Open your hearts to the refugees, bishop pleads

Sydney
4 November 2001

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Open your hearts to the refugees, bishop pleads

By Chris Hook

Bishop Patrick Dougherty has called upon Australians to be more compassionate in their attitude towards refugees as fighting in Afghanistan displaces millions more.

“Pakistan has already said it cannot take any more (refugees),” he said. “The challenge for other countries is to say ‘fair enough’.”

Not wishing to be drawn on the size of a refugee program, the chairman of the Bishops’ Committee for Migrants and Refugees said that it would be “helpful” if Australia “doubled its compassion”.

The bishop said the number of refugees was not the problem so much as moving people from Pakistan’s refugee camps.

Bishop Dougherty’s call came in the wake of the drowning of more than 350 asylum seekers when their boat sank in Indonesian waters off the coast of Java.

“The sinking of the boat is a great tragedy,” he said. “It certainly puts talk of the boat people in a new and frightening light.

“I would hope that the government and the Australian people will reflect on this.”

The bishop welcomed Indonesia’s proposal to host a regional summit on the refugee issue and said it was “up to nations throughout the world to sit down and work out how to give (refugees) hope”.

Melbourne’s Catholic Commission for Justice, Development and Peace said the Java sinking highlighted the risks people would take to flee persecution.

The “Fortress Australia” policy only added extra suffering.

“The policy in no way deters people smugglers who run a commercial operation and who do not care if their clients live, die or are incarcerated,” said the commission director, Marc Purcell.

Unity Party Senate candidate Thang Ngo – who came to Australia as a refugee at age 10 – called upon Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Kim Beazley to “look at ways to solve the international refugee crisis by working with other countries”. With the war in Afghanistan continuing, the number of refugees in the region would increase, he said.

The Asia Pacific director of the Jesuit Refugee Service, Fr Andre Sugijopranoto, has launched a stinging attack on Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers and on laws passed last month to curb asylum seeker access to Australian territory. Under the new laws, Christmas, Cartier, Cocos and Ashmore Islands have been excised from Australia’s migration zone.

Anyone attempting to enter Australia through these territories will qualify only for a temporary protection visa; will not be granted permanent residence and will not be allowed to have their family join them.

“Australia crudely used the recent acts of terrorism to defend the obvious limitations of its latest legislation to protect the rights of refugees and asylum seekers,” Fr Sugijopranoto said.

Pakistan’s president, General Pervz Musharraf, has said his country will keep its borders sealed.

Pakistan, he said, had done enough to assist those fleeing instability in Afghanistan.

Pakistan hosts some 2.5 million Afghan refugees and wants the UN to deal with the refugee crisis inside Afghanistan’s borders.