”

Source: http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1398564/hazaras-flee-systematic-genocide-in-pakistan/?cs=5

Asylum seekers on hunger strike on Manus

March 28, 2013

Asylum seekers at Manus Island detention centre are on hunger strike, authorities say.

A NUMBER of asylum seekers at the Australian-run Manus Island detention centre have spent the past week on hunger strike, authorities say.

Eight asylum seekers went on a five-day hunger strike in protest at charges of fighting and assault levelled at them by PNG police, following a series of alleged incidents at the temporary facility on Lombrum Naval base.

One person is still believed to be still refusing to eat, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) said on Thursday.

“There are indications that one remaining person is still on voluntary starvation, but they may have taken food and water recently although this has not been confirmed,” a spokesperson said.

The hunger strikers are part of a group of 18 detainees PNG police have charged with fighting and assault following a series of disputes at the centre.

DIAC says only 16 detainees were charged.

Manus provincial police commander Alex Ndrassal said police entered the site on March 21 to explain to the detainees why they had been charged.

“We went to explain to them the arrest situation and PNG law, and how PNG police do their work,” Insp Ndrassal told AAP.

Inspector Ndrassal said the hunger strike ended after police spoke to the group.

Police charged the group last month but the matter has yet to come before the courts.

Asylum seekers on Nauru have recently staged hunger strike and lip-stitching protests to protest at Australia’s offshore processing policy.

Refugee activists earlier this month said there were water shortages at the base.

Added: HazaraAsylumSeekers can confirm that all the asylum-seekers on hunger strike are ethnic Hazaras. An asylum seekers who wishes not to be named has told Team HAS that, 10 Hazara asylum-seekers have been on hunger strike from 21st of March to protest the baseless charges leveled against them. He further said that on March 21, an Iranian asylum seeker attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself in his room, but was hindered by fellow asylum seekers and admitted to hospital. Authorities, in an attempt to conceal the ‘suicide attempt’ which would otherwise have sparked another debate and posed questions on Government’s failed policy, charged Hazara asylum-seekers to sweep that incident under the carpet and save their faces. G4S guards have also conceded that many of the ‘charged’ asylum seekers were not even present in the compound at the time of quarrel.

(Unconfirmed) Names of Sixteen Asylum Seekers charged by PNG Police, ten of whom had staged hunger strike:

• Javeed Raza
• Mehmod Ali
• Ewaz Ali
• Irfan Ali
• Nazeer Hussain
• Syed Ali Raza
• Habbib Ullah
• Nazir
• Mohammad Tabish
• Ali Raza
• Mohammad Ali
• Haji Dawood
• Mohammad Raza
• Gholam Mohammad
• Sardar Mohammad
• Mohammad Hanif

Source: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/asylum-seekers-on-hunger-strike-on-manus/story-e6frfkui-1226608643305

The asylum seeker we sent home to his death

March 17, 2013

(April 03, 2009) TOUR Gul travelled halfway around the world to escape Afghanistan. An enemy of the Taliban, he was convinced he was a target. But in 2002, Australia rejected his plea for asylum and sent him home to his death.

“He was worried. He knew the Taliban would kill him but the government refused him,” said his friend, Salem Haideri.

Mr Gul’s death late last year made front-page news in Afghanistan. “A famous leader has been killed innocently, in cold blood by the the anti-Islamic forces,” said the Governor of Maidan Wardak province, Mohammed Halim Fedaie. The killing of Mr Gul and another asylum seeker, Mohammed Hussain, have prompted renewed calls for Afghans denied refugee status under the former government to have their cases reopened.

The Age last week revealed four rejected asylum seekers from Afghanistan who travelled on the Tampa have now been found to be genuine refugees, after they risked a second boat trip with people smugglers.

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One of the men, Asmatullah Mohammadi, said 11 asylum seekers on Nauru had been killed by the Taliban after they were sent back to Afghanistan.

The director of social justice agency the Edmund Rice Centre, Phil Glendenning, who spent six years travelling the world to investigate the fate of rejected asylum seekers, said he believed 11 deaths was a conservative figure.

Mr Glendenning has called on Immigration Minister Chris Evans to reopen the cases of rejected Afghan asylum seekers.

“Some sort of justice needs to be afforded to people who came here seeking our protection and were sent back to the Taliban,” Mr Glendenning said.

Senator Evans said he was aware of the “serious questions raised about repatriations to Afghanistan under the failed Pacific Solution”.

“My office has been in contact with the Edmund Rice Centre … and its findings will be carefully considered by the Government, along with further advice that I have sought from my department, before any decision is taken as to what action may be appropriate.”

Mr Gul, 47, stayed in Villawood but was also released into the community. He returned to Afghanistan in 2002 after he was denied refugee status.

Mr Haideri, who met Mr Gul while he was fruit-picking in Griffith, NSW, said a lot of people had cried over his friend’s death. “He said the Taliban knew him. The Taliban said: ‘You’ve been in Australia, you are an agent.”‘

Mr Glendenning said Mr Gul claimed asylum in Australia because his membership of the Sayaaf party, which was part of the mujahideen, made life dangerous for him after the Taliban took over. “We believe that was the reason he was shot through the head,” he said.

Mohammed Hussain, a poet who was detained on Nauru, was killed last year when he was thrown down a well by gunmen, believed to be Taliban, in front of members of his own family. His assailants then threw a hand grenade down the well and he was decapitated.

Mr Glendenning interviewed Mr Hussain in Kabul in January last year, for his documentary A Well-Founded Fear, about asylum seekers rejected during the Howard years. “I was forced to leave this country, and seeking refuge in Australia worsened my crime,” he says in the film.

Afghan man Chaman Shah Nasira, who was resettled in Australia after two years on Nauru, urged the Government to reopen the rejected cases.

He said the Immigration Department had put pressure on asylum seekers to return to Afghanistan when they were denied refugee status, telling them NATO was bringing peace to the country and they would never be let into Australia.

About 400 Afghans detained on Nauru were returned to Afghanistan after having their asylum claims rejected.

Note: This news story was published Four years ago on The Age.
Source: http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-asylum-seeker-we-sent-home-to-his-death-20090402-9l57.html#ixzz2Nnj7tG3r

A Hazara Refugee’s message

Juma Jahfari | March 16, 2013

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you will find it there,
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.
Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there is no place for us, my dear, yet there is no place for us. (sources)

Image Source: Google Images

It is not an adventureous journey that the asylum seekers take the risk to seek asylum in Australia. This is not fun as the sailors do while sailing a boat. It is their bad fortune that they don’t have peace in their country because of the politics of politicians who have jeopardized not only Afghanistan but also the whole world, who have snatched the rights of their freedom and the right of living in a peaceful life. They have the rights to seek asylum in a peaceful country either in Australia, Canada, or Europe etc.

The people who are called “boat people” instead of their beautiful names never flee their home country by their own choice if they have peace in their country. They are compelled to flee their country either it is because of the genocide killing of their ethnicity, religious believes, or substantial discrimination. Most of these Afghan asylum seekers who have fled and are seeking asylum in Australia, are from Hazara ethnicity. It is as clear as crystal, and have been the headlines of every newspaper of the world, “Protest against Genocide Killing of Hazara”. Hazaras’ History has been written by their own blood by the help of the quell of all cruel rulers of Afghanistan in the past where Hazaras have been always the victim of substantial discrimination,injustice, inhumanity…

Hazaras have always been in the darkness, as a blind person is, and now our people have found a sign of hope, a hope for life, a source of light in the darkness, a peaceful shore with its sound waves to seek asylum in Australia.

Today, I am really very happy that I am living in Australia such peaceful country, and also thankful to the government of Australia who has not only given me protection but also my human rights as to others. Hope Australian government will not deport my Hazara brothers to Kabul, Afghanistan, where they face treat, danger because of Taliban in Afghanistan. I am a proud Hazara Afghan Australian. I will serve my nation and defend my country (Australia) till the end of the journey of my life.

By: Juma Jahfari

Last-minute reprieve for Hazara man

March 16, 2013

An asylum seeker who was to be deported on Sunday has been given a reprieve, after a last-minute injunction was sought from a Sydney court.

A 24-year-old Hazara man was set to fly back to Afghanistan after his claim for a visa was knocked back. But at a hearing in the Federal Magistrates Court on Saturday afternoon, the federal government backed away from its move to deport him, to await the outcome of a separate Federal Court decision due before July.

The Federal Court is considering what discretionary powers the Immigration Minister has to remove asylum seekers from Australia.

Lawyer Michaela Byers said the Immigration Department wanted to deport her client, Mr Ahmadi, before he had access to a review, which was set for April 17.

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She said one possible reason to explain the government’s rush to deport her client was because of his conviction in a Darwin court last November for damaging property while in detention in the city.

Ms Byers said she had heard reports of at least 12 other Afghan asylum seekers who had been “rounded up” in Perth and Melbourne over the weekend to be deported.

Pamela Curr, of the Asylum Seekers Resource Centre, raised similar concerns about those from the Hazara ethnic minority who had been detained in Sydney and Melbourne over the past fortnight.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Immigration on Saturday said the department did not comment on removals before they occurred.

Two years ago, Australia and Afghanistan signed a memorandum of understanding on the involuntary return of asylum seekers, which enables the forced return of Afghans whose bids for asylum fail.

The government has recently been urged to reassess the claims of scores of Hazara asylum seekers due to fears for their safety if they were sent back.

Ms Curr said that around 100 Hazaras had their claims rejected last year when the success rate of Afghan applications dropped from around 90 per cent to around 30 per cent

“Around 100 men missed out on a fair process,” she said Saturday.

No Afghan asylum seekers have been returned this year, according to the Immigration Department. Three were sent back to Afghanistan in 2012.

Earlier this month, a group of 30 Afghan MPs wrote to the Australian government, raising fears for “125 individuals who are facing deportation to Afghanistan”. The MPs urged the government not to send the individuals back, citing serious security issues in the country.

Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre executive director David Manne said the independent evidence clearly showed the security situation in Afghanistan remained extremely unstable and dangerous.

“Any moves to expel Hazaras there would place them at serious risk of brutal abuse,” he said.

The Gillard government is facing increasing pressure in the election year on the issue of asylum seekers. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott targeted Prime Minister Julia Gillard on the matter in parliament last week, asking her confirm that people had arrived “illegally” by boat in the last nine months than they had under 11 years of the Howard government.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/national/lastminute-reprieve-for-hazara-man-20130316-2g7fc.html#ixzz2NhxomBEd

Imminent deportation poses grave risk for Hazaras’ safety

March 15, 2013

Amnesty International has grave concerns with the Government’s recent move to start returning Hazara asylum seekers to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“The security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating and we are extremely fearful for their safety should the Government send these asylum seekers back,” said Alex Pagliaro, Amnesty International’s Refugee Spokesperson.

“The Government also indicated that it plans to return some of these asylum seekers to Islamabad, where they will likely end up in Quetta.

“The continued targeting of Hazaras in Quetta, including the two bombings in recent months with over 100 people killed, shows just how dangerous the situation is for them.

“Amnesty International has worked closely with Hazara asylums seekers who are now facing imminent return to Ghazni province, and has serious concerns that the decisions are based on incorrect or outdated country information.

“The constantly evolving situation in countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan must be taken into consideration in Australia’s asylum review process, especially when the risk of returning people to such volatile and uncertain circumstances has consequences too severe to ignore,” said Pagliaro.

Amnesty International urges the Australian Government to review its country information when assessing cases to ensure that asylum seekers are processed in the fairest and most humane way.

“Australia has an obligation under international law to prioritise the safety and dignity of these vulnerable individuals and unfortunately we have not seen evidence that their protection is currently the top priority,” said Pagliaro.

Source: http://www.amnesty.org.au/news/comments/31316/

Asylum seekers fight return to Afghanistan

March 14, 2013

Photo: Two years ago the Afghan govt signed a deal with Australia to deport failed Afghan asylum seekers. (ABC)

A group of Afghan men whose asylum claims have been rejected by the Government are appealing to the Federal Court to stop them being forced to return to Afghanistan.

They have received backing from an unusual quarter, with a group of Afghan MPs appealing to the Government to abandon plans to return asylum seekers to Kabul.

The Greens say the Government should take that warning seriously and put a moratorium on returning asylum seekers to Afghanistan.

Last week the Immigration Department detained four Afghan men whose claims for asylum had failed.

The department started making arrangements to return them to Afghanistan, but those plans are on hold for at least three of the men because they have filed appeals in the Federal Court.

Pamela Curr from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre says the department is trying to forcibly return Afghan asylum seekers while a decision in a test case is still pending.

“We are asking that they wait for the decision of the five Federal Court judges as to the legality of the removing of these men and that they wait for that decision before they take them out,” she told The World Today.

“We mustn’t forget, there are 120 Hazara men facing this situation of being removed.”

The Immigration Department says two Afghans were sent back late last year, but Ms Curr says the Government still has not succeeded in sending anyone from the Hazara ethnic group back to Afghanistan.

“I know of those two cases. They were not Hazaras and they did not come by boat. They were quite different cases,” she said.

Audio: Listen to the story (The World Today)

 

The latest court fight over the return of asylum seekers to Afghanistan comes as dozens of Afghan members of parliament are appealing to the Australian Government not to return asylum seekers.

In a letter to the Government, 30 Afghan MPs say it is not safe to send asylum seekers from the minority Hazara ethnic group back to Kabul.

MP for Kabul Mohammed Ibrahim Qasemi spoke to the PM program last night.

“We already have too much problem here. If they came those people here we cannot help them too. They are a human too, you know,” he said.

Greens immigration spokeswoman Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says many Afghan asylum seekers were assessed using information which is now the subject of a legal challenge.

She wants the Federal Government to put a moratorium on returning people to Afghanistan.

“We know things are not safe. We know that when elections have taken place in Afghanistan they haven’t even been able to guarantee the safety of voters,” she said.

“And yet here we have members of parliament from Afghanistan saying we cannot guarantee the safety of people who Australia wants to deport. And please don’t do it.

“We should be listening to those people.”

Immigration Minister Brendan O’Connor is yet to respond.

A spokesman for the department says Australia does not return asylum seekers without fully assessing their protection claims.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-13/asylum-seekers-fight-return-to-afghanistan/4570628

‘STOP’ Deportaion of Hazara Asylum Seekers | An Open Letter to Immigration Minister Brendon O’Connor

March 14, 2013

An open letter directed to Minister O’ Connor requesting him to reconsider his decision in the light deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and the request of 30 Afghan supporting these reports.
Kindly please read the letter, swap the signature with yours, write your address and send to Minister for Immigration Mr O’ Connor.

Minister O’ Connor’s email address: Brendan.O’Connor.MP@aph.gov.au

Dear Minister O’Connor,

I understand that a large number of Hazara asylum seekers are under threat of deportation to Afghanistan. It is well documented that Hazara people are at constant risk of persecution and targeted killings in Afghanistan, and also in Pakistan, where there have been mass killings of Hazara people in recent months.

Advocates are gravely concerned for the welfare of these people who fled from Afghanistan in fear of their lives, very often after losing members of their families to the systematic violence to which Hazara people are subjected. As you know, this week 30 Afghan MPs have written to the Australian Government urging the abandonment of plans to return asylum seekers to Kabul, because the security situation in the Afghanistan is getting worse and attackers are targeting members of the Hazara ethnic group.

I urge you to intervene on behalf of these people by extending their Bridging Visas and ensuring a thorough review of their claims for asylum.
Given the ongoing instability in Afghanistan, it is inevitable that these people would be in danger if they are deported. There are too many documented cases of asylum seekers being returned to Afghanistan, and subsequently being killed or tortured.

A key objective of the Refugee Convention is to provide protection for people whose lives are at risk, and I feel strongly, as do very many other Australians that it is the duty of our federal Government to ensure justice for people seeking asylum and to ensure their safety.

I am very concerned that these threatened deportations are in part motivated by your desire to be ‘tough on asylum seekers’ and are aimed at creating fear within these communities in the hope of deterring others from coming to Australia to seek asylum and protection. The current focus on deterrence denies the right of people to seek asylum, violates human rights and sadly, fosters fear and prejudice within the Australian community.

It is time for the Labor government to reset the policy approach to asylum seekers based on generosity and decency. This will ensure that asylum seekers are treated fairly and with compassion, and will also encourage our Australian communities to welcome and embrace those who seek our protection.

I am asking that you intervene immediately to stop the deportation of Hazara asylum seekers and make sure that their claims are assessed fully and fairly.

Yours sincerely

(your name)

(your address)

 

Source: http://refugeeadvocacynetwork.org/

Australia warned against returning Afghan refugees

March 14, 2013

Image Source: HazaraPeople.com

A group of 30 Afghan MPs has written to the Federal Government urging it to abandon plans to return asylum seekers to Kabul.

The ABC has obtained a copy of the letter, which says the security situation in the Afghan capital is getting worse and attackers are targeting members of the Hazara ethnic group.

Kabul MP Mohammed Ibhrahim Qasemi says the Afghan government would not be able to protect returnees from persecution as it already struggles to provide security and basic services to existing residents.

“We already have too much problem here,” he said. “If they came here, we cannot help them.

“Can they guarantee the security for them? No. They can provide the food for them? No.

Audio: Listen to Sally Sara’s report (PM)

 

“They can provide the place for them? No. So I don’t know how they do that.”

Two years ago Australia and Afghanistan signed a memorandum of understanding on the involuntary return of asylum seekers.

And the MPs have expressed their appreciation to the Australian Government for taking care of so many refugees and contributing to the security and development in Afghanistan.

But they believe sending Hazaras to Kabul would be a mistake.

We already have too much problem here. If they came here, we cannot help them. Can they guarantee the security for them? No. They can provide the food for them? No. They can provide the place for them? No. So I don’t know how they do that.

Kabul MP Mohammed Ibhrahim Qasemi

 

Sonia Caton, a lawyer and the chair of the Refugee Council of Australia, says a test case is yet to be resolved in the Federal Court, and advises the Government to follow the lead of other countries, and wait.

“It’s interesting that Canada has had in place a moratorium on the return of failed asylum seekers to Afghanistan, in recognition of the pretty precarious security situation in that country,” she said.

The latest letter from Afghan MPs raises concerns about 125 failed Afghan asylum seekers.

Most of the parliamentarians who signed it are ethnic Hazaras, but it also includes MPs from other ethnic groups, something Ms Caton says in important.

“The fact that MPs from other ethnicities are also signing this letter is remarkable,” she said.

Some of the asylum seekers who could be returned to Afghanistan have spent extended periods in detention in Australia though their applications for asylum have failed.

Hasan Ghulam from the Australian Hazara Federation says the asylum process is flawed.

“These people they have collected, they are asylum seekers but the system was not really fair,” he said.

PM has contacted the office of Immigration Minister Brendan O’Connor and Opposition spokesman Scott Morrison. Both are yet to respond.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-12/afghan-letters/4568656

Afghan MPs’ plea to Australian counterparts

March 13, 2013

Afghan parliamentarians have written to the Australian government, asking it not to return asylum seekers to Kabul.

Deputy Chair of the Australian Hazara Federation, Rez Wakil (AAP)

The letter was signed by 30 Afghan MPs who say the capital is unsafe, particularly for ethnic Hazaras, the main ethnic group seeking asylum in Australia.

Two years ago Australia signed an agreement with the Afghan government which allows it to force asylum seekers back to Afghanistan, if their claims for refugee status are rejected.

Thea Cowie spoke with the deputy chair of the Australian Hazara Federation, Rez Wakil, about the letter.

Radio Conversation can hear here: http://www.sbs.com.au/podcasts/Podcasts/radionews/episode/258020/Afghan-MPs-plea-to-Australian-counterparts

Asylum-seekers in limbo in Indonesia, waiting for a boat

February 09, 2013

Hazara asylum-seeker Ali Nowroz, seen in Jakarta, fled Quetta after receiving death threats. Source: Supplied

MOHAMMAD Hussein is in no-man’s-land. The 30-year-old Pakistani from Quetta, where about 120 people were blown up in multiple terrorist attacks last month, has been waiting in Indonesia for 10 years for refugee status to enter Australia. The bomb blasts are a rude reminder of why he won’t budge from his objective.

Now he’s lingering in the waiting room of Jakarta’s immigration centre, a respite from the detention area and a reward for his interpreting skills. Sometimes the illegal immigrant ventures into the teeming metropolis “to refresh my mind”. But he always returns to his home of two years. He has nowhere else to go and no money.

Contending for the past decade with an overburdened bureaucracy that perhaps regards his case as tenuous, or disingenuous, the Shi’ite Muslim has been shunted from one Indonesian detention shelter to another. He is fluent in Farsi, Urdu, Bahasa Indonesia, English and his native Pashto, so there is no shortage of unpaid work for him at the centre.

 

Hussein has been neglected for the past decade and, lacking purpose, feels demoralised and depressed. He has no job prospects on grounds of ineligibility.

“I want to have a wife and family but how can I? This is no life. I have lost one decade,” he says.

His pleas to apply for refugee status at the Jakarta office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees have gone unheeded since 2001. Now the UNHCR has promised him a decision soon. If he doesn’t receive the stamp of approval he will hire a human rights lawyer. “I cannot go back, it’s too dangerous,” he says, referring to the atrocities perpetrated against Shi’ites in Pakistan.

As the years roll by, authorities have left Hussein and others like him languishing. A spokesman at Indonesia’s Johor Bahru consulate in Malaysia, the former head of illegal immigrants at Indonesia’s Directorate General of Immigration, says he doesn’t know how long the Pakistani can legally stay in Indonesia.

“I don’t know what the limit is. We have talked to his embassy,” he says. “We cannot deport him because he is very afraid to go to his country. We cannot deport him according to the UN Refugee Convention, even if we are not a signatory.” Is he an economic immigrant? “Only the UN knows.”

In the absence of refugee legislation and procedures in Indonesia, the UNHCR provides assistance to refugees and asylum-seekers. Data on those who fall through the net is flimsy. Because so many enter Indonesia illegally – at least 20 to 30 people arrive each day – the discrepancy between Indonesian and UN statistics is vast. Figures from the Directorate General of Immigration show nearly 2500 asylum-seekers in Indonesia, compared with the 7000 calculated by the UN for 2012 until September. Add to that an estimated 100,000 illegal immigrants in Malaysia ready to cross to Indonesia with the intention of going to Australia.

Adrianus Meliala, a professor who until last year was head of the department of criminology at the University of Indonesia, sees the country’s escalating refugee numbers as a ticking time bomb.

He fears the repercussions were the Australian-funded International Organisation for Migration – which feeds and accommodates detainees in Indonesia’s overcrowded de facto processing centres – to pull its funding. Should it stop and Indonesia’s ability to pay for illegal immigrants become overstretched, he says “the time bomb will explode”.

But he concedes: “Australia is doing its best to keep the people-smugglers here. It seems to be a good haven for Australia to keep smuggled people here in Indonesia, using the support of the IOM.”

The arrangement could potentially collapse when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono steps down next year, especially if he is succeeded by presidential hopeful Prabowo Subianto, a ruthless former army general with a tainted human rights record and links to former dictator Suharto.

Prabowo, a former son-in-law of Suharto, is considered very likely to win.

“He will be very cruel to Australia,” Meliala says. “He will let the boats go. He will give food and petrol and money to ships and tell them to just go, go to Australia.”

The long time it takes to process asylum-seekers is meanwhile causing a blowout in the numbers of illegal immigrants in Indonesia.

At 20, fearing for his life, Hussein fled his village in the brutal Taliban stranglehold of Parachinar in the Kurram Agency on Pakistan’s Afghan border in 2001. “My life was in danger, my family’s life is in danger. I was scared. They want to kill all the Shia people,” he says. His mother, three brothers and three sisters remain, and one of his brothers was shot in the leg by the Taliban. “Maybe if I go to another country I can bring my family out.”

Attempting the well-trodden asylum-seeker route to Australia in 2001, he paid $5000 to people-smugglers in Quetta, flying from Karachi to Malaysia with about 20 others from Pakistan and Iran. He will not disclose where he obtained the money. From Malaysia, where the smuggler took their passports, the group entered Indonesia by boat at Medan, North Sumatra, and flew to Jakarta.

After two failed attempts to sail to Australia from East Java, they returned to Indonesia. “On the first trip we were more than 270 people,” Hussein says. They turned back when their boat started leaking. During the second attempt, 141 people – mainly Afghans – were stranded on a boat, after its engine failed, for 60 days as food and water ran out. A third attempt was aborted when the smuggler disappeared.

Over six years, Hussein has shuffled between IOM houses in Jakarta, Kupang, West Timor and Puncak in West Java.

He remains stateless in a legal void. Past attempts to reapply have been knocked back, he says. “When I call they say: ‘Wait for process.’ I say, ‘Please give me the humanity. If you reject me, I want to reapply.’ Now I am in here (detention) for two years without any reason. This is like animal staying in here, waiting.”

He is now determined to reach Australia legally. “I don’t want to put my life in danger, I ran away from danger,” Hussein says.

Each night along Jalan Jaksa, the backpackers’ street haunt in central Jakarta, clusters of Iranian, Pakistani and Afghan asylum-seekers gather around cheap food stalls and bars, passing time and listening to music. In fact, their ears are pricked for news of imminent boat passages to Australia. At one of two hubs – the other is Bogor, West Java – they swap information on boats and wait for smugglers’ calls. Trendily clad, they pose as tourists. Many Iranians fly in on tourist visas that allow them up to 60 days in Indonesia while awaiting boats to Australia. Pakistanis and Afghans, denied visas, head to the UNHCR for asylum-seeker certificates.

Scores have left professions such as medicine, law or finance, but quickly exhaust their funds and have no access to facilities. “Many sleep behind the detention centres,” Meliala says. “They don’t have money for an apartment. They look for food. They have to beg at canteens. They go to the local clinics asking for medical treatment, but because they are illegal the doctors cannot serve them.” Infectious diseases are common.

Hazara asylum-seeker Ali Nowroz, who has been in Indonesia for two years, is all too familiar with immigrant stories, having lived in detention in Bogor; he now lives independently near Jalan Jaksa. Describing the dogged perseverance of boatpeople who have been deported from Australia, Nowroz says they frequently return to Indonesia – despite being blacklisted – by bribing officials. Prices range from $700 for Iranians, whose country is regarded as stable, to $12,000 for Pakistanis and Afghans who arrive through covert entry points. Then they again hop on to boats to Australia.

The 25-year-old is in a similar twilight zone to Hussein, although he has asylum-seeker status. As a Shia minority Hazara of Afghan origin, his religious and ethnic roots make him particularly vulnerable to the Sunni Muslim-aligned Taliban insurgency. Being educated also makes him a target. Born in Quetta, the Balochistan University student with easily identifiable Hazara features feared for his life.

Nowroz, who taught English part-time, was in his last semester studying for an MBA when he was targeted and forced to flee his home. “The Taliban tried to kidnap me from the university; I received death threats about three times,” he says.

In 2004, while he walked in a Shia religious procession, about 80 people were killed in a suicide blast around him. Describing the horror, he says: “I saw people carrying the dead bodies away. There were pieces of body, pieces of brain, people with bullets through their eyes. I was traumatised, shocked. It’s hell. How do you think we can live there while we are terrified of everybody?”

Last year his aunt was among 11 killed when terrorists opened fire on a van. Her son joined Nowroz in Jakarta a month ago.

“You’ve got an option: you get killed at Quetta or you move to Nauru,” he says, aware of Australia’s refugee policy. “It’s better than getting a mutilated body and shot in the head.”

While there’s no going back for Nowroz, he’s not fussy about where he may be resettled, but Australia is preferable because “there is a big community of us”.

Fleeing to Indonesia in January 2011, he obtained asylum-seeker status and was placed in detention. He wasn’t interviewed by the UNHCR for refugee status until last August.

“It took the UNHCR 10 months to reply to my interview.” The application was rejected, he claims, because of specious bureaucratic confusion regarding his birthplace and family origin. “They said, ‘You didn’t prove you were Afghan. Your documents are Pakistani, you are not an Afghan.’ “

He promptly reapplied last July but remains in limbo, awaiting an outcome. He is also repeatedly told to be patient.

It’s like a slow burn and his mental health is at risk after 16 months in detention, from where he escaped. Now he rents a squalid room in a house in central Jakarta for $50 a month, shares a communal bathroom with 30 others and cannot afford more than one meal a day. As he is living independently, the IOM provides no assistance. But it’s better than detention, he reasons.

“I live in dire conditions, with not enough money to eat. I just survive. My monthly expenditure is under $100.” He equates his bleak living conditions with “going into the mines: it’s never clean. I’m not used to living like this.” He survives on small amounts of money from his family.

His uncle recently jumped on a boat to Australia but Nowroz is loath to follow: – though not because he is afraid of treacherous high seas: “My friends say Australian detention is tougher than Indonesia. They call it detention but it’s jail. None of the people come out OK, they’re all mentally ill. In detention … it’s a never-ending waiting.”

Despite this, if his case isn’t processed soon, he will hop on another boat for Australia.

Hazaras were targeted in bomb attacks in Quetta last month. Source: AFP

Nowroz took the familiar route from Karachi to Indonesia, flying to Thailand and on to east Malaysia with seven Pakistani and Afghan Hazaras. They travelled illegally into the Kalimantan jungle in Indonesian Borneo, where food and drink quickly ran out. The group slept in the mosquito-infested jungle and shuffled between a network of smugglers to whom Nowroz had paid $6000 via a nominated bank account. His uncles – who he says are now in Australia – gave him the money.

A few months later they were on a passage to Australia from Surabaya, East Java, when their leaking boat disintegrated and “we were hanging in the water near Rote Island”. Indonesian police picked them up and Nowroz remained in detention until last July.

As he scrutinises the news, Nowroz, whose goal is to be a writer, says he knew many of those who were killed in last month’s Quetta blasts. “We are a small community and very close. I feel helpless.” It has, however, strengthened his resolve to find a new life. “I am desperate to find a shelter for my family and myself. I will never go back to that butcher house (Pakistan) again.”

Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/in-limbo-waiting-for-a-boat-in-indonesia/story-e6frg6so-1226573845546