Burnside wants Australia to be more like Middle East on rights
Australia must learn from Jordan. Rachel Baxendale, The Australian, yesterday:
Human rights lawyer Julian Burnside says Australia treats asylum-seekers worse than any other Western country and could learn from Jordan “… they seem to be honouring the spirit of (the Refugee Convention) in a way that we aren’t … of course, it’s part of the Middle Eastern spirit of hospitality that you don’t turn people away when they come like that. Now compare that with … Australia …”
J ordan a paragon of virtues. Human Rights Watch, Jordan, Events of 2017, hrw.org:
Jordan continued to violate human rights … In 2017, Jordan did not permit Syrians to enter the country to seek asylum … (and) deported hundreds of Syrian refugees … without giving them a meaningful chance to challenge their removal … During the first five months of 2017, Jordanian authorities deported about 400 registered Syrian refugees each month … Another estimated 500 refugees each month returned to Syria under circumstances that are unclear … only 125,000 out of approximately 220,000 school-age Syrian refugee children were enrolled in formal education … Between January and June 2017, Jordanian authorities allowed limited deliveries of humanitarian aid to the tens of thousands of Syrians in unorganized camps … facing limited access to food, water, and medical assistance. In October, authorities announced that no more aid deliveries would be permitted … Jordan’s nationality law does not allow Jordanian women married to non-Jordanian spouses to pass on their nationality to their spouse and children … article 340 of the … (1960 penal code) allows for mitigated sentences for those who murder their spouses discovered committing adultery … Jordanian authorities executed 15 Jordanian men on March 4 by hanging … Jordan is a member of the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen. Human Rights Watch has documented 87 apparently unlawful coalition attacks in Yemen, some of which may be war crimes, which have killed nearly 1000 civilians … On March 29, Jordan failed to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir … a fugitive from the International Criminal Court since 2009 …
Compare Jordan with Australia. Department of Social Services website:
(H)umanitarian entrants … can immediately access income support payments … (they must) meet the same requirements as other Australians to be eligible for public housing.
Other great thoughts from Burnside. Help Julian leave the embassy! Julian Burnside, World Socialist website, June 4:
I join with John Pilger and … demand that the Australian government act immediately to secure the freedom of … Julian Assange … Assange has not committed any crime …
No crime? No worries. No help needed with the eviction. Dianne Apen-Sadler, Daily Mail, May 25:
Julian Assange (took refuge in the embassy of Ecuador in London in 2012 to avoid sexual abuse charges in Sweden but) could leave … “any day now” … Last week the President of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, ordered the removal of extra security at the embassy … “Operation Guest” and later “Operation Hotel” ran up an average cost of at least $(US)66,000 a month … In January … Moreno described Mr Assange as … “more than a nuisance” … (his) internet access was … cut off in March … after he tweeted his support for separatist movements in Catalonia … he is not permitted to send any messages that could (affect Ecuador’s) relations with other countries.