Protests a symbol of a failed system

The protests of 88 Afghan men yesterday at the Darwin Immigration Detention Centre was a symbol of an immigration system that continues to fail asylum seekers. The fact that these men were denied water for 8 hours as they peacefully protested in blistering heat as a negotiation tactic of the Department of Immigration is telling. This tactic resulted in 15 of the men being hospitalized for severe dehydration.

What was lost in most media reports was why these men were protesting. As of today the Australian government’s official statement for people considering travel to Afghanistan was that as to the ‘we strongly advise you not to travel to Afghanistan because of the extremely dangerous security situation and the very high threat of terrorist attack. If you are in Afghanistan, you should consider leaving’. Yet despite this fact these 88 men’s claims for asylum have all been rejected and each assessed as not being in danger despite being Hazara and the primary target of the Taliban.

These men are protesting because they are being denied a fair process. They are protesting because their lives have been politicized by a system that ignores the facts and merits and turns it’s eye instead to the ballot box and polls. They are protesting because if they are returned torture and death awaits many of them at the hands of the Taliban.

We cannot continue to have a system of detention that is mandatory, arbitrary and that allows people seeking asylum to be kept in an endless limbo and then have their fate determined by the political will of the day.