By Athena Rogers. Filing in to Federation Square’s riverside function room among hundreds of well-dressed professionals, it was clear that the expectations were high for this International Human Rights Day event. The speaker for the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission’s Annual Human Rights Oration was Ron Merkel QC, presenting a talk entitled “Human […]
It’s what she leaves behind. It’s the devil in the detail. . For the future, a life in another, safer country, she dreams the big things…. hope for freedom for herself, to walk with her face bare to the sun, possibilities for her children to grow and learn in schools without threat, marriage for […]
By Sam Ryan. This review is part of our December 2012 and January 2013 focus on Asylum Seekers. “Sometimes there’s nothing better than a good rant” is how The Wheeler Centre sums up its weekly Lunchbox/Soapbox sessions. Refugee law is not an easy thing to “rant” about to a lay audience, especially in 20 minutes while providing […]
By Tania Penovic. This article is part of our December 2012 and January 2013 focus on Asylum Seekers. The emergence of ‘no advantage’ as a guiding principle in Australian refugee policy is examined below with reference to recent developments in the management of asylum seekers who attempt to reach Australia by boat. On 28 June 2012, the […]
For just a few seconds, Yoga believed that she was back home in Sri Lanka but then she understood she wasn’t. Four days ago their ramshackle fishing boat ‘Kumudu Kumari’ ran out of fuel and foundered in the middle of nowhere but an Australian Customs aerial patrol had traced them and a passing merchant ship […]
By Sandra Renew. This poem is part of our December 2012 and January 2013 focus on Asylum Seekers. In the moment he decides to go he knows…. He knows that if he does not go he will be killed. He knows that when he leaves the desert and high mountains he can never go back. […]
By Susan Adams. This poem is part of our December 2012 and January 2013 focus on Asylum Seekers. We try our lives, father says in mail from his Island of Christmas to Jakarta nothing will happen otherwise. With time to wind, dreams become hope, secrets are a burden in streets. The manifest left for later. […]
By William Pitt. This poem is part of our December 2012 and January 2013 focus on Asylum Seekers. The huts are falling on top of each other, all trying to find a bit of light; humanity […]
By Sonia Nair. This review is part of our December 2012 and January 2013 focus on Asylum Seekers. Sydney filmmaker Robin de Crespigny never intended to write a political book. But in a time when asylum seekers are the equivalent of a bipartisan punching bag and the terms “boat people”, “illegals” and “queue jumpers” have come to […]
From 19-22 November 2012, a team from Amnesty International, headed by Amnesty’s Refugee Policy Expert Dr Graham Thom, conducted the first independent investigation of the Australian immigration detention centre in Nauru to determine the human rights situation on the ground.
By Penny Gibson. This short story is part of our December 2012 and January 2013 focus on Asylum Seekers. The apartment smelt of stale cigarette smoke when Bedar arrived. He stared around him in silence as Jerry busied himself with bags of food. “Last fella was a smoker,” he said. “You a smoker?” Bedar nodded. What had […]
Throughout December 2012 and January 2013 Right Now will publish a number of articles around the theme of asylum seekers. This time around we’re taking a more creative turn – with the majority in December being short stories and poems. To get you ready, here’s a bit of a retrospective … Over the past year-and-a-half, Right […]