Syrian asylum seeker in Villawood should be granted permanent visa, say Greens
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Version 0 of 1. The Greens have called for a Syrian asylum seeker currently held in Villawood detention centre to be granted a permanent visa and for his family, still stuck in his war-ravaged homeland, to be brought to Australia. The 43-year-old Muslim accountant from Aleppo province is in Villawood after a serious heart complaint caused him to be moved from detention on Manus Island. The man arrived in Australia by boat. His family home – in territory now held by terrorist group Islamic State – was bombed by the Assad regime in 2012. His wife and four children are reportedly still in Aleppo province. The northern province has been the scene of some of the fiercest and most destructive fighting of the civil war, in addition to Isis seizing significant swaths of territory. The Senate heard his wife and daughters have not left their house in nearly a year for fear of attack, in particular of sexual violence, by insurgent fighters. Related: Syria: Isis advance on Aleppo aided by Assad regime air strikes, US says The Greens senator, Sarah Hanson Young, told the government’s Senate leader, Eric Abetz: “His family’s case is tragic and they desperately need the Australian government’s help. “Will you bring his family to Australia?” Abetz said the government would work with the United Nations to determine which refugees were in most urgent need of resettlement. The government announced Wednesday it would resettle an additional 12,000 refugees from the Syria-Iraq conflict in a one-off increase to its humanitarian program. “The Australian government is determined to do whatever it can in the Syrian and Iraqi situation, having a balanced approached,” said Abetz. Related: Australia's generosity to Syrian refugees ignores those still languishing offshore In response to a question from member for Melbourne, Adam Bandt, in the lower house, the defence minister, Kevin Andrews, said he would raise the Syrian asylum seeker’s particular case with the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, who was absent from parliament on government business. “As was announced yesterday, the concentration in relation to the people that we will bring are those who have been displaced from Syria,” Andrews said. “Those who are currently in countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and our priority will be for those who are members of persecuted minorities. “As for the case in question, I’ll refer the matter to the minister when he returns.” The man and his family are Muslims, but he said from inside Villawood: “Religion doesn’t matter, the main thing is we are human.” Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Coalition said the continued detention of at least six Syrians in the Australian detention regime – onshore and offshore – was a double standard while the government was bringing Syrians and Iraqis from Middle Eastern refugee camps to the country. “We are calling for the government to release all Syrians from detention. It is sheer hypocrisy for the government to express any concerns at all for the Syrian asylum seekers fleeing to Europe while it condemns Syrian asylum seekers seeking protection in Australia to indefinite detention on and off shore.” But the prime minister said Australia would not consider also allowing refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island to resettle in Australia. He said those in offshore detention had “done a deal with people smugglers to go way beyond the country of first asylum”. “We will never ever do anything that encourages the evil trade of people smuggling and all of those who have come to Australia by boat are here as a result of people smuggling,” he said. The Refugee Convention, to which Australia is a party and legally bound, insists refugees cannot be treated differently, punished or discriminated against because of the way they have arrived in a country, including if their entry was illegal. |