Dimensions
167 x 234 x 10mm
In September 2001, Australia became more extreme in its policies toward asylum-seekers than any other Western country. It adopted a strategy of using naval force to exclude unauthorised arrivals by boat. It imprisoned asylum-seekers indefinitely if they failed to prove their claim to be refugees. And, for those boatpeople found to be genuine refugees, it granted only temporary visas that forbade family reunion and left hanging the threat of imminent deportation.
This essay looks at the reasoning behind these punitive policies and their devastating effects, and moves on to consider the present attempt to repatriate - frequently against their will - the Afghans, Iraqis and Iranians who have been turned away from Australian shores. It is based on in-depth interviews with a range of Middle Eastern refugees and sets their stories of suffering in a broad political context.
This is a groundbreaking and dramatic account of a transformation with global consequences. As other Western nations come to adopt similarly harsh measures, this account will serve as a prophetic evocation and analysis of the increasingly desperate plight of the refugee in a world of ever more tightly controlled borders.
