Expelled detainee killed in Gaza

A PALESTINIAN man freed from detention in a landmark Federal Court ruling six years ago and deported by the Howard Government has been killed in the Gaza Strip.

Akram al-Masri, a boat person who arrived in Australia in 2001, claimed asylum saying Palestinian officials believed he was an Israeli spy.

He arrived in June 2001 and applied for refugee status but was rejected and spent eight months at the Woomera Detention Centre before being released by order of the Federal Court and deported in September 2002.

It is believed Mr Masri, 32, was fatally shot in the head outside a courtroom in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip in a revenge attack following his alleged involvement in a killing of two rival clan members 18 months ago.

http://www.theage.com.au/world/expelled-detainee-killed-in-gaza-20080801-3olj.html

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A refugee advocate attacked Australian authorities on Saturday for rejecting the application of a Palestinian asylum seeker who returned to the Gaza Strip and was killed as part of a clan rivalry.

Akram al-Masri, who gained a high profile in Australia by challenging a government policy of keeping asylum seekers in prison-like detention camps, was shot Friday in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, police said.

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Jamal Daoud, a spokesman for the Sydney-based refugee advocacy group Social Justice Network, said the former Australian government of Prime Minister John Howard had blood on its hands for rejecting al-Masri's application.

"The previous Australian government is responsible for another terrible crime by forcing refugees to be sent back to Gaza when they knew the situation there," Daoud said.

The government had planned to keep al-Masri in detention indefinitely but human rights lawyers took up his case and a federal judge ordered in 2002 that he be released while awaiting deportation. The government lost its subsequent appeal in 2003 but al-Masri had returned to Gaza by then.

In February, refugee advocate Marilyn Shepherd helped al-Masri's Australia-based uncle make a renewed application for asylum for his nephew "because his life was in danger," according to comments she made in Saturday's The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

She said the Immigration Department had not yet replied to the application.

The department issued a statement Saturday saying it could not be held responsible for the future of everyone deported from Australia.

Initial support in Australia for the mandatory detention program imposed by Howard's government dwindled over the years as asylum seekers languished in prison camp-like facilities.

The new government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced last Tuesday that most of the tough rules on locking up asylum seekers would be scrapped.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jIZUWxUlthTAN52E9VW7Ai_MRoewD92A6S8O0

I wonder how many others have died over the world because of Howard's anti-immigrant bigotry. And the British are no angels in this respect either. We have even sent asylum-seekers back to Iraq (after helping to create the horrors there); and to Zimbabwe.

Apart from this case, I know there were cases of Iraqi asylum seekers being deported back to Iraq after the govt deemed that it was safe there as the invasion was over. And there were cases that while not life-threatening, were completely heartless, like the time when children of an asylum seeker were dragged out of school in front of their schoolmates by Immigration to be deported, and an Australian citizen who was locked up in a detention centre for years before the blunder was realised and she was released...

Australia's Labour government is ending the controversial practice of putting all asylum seekers in detention camps in various Pacific Ocean islands.

Minister of Immigration Chris Evans announced Tuesday that detention will now be a last resort and no children will ever be held in such camps.

"This isn't about a mass opening of the gates," he added. "This is about a more humane treatment of asylum seekers, a more humane detention policy, and we think this will allow us to maintain strong border security but also treat people with human dignity."

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/07/29/australia-detention-camps-asylum.html

Looks like things are changing with the new government in Australia.

THE uncle of a former Palestinian asylum seeker, Akram al-Masri, who was deported by the Howard government and killed on the Gaza Strip last week, has asked the Government to save the man's wife and four sons by bringing them to Australia.

Soliman al-Masri, who lives in Adelaide, said yesterday steps were put in train to bring Akram al-Masri back to Australia after an attempt on his life in Gaza in November 2006, in which his brother, 19, was killed.

However, the family was advised that Akram al-Masri, who won a 2002 case against indefinite detention that led to his release from Woomera detention centre, would not be allowed into Australia because he had previously been deported.

Mr Masri said the only hope the family had was for the Federal Government to intervene.

"I very kindly ask the new (Federal) Government to do something for this family, help them leave Gaza and start a new life here," Mr Masri said. "I believe it is the least they can do when they caused the death of their father."

http://www.theage.com.au/world/plea-to-save-family-of-killed-palestinian-deportee-20080804-3pwu.html