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In recent months, allegations of abuse, ill treatment and mismanagement, as well as hunger strikes, suicide attempts and breakouts have all served to reveal the cracks in Australia's harsh and disciplinary system of detaining asylum-seekers. Our system is in crisis. Urgently, we must find a reasonable and safe solution to the treatment of asylum seekers who arrive on our shores. For many people fleeing torture or death, it is impossible to obtain the necessary travel documents. It can be too dangerous for them, there may be no office at which to apply, or they may be unaware that they need to seek permission to flee for their lives. When asylum seekers who are unable to safely obtain travel documents arrive in Australia, such as the 14 Afghanistan refugees that were picked up by the Tampa, (Under obligations of the 'Law of the Sea') the Tampa rescued a boatload of people in international waters. Under humanitarian law the Tampa must be allowed to drop off those people who were rescued. Given that the boat was within sight of an Australian territory and that the Australian government has ratified both the Convention on the Law of the Sea and the 1951 Refugee Convention. Australia was therefor under obligation to accept these refugees, and they should be treated with the dignity and respect as any other Australian citizen, not as a hardened criminal. They should have been given access to a fair asylum procedure – a fundamental principal of international law. Instead, They are placed behind razor sharp wire and are treated no better than common prisoners. In reality; there is no difference between Woomera detention centre and Cuba jail. They are given no right to appeal to a court of law against the decision to detain them indefinitely.
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