Saturday, November 16, 2013
The Australian Government's treatment of asylum seekers is an odious offence
The Australian
Government's treatment of asylum seekers is a policy deliberately
designed to harm fellow humans. It is extremely harsh and cruel. It
is imprisonment without trial and a psychological torture. It is a
grotesque denial of basic freedoms, human rights and natural justice
which threatens all of us. It is an odious assault on people the like
of which happened under Nazism, Communism and the Pogroms against
peoples of times past. It has no place in our modern, compassionate,
freedom and justice loving democracy. It is a gross wrong that needs
to be set right.
Consider also what it is doing to us. Promulgated
to the Australian peoples as being necessary to protect us, it does
the exact opposite; far from protecting us, it threatens our own
rights and freedoms. Far from bringing honour to us as Australians,
it brings dishonour. Our Australian Government's inhumane treatment
of people seeking to escape war zones and tyrannous, murderous
regimes diminishes us.
Abbott's brushing aside of human rights, in his
recent statement about the events in Sri Lanka, that “difficult
things happen in difficult times” is profoundly corrupting.
Contrast it with the contemporaneous statements by the British Prime
Minister.
“Difficult things happen in difficult times”
excuses the Sri Lankan Government for its offences and offers the
“rationale” for the Abbott Government's continuing denial of
human rights and cruel treatment of asylum seekers presenting to our
shores.
Australians should be very aware that “Difficult
things happen in difficult times” is a philosophy that presents a
serious threat to civil liberty and worse. The Abbott Government, is
building a “Terrible Australia” not a “Better Australia”.
The
Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court
Explanatory
Memorandum, defines “crimes against humanity” as being :
“particularly
odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human
dignity
or
grave humiliation
or
a degradation
of
human beings”;
seems to me that the Abbott-Morrison polices fulfil those criteria.
I ask my fellow
Australians, to stand against these polices; bring them to an abrupt
halt; ensure freedom, justice and human rights for all in our
country; close Manus and Nauru; promptly process applications for
asylum; and find other effective ways of “stopping the boats”.