MEDIA ALERT
Thursday, 12 May 2005
Demonstration at DIMIA to demand Royal Commission on mandatory detention

DIMIA Casselden Place, 2 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
Friday, May 13, 12.30-2pm

Speakers:
Maria Selga, Phillipine Concerns Centre of Australia
Pamela Curr, Asylum Seekers Resource Centre

The callous and indiscriminate actions of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMIA) toward both our own citizens and those seeking asylum have been fully exposed this week, in two cases which clearly put the lives and safety of innocent people at risk.

A protest action, to be held outside DIMIA's Melbourne office tomorrow will highlight the case of Australian woman Vivian Alvarez who was wrongly deported to the Philippines four years ago and only recently discovered, and that of an Ahwaz Iranian asylum seeker, currently facing forcible deportation.

Lauren Ireland, from the Refugee Action Collective said the Australian Government has acted with absolute incompetence and sheer cruelty in both instances.

"The 27 year-old Ahwazi Arab man, who was snatched from Baxter Detention Centre by 15 DIMIA officials, is facing deportation to a country where his people have been victim of persecution and ethnic cleansing for the last 80 years," she said.

"He has already been put through five years of hell inside Baxter and as ABC's PM program revealed on Tuesday evening, was denied proper psychiatric care, despite requests by medical specialists stretching back two years."

She said revelations about another Australian citizen, treated as an 'illegal', like Cornelia Rau, were proof the government were both clueless and careless in matters of deportation.

"Just two days ago, Minister of Immigration, Amanda Vanstone was claiming her department was unable to locate Australian citizen Vivian Alvarez, who had been wrongly deported to her country of birth, the Phillipines four years ago."

"She was soon found and identified in the very same place she had been dumped and was being cared for in a hospice for the dying, run by an Australian priest," said Ms Ireland. "Alvarez was stripped of her human rights and then simply forgotten about."

Refugee advocates will be calling for an immediate end to all deportations and a Royal Commission into immigration detention when they converge on DIMIA's Melbourne office tomorrow

For further information or comment, contact Lauren Ireland 0401 635 072.