asylum seekers

Priti Patel and the Death of Asylum

Nothing makes better sense to the political classes than small time demagoguery when matters turn sour. True, the United Kingdom might well be speeding ahead with vaccination numbers, and getting ever big-headed about it, but there is still good reason to distract the voters.  Coronavirus continues to vex; the economy continues to suffer. In February, […]
The post Priti Patel and the Death of Asylum first appeared on Dissident Voice.

Priti Patel and the Death of Asylum

Nothing makes better sense to the political classes than small time demagoguery when matters turn sour. True, the United Kingdom might well be speeding ahead with vaccination numbers, and getting ever big-headed about it, but there is still good reason to distract the voters.  Coronavirus continues to vex; the economy continues to suffer. In February, the Office of Statistics revealed[Read More...]

Abuse on the Mainland: Australia’s Medevac Hotel Detentions

Governments that issue press releases about the abuse of human rights tend to avoid close gazes at the mirror.  Doing so would be telling.  In the case of Australia, its record on dealing with refugees is both abysmal and cruel.  It tends to be easier to point the finger at national security laws in Hong […]
The post \Abuse on the Mainland\: Australia’s Medevac Hotel Detentions\<\/a\> first appeared on \Dissident Voice\<\/a\>.

Manus, Nauru and an Australian Detention Legacy

It could be called a gulag mentality, though it finds form in different ways.  In the defunct Soviet Union, it was definitive of life: millions incarcerated, garrisons of forced labour, instruments of the proletarian paradise fouled.  Gulag literature suggested another society, estranged and removed from civilian life, channelled into an absent universe.  Titles suggested as much: Gustaw Herling’s work was titled A World Apart

Passing the Parcel: The European Union and Refugees in the Mediterranean

The modern UN Refugee Convention is now so flea-bitten it’s been put out to the garbage tip of history.  At least the enthusiastic fleas think so, given their conduct as political representatives across a range of parliaments keen on barbed wired borders and impenetrable defences.  Across Europe, the issue of refugees arriving by sea – in this case, the Mediterranean – has become a matter of games and deflection.